The fear and extreme discomfort with black anger I see tells me that most white people have NEVER been in black-centered spaces. Or around black people who trust them enough to share a full range of human emotion.
Black anger is not any more scary than white anger. But most of us have been taught that black anger is to be feared. That’s dangerous for everyone.
If you have been in a black-centered space as a white person, you probably felt extremely uncomfortable and fled as soon as possible.
What I’m seeing on Twitter and other social media platforms is that black voices are taking over the conversation... and that is very threatening to some folks. Ask yourself why.
We’ve all normalized white anger.
The discrepancy with how we treat anger is one reason why some protests are framed differently than others. White people protesting stay-at-home orders with assault rifles, screaming at police are standing up for their rights. Normalized anger.
Black people protesting injustice and systemic racism are perceived as stoking division and inciting violence, at best. At worst, we are violent thugs who must be shot, gassed and beaten to make sure we don’t lose control and destroy the city.
When an extremely small minority of black protestors loot or riot, it immediately becomes a violent protest in the eyes of many. When white folks riot, it’s “just a few bad apples” or in the case of post-championship riots: kids blowing off steam.
On a personal note, this hurts. A lot.
Getting angry in public is a risk for me. I do not get to bring my full self into this world without great personal risk. That is dehumanizing.
That’s why Trayvon Martin was so upsetting. We don’t get to “stand our ground”. If we fight back against someone threatening our lives, we are killed without consequences. And then told our murderer was protecting himself from a confrontation he started.
White people yelling at law enforcement is WILD to me. Especially in traffic stops. Like, do you know how careful we have to be?
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I think church leaders have been getting the concept of the tithe wrong for a very long time. And I believe it’s why many believe in a cruel God who wants you to sacrifice “because I said so.” 🧵
I never really considered what would happen to animals, olive oil and grain given to the Lord as a tithe. I guess I assumed it just went bad or something. But Deuteronomy woke me up this morning.
“Be sure to set aside a tenth of all that your fields produce each year. Eat the tithe of your grain, new wine and olive oil, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks in the presence of the Lord your God at the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name…
For everyone who has said “you can’t just assume based on the article, you gotta watch the video”… the video is 10000x worse than the article.
I’ve been a part of dealing with decisions like this. I’ve gotten it right and wrong. Our church would say the same. I’ve helped plan these announcements before.
THIS IS WEIRD.
First, the entire sermon was about this announcement. I don’t get that at all. Why?
My favorite part of the series was the Anakin development. The animated series shows why everyone revered him but slowly amplified his dark side tendencies.
Animated Anakin is swaggering and charismatic but still temperamental and frustrating.
You feel why he’s The Chosen One and why the Jedi are hesitant to fully believe.
Idolatry isn’t just about what you love, it’s about what you hate. When you organize your life around something you despise, you elevate that idol to a level of counter-worship. Instead of trying to please the idol, you make offerings to harm it.
In a Christian context, idolatry is about elevating anything or anyone beyond their actual value. When you care too much, give too much, obsess too much or fear too much, that’s an object of worship. Or in this case, counter-worship.
You don’t have to consider it at the same level as God for something to be an idol. It just has to take an outsized portion of your resources: time, energy, money, focus, creativity...