In what is intended to be the celebratory start of Black History Month was this year tragically marred days before on January 27th by the Memphis, Tennessee Police Department’s release of video showing the vicious beating of twenty-nine year old black male, Tyre Nichols. The beating took place earlier in the month on January 7th. Nichols later died from his injuries on the 10th. In the ensuing weeks five black male police officers shown in the video images from various angles doing the beating were indicted of second degree murder among other charges, arrested and fired from their jobs. Protests around the nation have been mostly subdued as the Nichols family requested.1
In black history, black on black violence has run parallel to white on black violence since slavery. Many masters beat their slaves and other whites could assault them for any notion of offense. Slaves also often violently assaulted each other if not over the petty issues that frustrate social cohesion more widely in every gathering of sinful mankind into the close quarters of community, then, from acting out of the oppressive suffocation and rage of bondage (Exodus 2:11-15). After slavery, hate groups, mobs and virtually any white man could violently assault a black man with rare serious consequence until after the George Floyd murder by a white police officer in 2020.
Meantime, black on black violence through domestic incidents, neighborhood street and school fights, bar brawls and gang warfare has also been taking place with rare serious consequence by the white dominated justice system because after all, these are just blacks harming each other. Indeed, culturally known and feared is the rage of innumerable black males who uncontrollably exercise violence to vent it.2 While I do not assume to know exactly what was in the hearts of the black male police officers that beat Nichols, I have seen this movie enough to recognize the possibility that besides abuse of authority, rage, black self-hate and bitterness driving it may have been at work too.3
Clearly, beyond the normal pressures of life that causes males from all hues to take it out on others, untold black males carry rage as such a burden that not even assuming the responsibility of law enforcement removes it. Now, in what many blacks stand amazed to see is among the swiftest moves ever to hold police officers accountable, the five black officers that mercilessly beat Tyre Nichols to death were charged, arrested and fired. In the sight of the God I serve who shows no favoritism (Deuteronomy 10:17), this is righteous and should be the case in every instance the police are guilty of unwarranted force. These black males also need His deliverance from any inner rage, self-hate and bitterness I too, know from personal, painful experience and am a witness He can do!4
1 Information was taken from an AP News article.
2 Black male rage especially is so widely known in American society, policing authorities expect to see and brace for it in most any confrontation with us. The media and entertainment industry (to include sports) exploits and even makes fun of the “angry black man” while the average white citizen lives in terror it will find them.
3 Read the February 21, 2016 post, Ties That Bind Black Male Souls, under the category, The Cause.
4 I give testimony in many places about my own struggle with anger including my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics available at your favorite internet book- seller or brick and mortar bookstore and the Strong Man Store. As well, the FSTVEP Resource Store on The From Slavery To Victory Education Project Web Site has the newest of my audio single message releases, Freedom From Bitterness. I introduce this timeless 2007 message relaying how bitterness caused me to maltreat a former band mate, Kennard Jefferson. He gave me permission to disclose his name because now, reconciled as brothers in Christ, we jointly want anyone (and partic- ularly fellow descendants of slaves professing to be Christians) captive to the sin of bitterness to let God set you free (Ephesians 4:25-32)! Get the CD or download it.
I was struck by the innocence in Daniel’s words as if for the first time, I read what he said to the new Persian king after being delivered by God from the lions that were supposed to kill and devour him. Over the last forty years plus as an eager Bible student I have read through and studied Daniel 6 many times. Until now, however, never had Daniel’s words in verse 22 touched my soul so deeply. And why? Not only is the Word of God like that of course, filled as it is with multiple layers of application and ever deepening meaning for those of us that study it regularly, but as Daniel faced the man who had condemned him, so, in my life journey I have interacted with whites who hate me.
Now, in context, the king in vanity Daniel faced had been tricked into condemning him to the lion’s den and only after he had no way out in accord with the laws of his kingdom. The king also genuinely cared about, valued and trusted Daniel to the point he would make him the second highest ranking official in his administration. No, it was not the king, but Daniel’s words of assurance to him, “I have done no wrong before you,” (Daniel 6:22b, NKJV) that so stirred my soul because of the hate around the king that had brought about the whole evil situation. Daniel’s haters were willing to even disregard his faith in the living God and kill him rather than see him advanced by the king.1
Many whites from slavery have had this same attitude toward their black fellow Americans. So prevalent, widely dispersed and persistent throughout every segment of the society has this hatred been for generations that it is righteously portrayed as systemic. I am among countless blacks from slavery who have wondered to ourselves and out loud what is it that makes our white countrymen that are guilty--many claiming to also be Christians--hate and despise us so?2 Consistent with the irrationality of evil, many cannot even put the basis for their hatred into sensible words. This accords with what the Bible teaches is the reason humans hate each other: sin in us (Galatians 5:19-21)!
Indeed, with hatred that gives rise to racism is superiority born of arrogant pride, entitlement, selfishness, envy, jealously and resentment. The long standing attitude of superiority among guilty white Americans at the highest levels of governance and across socio-economic strata is historically well documented. For example, in its 1857 Dred Scott decision, the Supreme Court opinioned slaves were only property and not citizens with any rights ‘“the white man was bound to respect.’”3 Just a few years later in 1861, Alexander Stephens, Vice-President of the newly formed Southern Confederacy asserted, ‘“…the Negro is not equal to the white man. That slavery-subordination to the superior [white] race-is his natural and moral condition.’”4
Resentment embodied in America’s racism is like the man who has his way with a woman, then, despises her afterward (2 Samuel 13:1-18). For this cause, since the end of slavery a number of whites have advocated for blacks to return to Africa. But while a relative few did return, God perfectly just prevailed on the hearts of the majority of blacks and whites that this was not the right course since though our West African forefathers had wronged Him as sinners in their native land which He punished short of what was deserved, they had done no wrong to this nation; having been forcibly brought here firstly out of His permissive will (John 19:10-11).5 Also, no black person will be in Hell just for being black since truly, the living God our Creator made us this way (Acts 17:26-28)!
1 Daniel did no wrong in the court of Heaven to faithfully continue his habit and practice of daily spending time with God in prayer as a matter of their ongoing relationship. Such should be the case for every aspiring strong man of God in the image of Jesus Christ who also made prayer a priority in His life (Matthew 14:23; Mark 1:35; Luke 5:16, 6:12). Learn more about Him as the Strong Man of God in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics, available in the Strong Man Store, at your favorite internet bookseller or brick and mortar bookstore.
2 Do I really need to cite chapter and verse from the Bible here to demonstrate how the claim to be a Christian while hating anyone much less a fellow believer by its in- struction is totally inconsistent? Yet, I will cite some Scriptures so a guilty reader may repent from hating or mistreating any person or brother in Christ whatever his hue (Lamentations 3:34-36; John 13:34-35, 15:12; Romans 13:8-10; 1 John 3:10-23, 4:7-11, 20-21, 5:1-3). For not the mere words of faith, but also the deeds of all will be judged by God (Romans 2:1-11; 2 Corinthians 5:9-11; James 2:14-26; Revelation 20:11-15)!
3 David Barton, Setting The Record Straight: American History In Black & White, (Aledo, TX, WallBuilder Press, 2004), 23.
4 Barton, 30. Of the most tragic outcomes of continuing racism in our nation and professing Christianity is the fact that because of the arrogant pride bred superiority in- trinsic to it, there are whites (and some self-hating blacks) who will eternally perish in Hell because in racial bigotry they refused to receive the Gospel, the Lord’s instruc- tion, rebuke of their sin and heretical doctrines, call to repentance or warning from His Word coming through what is to them an inferior black man they are not duty bound to hear!
5 The sovereign God maintains control over the affairs of men on earth! Nothing; absolutely nothing happens to any people outside of God’s perfect or permissive will and foreknowledge. Thus, as the Lord instructs Pilate about how He was in his hands, so too, by way of application my West African forefathers through God’s permissive will were brought to America to be slaves (Psalm 107:10-16; Lamentations 3:37-42; Ezekiel 18:4). Consequently, we are here in His purposes with much suffering and many tears in our struggles first for freedom then, to this day sadly, to be treated as equal citizens. In this latter struggle, those of us that are biblically conservative Christians persist for righteousness sake by faith in and service to God as a witness to those who hate us while waiting for Him to bring the perfect equity of His King- dom! Read the November 29, 2015 post, When The Glory Comes, under the category, Glory To God! Also, visit The From Slavery To Victory Education Project at https://fromslaverytovictory.org to learn more about the victories of faith.
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