I keep thinking about Pharaoh’s hardened heart...I keep thinking about the scripture that admonished the Children of Israel to go inside and stay at home until the trouble has passed.
Stay. At. Home.
When I heard the news, as I always do when some pandemic denier, science hater, mask rebel, or social distancing scoffer gets sick or loses his or her life, I shook my head. It brought tears to my eyes. It didn’t have to happen. COVID-19 didn’t break into their homes, chase them down and overwhelm them. They left the safety of their homes. They went out, mocked, dared, and courted it, and it won.
A high-ranking, African American politician has lost his life to Covid-19. Even as he was dying; even as over 150,000 Americans have died, not to mention the countless deaths worldwide, his own people were STILL rejecting science and wisdom and insisting this pandemic was a hoax. Nine days after attending a rally where masks and social distancing were apparently optional or discouraged, he tested positive. I wonder what his people are saying now. Are their heels still dug in? Are they STILL not grasping how coronavirus disproportionately affects their own demographic?
The other African Americans who were at the rally, smiling and schmoozing, and thinking they were actually loved and welcome—are they okay? How are their families they went home to? How will they spin this death—that was neither necessary nor honorable? Will they wake up now, or find yet another African American who’s willing to shuck, jive, tap dance, gaslight and lead his own off of a cliff just to gain brownie points or a position from someone who has repeatedly proven his disdain of people of color?
How DEEPLY rooted is the self-loathing that causes people to see someone who HATES them as a savior? How twisted is your theology or mind that you think God himself wants you to reject the wisdom he freely gives, in favor of blind loyalty to someone who has demonstrated a heart motivated by pure evil? What happens in the lives of some African Americans that make them despise who they are, envy their oppressors, adopt their oppressor’s ways, and work against their own interests?
Congressman Lewis’s services this week should make us all pause and consider our own actions, causes, beliefs, rhetoric, and alliances. What hill are YOU willing to die on? How will you be remembered—as a leader, a good and honorable man or woman, or an opportunist, a sellout, a grifter, or an idiot? Will people have to lie at your homegoing, or decline speaking at all because there won’t be anything good to say? Who are you blindly following? Whose boots are you licking? What’s the payoff? Whose approval do you need or want so badly that you lose your common sense or integrity? Who are your associates and friends? Do they really love you, or are they using you as a prop? Are they genuine? Is it just business? What are they asking you to sacrifice for them? Who are you listening to? Is it because they’re right and righteous, or because you think you’re in too deep to turn around? Is it worth it?
I don’t wish harm to anyone—certainly not death. Ignorance, stupidity, miseducation, greed, gullibility, denial, and deception are sickening and killing supposedly intelligent, accomplished, prominent people. Those who they backed, applauded, supported, stumped for, lied for, and tainted their own careers and legacies for, however, are still here wreaking havoc.
Stay. At. Home.
When I heard the news, as I always do when some pandemic denier, science hater, mask rebel, or social distancing scoffer gets sick or loses his or her life, I shook my head. It brought tears to my eyes. It didn’t have to happen. COVID-19 didn’t break into their homes, chase them down and overwhelm them. They left the safety of their homes. They went out, mocked, dared, and courted it, and it won.
The other African Americans who were at the rally, smiling and schmoozing, and thinking they were actually loved and welcome—are they okay? How are their families they went home to? How will they spin this death—that was neither necessary nor honorable? Will they wake up now, or find yet another African American who’s willing to shuck, jive, tap dance, gaslight and lead his own off of a cliff just to gain brownie points or a position from someone who has repeatedly proven his disdain of people of color?
How DEEPLY rooted is the self-loathing that causes people to see someone who HATES them as a savior? How twisted is your theology or mind that you think God himself wants you to reject the wisdom he freely gives, in favor of blind loyalty to someone who has demonstrated a heart motivated by pure evil? What happens in the lives of some African Americans that make them despise who they are, envy their oppressors, adopt their oppressor’s ways, and work against their own interests?
Congressman Lewis’s services this week should make us all pause and consider our own actions, causes, beliefs, rhetoric, and alliances. What hill are YOU willing to die on? How will you be remembered—as a leader, a good and honorable man or woman, or an opportunist, a sellout, a grifter, or an idiot? Will people have to lie at your homegoing, or decline speaking at all because there won’t be anything good to say? Who are you blindly following? Whose boots are you licking? What’s the payoff? Whose approval do you need or want so badly that you lose your common sense or integrity? Who are your associates and friends? Do they really love you, or are they using you as a prop? Are they genuine? Is it just business? What are they asking you to sacrifice for them? Who are you listening to? Is it because they’re right and righteous, or because you think you’re in too deep to turn around? Is it worth it?
I don’t wish harm to anyone—certainly not death. Ignorance, stupidity, miseducation, greed, gullibility, denial, and deception are sickening and killing supposedly intelligent, accomplished, prominent people. Those who they backed, applauded, supported, stumped for, lied for, and tainted their own careers and legacies for, however, are still here wreaking havoc.
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