Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 150 | Race & Intersectionality

Episode Date: August 14, 2019

Why does it seem like we're more racially polarized than we've ever been?

Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Thank you so much for being here. I hope that you are having the best week ever. I hope that you are enjoying your summer. Today, we're going to talk about a contentious topic. We're going to talk about race and racism and intersectionality. Now, this is something that we have talked about on my podcast many times. If you would like a thorough understanding of where I or how I approach this subject, particularly from a biblical perspective. I did a podcast about a year and a half ago about the fallacies and the argument for so-called racial reconciliation that we're seeing in the church right now. I did one at the beginning of the year called the Gospel of Grievance. I encourage you to go listen to that. I also encourage you to listen to the one titled Wayward Wokeness. And then there was another one directly after that about Black Liberation Theology and it ties to Marxism and the Nation of Islam. The reason why we've talked about race so much is because it is something that is covered almost constantly, it seems like, at least once a day in the news. There is some story that has something to do with race or with racism.

It's been especially prevalent within evangelical Christianity, the conversation about how Christians should approach race and racial issues and, like I said, racial reconciliation. but if you want a basic understanding of what I think about racism as a Christian, I mean, it should be fairly obvious, but racism is from the pit of hell. Any kind of hatred or animosity that you feel towards your fellow man who is made in the image of God, no matter what they look like is evil. And as we will discuss, you cannot love God and hate your brother, as First John makes very clear at several points. So whether we are talking about systemic racism, or whether we are talking about individual racism, whether we are talking about an action that is

spurred by racism or a word that is spurred by racism, it is evil. And it is something that we, as Christians, believe that we should repent from. And there are disagreements within Christianity of what that actually looks like and how that should manifest itself. And I think they're good disagreements and conversations to be having their conversations surrounding social justice and reparations, which we'll get into today. But what we can agree on as followers of Christ is that racism is of the devil. It is of Satan. It should be something that we should have no problem whatsoever condemning.

And I don't know a follower of Christ that does have a problem with condemning it. In fact, it has been the gospel of Christ that has abolished some of the worst forms of racism like slavery that we've seen in this country, William Wilberforce, who fought for the abolition of slavery was propelled to do so by the love and the gospel of Christ. And of course, we as Christians should be on the forefront of fighting any kind of hatred that manifests itself in, you know, some sort of outward discrimination or something like that today. Now, I say all of that. Before I say this, race is a topic that is disproportionately talked about. And I understand that we're talking about on this podcast because of that, but it's disproportionately talked about.

I heard someone say recently and I don't remember who it was, but it wasn't me, so you don't have to quote me on this, is that the amounts or the number of times, it seems like, that we talk about racism is completely disproportionate to the number of actual racists that we have in this country. And I think that's true. Racism is a very serious issue where it exists, but it does seem like we tend to amplify it and magnify it by how much we talk about it in comparison to how much it actually exists. It's something that we see covered a lot in the elections, especially among the Democratic candidates. It's something that, as we said, we see on nightly cable news. And it's a very confusing time. It seems like I think a lot of people

are blindsided by just how much we are talking about this topic, just how much we are covering the issue of race. I think you've got a lot of people that are taking a step back and saying, hang on, where did all of this come from? Was I completely, like, did I just not realize that we've been talking about this, this virulently, this passionately forever? Have I been sleeping under a rock? And the answer to that is no. This is a pretty fresh conversation. Now, there's always been a conversation about race and racism and discrimination in this country. there's always been that conversation because we have a very imperfect history when it comes to that. That's to put it lightly.

However, if you get the feeling that maybe this has been amplified in recent years, you are correct. It might seem like we are talking about this with a renewed vigor like this is an even hotter point of contention than it's ever been. And you are right. Now, what we usually hear, however, I would say particularly, from the left is that this is because of Donald Trump. The racial division that we are seeing, these flames of resentment are being stoked by Donald Trump and those who voted for him because he is a white supremacist

and those who voted for him are white supremacist. But that is not actually true. Now, I am not going to say that Donald Trump is the great racial reconciler that he has come into office and made all things better between the races. I'm certainly not saying that. and I'm not saying that there is not racist who voted for him. Of course, they're racist on both sides of the aisle,

which is something that we are going to discuss a little bit. But it is not true to say that racism has grown, or this polarized conversation about racism has started in the past couple of years or the past few years since he took office. That is just not true. A study that we have cited often on, this podcast is a 2017 study by Pew Research called Polarization and Politics, and it measured the growing partisan divide on particular issues. And what it found is that on every political

and social issue, Democrats have moved to the left, particularly while Barack Obama was in office and Republicans change on these issues was very slight. And one of these issues that was tested to see where Republicans, Democrats stand on this was the issue of race. So this was the statement that the Republicans and Democrats who were polled had to agree or disagree with. Racial discrimination is the main reason black people cannot get ahead these days. So we're talking about a particular minority, black people. Racial discrimination is the main reason black people cannot get ahead these days was the Pew Research statement. The statement was first offered in 1994, according to the survey.

And when it was first offered in 94, 39% of Democrats agreed and 26% of Republicans agreed. that racism is the main factor that is holding black people back. The statement was offered then every four years. By 2010, only 28% of Democrats believed that to be true. So that's less than what it was in 1994, about 11% less. So 2010, only 28% of Democrats believe that to be true. Only 9% of Republicans. So by 2010, that number had dropped dramatically among Democrats and Republicans.

the number of people who believed on either side of the aisle that discrimination, that racism was holding black people back. And then something very interesting happened. By 2017, at the end of Barack Obama's presidency, that percentage for Democrats shot up to 64 percent, while for Republicans, the percentage only went up to 14 percent. So from 2010 to 2017, while Barack Obama was president. The percentage of people who identified as Democrats who believed that the main factor holding the black community back was racism rather than individual choices or something like that shot up by 36 percent from a small minority to a large majority higher than it has ever been in the history of this survey higher than it had been in at least 23 years and by far the most

significant change in opinion happened while Barack Obama was president. In 2010, 28 percent. of Democrats believe that racism was a major factor in hampering the success of black people in this country by 2017, 64% believed that. This created a huge gap, a huge gap between Democrats or Republicans and how they saw racism. And that had actually, the gap had been previously a lot smaller than that. And Republicans' views changed only slightly. So what happened? Did racism really increase a lot by the time that Barack Obama or during the time that Barack Obama was president. Now, there's no doubt that there were some displays and demonstrations that I think were public of racism because Barack Obama took office. There were

people who existed that didn't want him to take office because he was black. And so maybe those got some airtime. And so the idea that there was more racism than ever before, maybe that was exacerbated because of that, but was racism, did racism really increase systemically in any kind of pervasive or way while Barack Obama was president for this percentage to shoot up this much. No, there is no citation that shows that whatsoever. The reality is, is that if we look at the other issues, the Democrats' views changed on, we see that this is a general trend for their party. So it wasn't just on the issue of race. Their favorability of immigration, of immigrants shot up by about 40 percentage points while Barack Obama was president. 71 percent of Democrats in 2017 believed that

the government should do more to help the needy versus only 54% believed that in 2010. Now, Republicans' views varied on these issues, but not nearly as much as Democrats did. The same study shows that there are fewer people in the middle with moderate views, at least at the point of 2017, with moderate views than there ever has been. And from 2015 to 2017, the far left grew in number significantly. the median Democrat has moved significantly to the left from or did move significantly to the left from 2015 to 2017 and the median Republican stayed in the exact same place. And, and according to this survey, is more moderate than the median Democrats. So that feeling that you have about Democrats being further left than Republicans are right is correct.

And the feeling that you have of there being more of them, at least in 2017, is correct. Republicans have become more conservative since the 1990s. That is true, but they have not become more conservative in the past five years the way that Democrats have become more liberal in the last five to ten. So by 2017, America was more polarized than it had ever been. And according to this study, the largest chunk of that happened while Barack Obama was president. And the group that changed its views the most were Democrats. That's just statistically true.

So this study tells us a few things. that the polarization that we are experiencing, whether it's on race or on other issues, is not because of Trump. Like I said, maybe he exacerbated it. Maybe he has made it worse. I think that he was, in a lot of ways, a rude awakening to the group that was moving to the left while Obama was president and thinking that there would never be any backlash. Well, there was. Donald Trump was the backlash. Obama had the opportunity when he came into office to be this great reconcernice.

between the black community and between white people when he took office. As the numbers show in this Pew study, the vast majority of people on the right and the left, when he won the presidency, did not believe that racism was a huge issue. This doesn't mean that racism didn't exist or that they didn't believe that racism existed. It did. Like I said, there was a lot of nastiness that came out in full force when Obama became the first black president, unfortunately. So not everyone, of course, had the same. post-racial mindset or this post-racial mentality. But in general, it seems on both sides of the aisle,

people were ready to be brought together, at least on this issue. We had suffered through, and this is, this next part is just my conjecture, my own analysis. We had suffered through 9-11. Both the right and the left, of course, had their beef with overseas wars. And it was an opportunity, whether someone liked Obama or not to be united under his presidency. It was a new era. It was a new age. But that's not what happened. Obama was far more progressive than a lot of people had originally thought.

He peddled. He waited in identity politics constantly. He was constantly speaking to the unfair divide between the different groups, between the rich and the poor, the whites and the non-whites America in other countries. He went on his famous worldwide. apology tour that I'm sure that you've heard about, where he bowed down to other nations and said, sorry for America's strengths. Now, just to say, of course, I don't think that Trump has been perfect in that. I don't like it when he acquiesces, at least in speech, to Putin or to North Korea,

to Kim Jong-un. So I'm not saying that President Trump has been the polar opposite of that in every single way, at least rhetoric-wise. Policy-wise, that's a different story. Obama also said, those who built their businesses didn't really build that. I mean, that made a lot of entrepreneurs and small business owners man. Of course, he winked and nodded to the narrative that all cops are racist. And that's not to say me saying that doesn't mean that there have been no instances of racism, but Obama really bought into the narrative and perpetuated this narrative that there's a systemic racist racism problem in the police force. And that is not necessarily true. Again, any instance of racism that we see in the police force is wrong and bad.

Any kind of overuse of force or brutality in the police force is bad and should be called out. But he really condoned and perpetuated this narrative of the police being the racist oppressors and the communities that they serve and they protect being the oppressed. Also, Obamacare fundamentally changed what people expected from the government. So he brought attention through all of these things to what he believed were unfair-powered, dynamics between the haves and the have-nots, between whites and minorities, between the rich and the poor, America as a strong nation and against the weak nations. In his mind, I think Obama was uplifting the oppressed and attempting to hold back those who had been traditionally unoppressed

or who had been the oppressor. This is a key tenet of Marxism. So that's probably another word that you feel like you've heard more than ever over the past 10 or so years is Marxism. We talked about Karl Marx in the socialism episode, so I won't go too in depth here, but the father of socialism, he viewed everything from the lens of the oppressed versus the oppressor. The oppressor must be brought down so the oppressed can be uplifted. And who are the oppressed, the ones who have had the least amount of power and wealth? Marxism, we know, deeply affects liberation theology, which deeply influenced the teachers and the preachers that Barack Obama has been under the influence of for decades of his life. You can go back and you can listen to my Black Liberation Theology

episode where I break that all down. So it shouldn't be surprising to us that this is how he approached the presidency. He has been deeply affected by Marxism. In order to accomplish pushing down the so-called unoppressed or the oppressor and lifting up the oppressed, you have to categorize people based on characteristics that you believe have corresponded to power. So in this country, people have deemed these characteristics as race, as gender, as sexual orientation, etc. The less of a white male you are, who has traditionally had the most amount of power, the less privileged you are. And therefore, according to the left, the more social and political capital you have,

the more you deserve. This is also known as intersectionality. The more intersection points that you have, the more minority status that you have, you should be the more likely you are or the more deserving you are of being brought to the forefront and your voice being made the loudest. It is this mindset that views everything as how victimized you have been because of the groups that you belong to. This is the ideology that rose dramatically under Barack Obama. A lot changed while he was in office. Not all directly because of him, but certainly while he was in power because of this mentality and just the growing progressivism of a large portion of our

country. The percentage of the religiously unaffiliated rose under his presidency. And again, I'm not saying that that was his fault. It just happened at the same time. The famous Supreme Court decision on gay marriage happened while he was president. And Americans' views on gay marriage shifted to the left. Transgenderism and gender fluidity moved to the forefront of the national conversation. We became more expectant of things like.

government provided health care. Thus, we became more open to things like socialism. Bernie Sanders, a self-avowed socialism, never would have had a chance of winning the nomination for presidency if Barack Obama had not been president. There is no way that he would have seen that he would have been laughed off the stage if we had had John McCain than Mitt Romney. There is no chance. But because we had eight years of Barack Obama, we had been conditioned to a kind of progressivism

that America really hadn't seen before, both socially and politically, that. that really set the stage for someone like Bernie Sanders, not winning, but having very significant influence. Now having socialist views in the Democratic Party is seen as almost a qualification for running for president or just being a leader in the Democratic Party. Democrats became more liberal on immigration, as Pew study shows. They became dramatically more liberal on abortion as well. It used to be safe, legal, and rare. Now it is at any time on demand. no matter what, they became more liberal on guns.

They're talking about actually gun buyback programs and confiscation of guns, whereas they used to be more moderate on this issue. And all of this occurred primarily before Trump took office. And it's probably even moved more to the left, I would say, since he took office. Because we are extremely reactive as people. Trump was a reaction to the move to the left that conservatives saw and feared. they wanted to they wanted a fighter they wanted someone who was going to advocate for them they wanted to make america great again and i think that the radicalism and it truly is radicalism that we're

seen on the left if you look at what their uh parties views have traditionally been i think that that is in large part in reaction to trump although of course he himself is not terribly ideologically conservative i think they fear losing the power that they have had for so long under his reign. One of the many issues, one of the many issues, of course, as we've been saying, that has been caught in the crosshairs of this political polarization over the last 10 years is race and particularly in regards to the black community. So we need to say, though, that race is important as it is, as important as it seems to be, if you turn on the news, it is nothing more than a social construct that we as people have ascribed value.

to. So race only means, if you look it up, it only means someone's physical attributes. Ethnicity actually speaks to culture or ancestry from the ancestry from which someone comes. Nationality is the actual nation from which someone is. People have different ethnicities. People have different nationalities. But race is the least significant of these differences. Race is completely superficial. and we have ascribed value to it as just members of our particular society, but it in and of itself doesn't actually hold any significant difference. It's ethnicity and nationality that speaks more to cultural differences than race does. Unfortunately, in America, we have used race as a dividing a dividing factor. Having the physical characteristics of a black person, for example,

has equal discrimination in the past, whether or not you were born in Africa or America. That is called racism. And it does exist today. Of course it does. It exists when a white person hates a black person because of his race. It also exists when a black person condemns a white person because of their race. It exists between different minority groups. Don't let anyone tell you that only white people can be racist. That is not true. Racist. That is not true. Racist. is hatred or it's or the fruit of hatred because of race. And as we said at the beginning, we know it's Christians that racism is wrong. It is a product of sin. It is a product of corruption. It is evil. It is hate. First John 315 says, everyone who hates his brother is a murder and you know that no

murder has eternal life abiding in him. It is impossible to be a racist and to love God. You are essentially serving two masters. You are attempting to serve the master of hate and a master of love and you can't do both. And because we realize, as Christians, that any kind of discrimination or oppression on the basis of racist hate, that it is simple, it is wrong, we also realize that anything that manifests itself either legislatively or individually needs to be combated. It needs to be pushed against. It needs to be spoken about. Of course, slavery was the objectification of a group of people made in the image of God based on some arbitrary standard of personhood because of where these people were from. Jim Crow was a continuation of that objectification. Same with the Chinese

railroad. Same with Japanese internment camps. Punishing people or withholding people's rights on the basis of some kind of immutable characteristic is wrong and is countered to the principles this country was founded on. Much more than that, it's counter to the gospel. So we, as rational people, we recognize that we also have to recognize that America has, thankfully, though, we have made some great advances in regards to race. So separating ourselves from what seems to be such a terrible issue that we are so divided because of race in America is such a racist country, we have to look at what has actually happened in our country over the past few decades. So there's one Swedish study that certainly doesn't speak to our entire racial climate in this country, but it's

interesting. It was a Swedish study published by the Washington Post. and asked respondents in more than 80 different countries to identify kinds of people that they would not want as neighbors. Some respondents picking from a list chose people of different race. So people of a different race. Those are the people that they wouldn't want living next to them. So the country with the lowest number of people to choose that option that they wouldn't want someone living next to them that was of a different race, the countries with the lowest number of people to choose the option were the United States, the UK, a variety of countries, in Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, Scandinavian countries also had a low number.

The least tolerant, according to the answers to this one question, were India and Jordan, and there were many countries in Africa and Asia who also expressed intolerance. Now, of course, this is not the only indicator of racial tolerance, but it is one. Of course, racial discrimination by companies is outlawed in this country. At one point, interracial marriage was outlawed, which is crazy to think. about and of course now it's not there are a variety of programs some helpful in my opinion some very unhelpful in my opinion to increase diversity to up the chances of success for kids and teens in minority communities there has been a lot to be done to make sure that there is equity in this

country like i said some of the leftist so-called solutions for that i don't think have been helpful at all and some things that we've tried to do as a country have been extremely helpful but of course there are still disparities. Poverty rates are much higher in the black community, high school and college graduation rates are lower. incarceration rates are much higher. There are indications or have been indications of what some people would call systemic racism. It is the intentional pushing down of black people in favor of white people. And those they say, those who talk about systemic racism a lot, they say that those who are not working against these systems are themselves racist and are complicit in the white supremac. premises scheme. However, however, these issues, typically that they point to these issues of disparity like graduation rates and poverty rates, things like that, they are complicated. It can almost never, it can be very rarely proven that these disparities definitively

point to systemic racism. There is no doubt that systemic racism has existed. For example, the crack versus cocaine issue in the war on drugs that disproportionately punish crack users and dealers over cocaine users and dealers, knowing that crack is used more by black people than white people. That is unjust. There is, of course, mistreatment that exists in our prison systems that we should care deeply about, that is very troubling, that disproportionately affects black people. But we know that the solution to these problems is actual justice, justice that is based on truth, justice that is impartial. It is in holding our judges and our law enforcement and our legislators accountable to make sure that our laws do not discriminate against anyone,

white or black, rich or poor, but are equitable, are colorblind, and are fair, and recognizes the rights of all people as people made in the image of God. But what is not justice, and this is where we get caught up, I think, especially Christians in the emotional side of this, of this conversation of just saying, okay, well, all white people are bad or all people of one group are bad and we all need to feel guilty and we're all complicit and we're all condemned and we all just need to take a step back and we all need to make sure that only these kinds of voices are heard and only these kinds of words are heard and only this kind of social justice is talked about. I think that that's wrong.

That's not justice. Demonizing one group of people based on the color of their skin is racism. So demonizing all white people or all rich people or. all men or all people in power as wicked or evil or guilty is not justice because it's not based on truth. You are defining people by generalizations by being a part of a particular group rather than looking at them as individuals and seeing what they have done with their lives and with their actions and with their words. For example, we've talked about reparations a lot that is often offered both within and outside of the church as a solution for racial

disparities, but not only have we not seen in any way that this actually eliminates any kind of disparity or inequity or inequality that we see between the races, but it's also not a form of justice because, so reparations is supposed to be white people, paying black people back for the damages that have been caused by slavery, which we can all agree. There have been long-term damages that slavery has incurred and it was wrong and it was terrible and we should mourn over that and it was an egregious injustice. However, paying reparations now for that is extremely complicated and therefore is not just, not just because it's complicated, but because there are so many questions that we can't answer. What happens to the black people, for example, who didn't have

ancestors that were enslaved in America? What about the white people who, for example, didn't have any ancestors that own slaves? Who pays who and how much? So, does, Is a middle class white family, do they need to pay Beyonce and Jay-Z? Do they need to pay reparations for them? And why? So there are a lot of questions that go along with that kind of form of collective justice. And we don't see that reflected in scripture. We don't see that kind of demand in scripture.

A lot of people cite Zichias and say that he paid back to the poor what he had extorted, what he had stolen from him, but that was direct justice that was based on evidence and that was based on truth. We are not called to pay restoration for sins that we have not committed. And Joe Biden, for example, used to agree on that, but that's become a hot topic in the, in the, in the primaries among the Democrats, because this, again, this racial issue has been exacerbated and has grown so much over the past 10 years. because of the identity politics that have grown, have popularized among the left, and that I would say thrived under Barack Obama.

Again, it's not entirely his fault, but certainly his leadership changed how a lot of people saw these intersectional social issues. And I would say the uttermost issue, the foremost issue has been race. So the point here is that we have to make sure when we are looking at issues of race in racism, that we are thoughtful, that we are truthful, that we look for real justice that is based on truth, that is based on evidence, that is based on fact, that is direct, that is individual, that we do not buy into the emotional narrative that says one group has been categorically oppressed and one group has been categorically the oppressor. That's not true.

That's not going to get anyone anywhere. I think that we can listen. I think that we can be attentive, I think that we can be humble in these things, but we have to look for just solutions, not collective solutions that make an entire group who is not necessarily guilty or complicit feel bad. And another group all feel like victims who haven't necessarily been victimized. And so whether it comes to what we advocate for policy-wise or what we advocate for personally, what we have to remember is that the justice that we seek, the biblical justice, that Christian seek is based on truth. It is based on reality. It is not based on some group identity, social justice myth that an entire group that has been traditionally in power deserves or has to

pay back another group for the lack of power that they may or may not have. You see how that gets complicated. And when you break things down to an individual level, it kind of just all falls apart. But that's what we're actually called to do. And I think that what we have to remember, Christians, too, is that we are called to share the gospel. There is nothing that social justice can tell us that the Bible doesn't already tell us. Like there's no other message that we gain out of something like liberation theology or some kind of secular social justice advocate that Jesus hasn't already advocated for. And so anyone telling you that there is a solution to any kind of, any kind of division that we have, any kind of hatred that we have, any kind of injustice that we have that supersedes or is more

fundamental than the gospel of Jesus Christ, they are lying to you. Jesus came primarily to reconcile everyone of all ethnicities, of all ethnicities, all nationalities to himself, not to each other. Now, in reconciling Christians to himself, we are reconciled to one another in the same way that if a spoke is placed into the hub of a wheel, it is going to be in right relation to the other spokes. If it's out of the hub, which is Christ, it's not going to be in right relation, and it's not going to work. So our reconciliation to Christ means that we love others as we love ourselves, no matter what their skin color is. So make sure when we are approaching issues of race,

that one, that we recognize, that we don't know everything, that we recognize that our call to be humble in all things and to learn in all things, but we are not to abandon truth for emotionalism. And I think it's important also that we realize where this conversation is coming from, that we don't blame the wrong people here, and that we realize this conversation is very new and it's being stoked and it's being exaggerated by something that has really developed mostly over the past decade or so and is not being woke is not some new qualification for being a good person. So I think it's important, and the onus is on us to make sure that we are researching this stuff, that we are reading these stories for ourselves, and that we base our position on something as contentious as race on truth. And of course, we know that truth primarily comes from the word of God. So just be wary of the context of all of this and the conversations that we're having because it's probably going to be one of the hottest topics or the main topic.

that you see playing out through the election. So I think that this just brief summary of the context of the conversations that we're having about it is important for you to know. Okay, that's all that we have for today. I will see you here next time.