Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 258 | Does the Truth Matter?

Episode Date: June 3, 2020

Amid protests over George Floyd's death and police brutality, we turn to Scripture, statistics, and solutions. Do statistics provide evidence for systemic racism? Are the Democrats in the cities filled with minorities really helping, and what is their relationship with public unions? Do you have white privilege, and how should Christians handle that conversation? Allie tackles all the questions in this jam-packed, can't-miss episode of Relatable. Today's Sources: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/police-shootings-2019/ https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/unarmed https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/nationaltrends https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-3.xls https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-2018/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-3.xls https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cpp15.pdf https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/12/upshot/surprising-new-evidence-shows-bias-in-police-use-of-force-but-not-in-shootings.html https://www.pnas.org/content/116/32/15877 https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/03/police-training-reform-conservative-cause/ https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/jus14-warcomeshome-report-web-rel1.pdf https://nypost.com/2019/11/02/nyc-pays-rubber-room-teacher-six-figures-20-years-after-sex-abuse-claims/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/obama-administration-spent-billions-to-fix-failing-schools-and-it-didnt-work/2017/01/19/6d24ac1a-de6d-11e6-ad42-f3375f271c9c_story.html https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/thomas-sowell-on-the-legacy-of-slavery-vs-the-legacy-of-liberalism/ https://www.wsj.com/articles/lets-talk-about-the-black-abortion-rate-1531263697

Hey guys, welcome to relatable. Happy Wednesday. So we have a lot to talk about today, a lot of heavy things to talk about. I have been thinking about this episode, probably since Friday, have been planning it for over three days, which is a lot longer than I usually take to prepare an episode. It's usually, I kind of either do it in the same day or the day before I'm able to just collect all the stories I want to talk about and write my analysis fairly quickly. That is not true about this episode because we are going to, going to talk about a heavy topic, a big topic, a topic that is multifaceted. We are going to talk about George Floyd, the riots, insurrection, racism, police brutality, crime. We are going to talk about statistics. I'm going to be direct. I am going to speak the truth in love as gracefully as I possibly can and as clearly as I possibly can. That is always my goal. And I fail often. I will absolutely try my best praying for the grace of God to help me do that. If this podcast, if this episode was shared to you by a friend and you are coming into this episode expecting to disagree with me, you are kind of settled into your preconceived notions

of who I am, what I'm going to say, what I represent. First of all, I want you to know that I'm glad that you're here. I know it takes a lot to listen to a perspective that you know you are probably going to disagree with, and that is going to challenge your assumptions. Most people won't do that. Most people will stay stuck in their ideological camp. They will stay stuck in their perspective. So if you are here because a friend shared it with you and you are anticipating to disagree with me, which you probably will, I just want to say thank you for being here. And that shows a lot of who you are. And I hope truly that if you do disagree, with me after this episode is over, like I always say, feel free to reach out to me. I am happy to have a dialogue with you. I want there to be a productive conversation. I want there to be more voices, not fewer voices. So if after this episode, you were like, I couldn't disagree with you more or I disagreed when you said this or have you seen this study, whatever it is, feel free

to reach out to me. And again, thank you for being here. I believe that everyone listening to this podcast is worth speaking truth to. So you are worth leveling you. You are worth leveling. with. This topic is worth speaking truthfully about because it's that important. And not enough women, this is a podcast primarily focused on women and primarily to women. The fact of the matter is is that not enough women are willing to have truthful, straightforward conversations, biblical conversations about justice or really just politics in general. Women are so often spoken to in emotionalism and euphemism because it's what we respond to. to if we're honest. We are literally constantly tossed to and fro by every wind of outrage,

by every trend, by every hashtag on social media. We latch onto it because of the emotionalism that they carry with them. And I understand that because I've done it. I have been guilty of that. I am a woman. I feel things strongly and deeply. This is a good thing about being a woman. This is a good thing about femininity. It's not a bad thing. And I know our pride doesn't. want us to admit that an inherent weakness of most of ours is to allow our deeply felt feelings to get the best of us, especially when it comes to understanding political and social issues. But it can be. And I don't speak for everyone.

I don't speak for all women. I don't speak for anyone. I don't. I am trying to give you the best, most truthful and gracious Christian perspective on everything that is going on. and I just happen to know from being a woman and being around women and knowing a lot of women that one of our weaknesses when it comes to high emotion situations and issues is to forego truth, is to forego biblical accuracy, and to forego facts in favor of emotionalism.

But the truth is, the truth is, that is not what the Christian woman is called to. We are to be rooted in truth. We are to care about the facts. We are to stand firm on the word of God. That doesn't mean that feelings and sympathy don't have a place. It just means that we cannot let them rule us. We have to be subject to the authority of Jesus Christ. We have to subject our feelings, our emotions, all of our preconceived notions to the authority

of Jesus Christ and his inerrant word that he gave to us. So this episode is for you, Christian woman. This episode is for us. I am telling you, as a sister in Christ who loves you, that many of us have ventured outside the realm of reality and outside the realm of biblical Christianity as we are having conversations about this and I'm going to try as best as I can to get us back to reality and to the eternal truth of God's work. First, I want to do something that unfortunately a lot of people on both sides of this issue have failed to do, have deemed unimportant and that is

remembering George Floyd, not as a movement, not as a hashtag, not as a mascot, but as a human being, as a person. So let's remember that for just a second. Like, let's take a step back from all of this chaos for just a second. George Floyd was a human being. What does the Bible say that that means? It means that he was made in God's image. So he has a soul, an eternal soul. Like all humans, he was knitted together in his mother's womb. He was fearfully and wonderfully made. The Lord planned out all of his days before any of them came to be. That's what the Bible says about all of us. He was a son. He was a brother. He was a friend. He was a father. He was a grandfather. The people who knew him said that he was peaceful. He was personable with a desire to make his

life better, to be a better dad. He grew up in Houston and people who knew him there said that he was always looking out for other people. He was always looking out for the younger people in his community. It's reported that he was a believer, thank God, which means it. if that is true, he is totally whole right now with Christ as we speak, and we can praise the Lord for that. All of this means that the Christian has a much higher view of George Floyd in his life than any secular activist out there. It doesn't matter how loud they protest, how many Instagram posts they write, if you do not believe that George Floyd is valuable because he is a human being made in God's image, but only because he is important as a representation of your political movement, then your

view of George Floyd is actually very low because you have objectified him. He has become a mascot for you. But for the Christian, we care much more about George Floyd than any secular activist or influencer does because we believe that he is eternal, that his life mattered because God said it mattered because God made him. And according to those who knew him, he is also our brother and Christ, and we will see him again one day. So we should have a much deeper and better and higher and more eternal view of George Floyd, a much deeper appreciation for his life than any person who claims to care about justice, but who does not know God. Let us also keep praying for his family, who is mourning right now. Let us pray that the peace of Christ would rule in their hearts, that God

would give them the peace that passes all understanding that he would bind their broken hearts, that he would draw near to them as they draw near to him, that God would even somehow be glorified, that the gospel would be carried out through this tragedy. Let's continue to pray for the people who were directly affected by this. This is all what makes his murder a horrific tragedy. He was an image bear who was pinned to the ground by a police officer named Derek Chauvin for nine minutes while three other police officers did nothing. He screamed that he couldn't breathe over and over again. He called for his mom. He called for his mom, you guys. Any of you who are moms, you can imagine just the gut-wrenching nature of that reality, of his desperation. It breaks my heart. And of course,

we know he later died. The initial autopsy report says that he didn't die from asphyxiation, but that it was a combination of underlying conditions Floyd had plus the restraint. but that doesn't mean that Chauvin didn't kill him. He did. Now, I think that I have agreed with the person that I'm about to quote, maybe a total of one time in my entire life, but I agreed with her a second time when she tweeted this. Here is AOC. She said, if you killed a man with health conditions, you still killed a man. George Floyd couldn't breathe. Three officers held him down and one with a recorded violent history need his neck as others helped. They waited nine minutes for his last breath. This was not an accident. It was murder. that's absolutely right. I agree with that. And by the way, so did the justice system. The justice system also agreed with that. Derek Chauvin was convicted of third-degree murder, which is defined in Minnesota as, quote, causing death of a person by perpetrating an act imminently dangerous to others and evincing a depraved mind. There must be an intent to kill with that, but it's different, of course, than second-degree murder, which Minnesota defines as either intentional but unpremeditated murder or unintentional murder while also. committing another felony. First degree murder is premeditated murder among some other things. He was also charged with second degree manslaughter. Minnesota law defines this as, quote, an unreasonable risk and consciously takes chances of causing death or great bodily harm to another. So with these charges, the police officer would be looking at a max of about 35 years in prison.

If he gets the max, that means he will be a very old man by the time he gets out of prison. according to Minnesota state law, these charges seem correct. It wasn't premeditated as far as we know. Now, if it somehow comes out that it was premeditated, that's a totally different story. The prosecutor doesn't seem to think that there was an intent to kill him. Of course, we don't know what was going on in his heart and mind. And of course, that doesn't make the killing right by any means. But the prosecutor feels that these charges of third degree murder and second degree manslaughter were fair. Now, the other three officers, who just stood there and did nothing to help the poor man have not been charged. So we are awaiting that. But the good news is that Derek Chauvin has been charged and we will continue to hope for justice to be fully carried out and expedited as we do in all situations of injustice. And I want to zero in on that for just a second. And I know we've talked about this so often on my show, but since this word justice and this word injustice, they can mean so many different things to so many different people. I think it's important that we take just a second to define justice. After that,

we're going to spend a little bit of time on the issue of police brutality, take a look at the numbers, and also talk about practical solutions, and then an exhortation and encouragement for Christians. We'll discuss some of the narratives surrounding all of this and what I think the correct biblical reaction should be. There seems to be a lot of confusion over this word justice, and you expect the secular world to be confused about it because justice, true justice, is rooted in the Bible. God invented justice. He defines justice. God's definitions of justice are what the Western rule of law is based upon. Property rights, due process equality under the law. These are all originally biblical ideas that Christians, as believers in the Bible, should know about and be fond of and adhere to.

For the Christian, we should not be confused. The God that we worship, as Christians defines justice, and he tells us exactly what it is in his word. Here are four characteristics of God's justice as he demonstrates in the Bible. Four characteristics, truthful, impartial, proportional, and direct. Truthful, impartial, proportional, and direct. So it's truthful. It's not based on the opinions of the mob or our feelings. It's based on facts, evidence, due process, impartial.

It does not defer to race, to socioeconomic class, to gender, It is unbiased. It is why Lady Justice wears a blindfold. It is proportional. The punishment fits the crime. It is direct. Those who are responsible are those who are punished. I'm going to read you the biblical support for this, mostly from the Old Testament, as God is giving his commands to Israel. And of course, we know that as Christians, we are not beholden to all of the laws, like the cleansing laws of the Old Testament. And we don't live in this theocracy. But the way that God gives these commands to Israel, and the reasoning he gives for them shows us God's unchanging definition of what justice looks like. So we'll start with Exodus 23 1 through 3. You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness. You shall not fall in with the many who do evil, nor shall you bear witness in a lawsuit, citing with the many so as to pervert justice, nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his lawsuit.

Right there in his commands to Israel, we see two major. aspects of God's definition of justice and his heart has not changed. Truthful and impartial. Truthful and impartial. Not siding with the many to do injustice, but citing with truth, not being partial to the poor. Not being partial to the rich either, as we read later. Leviticus 1915, you shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor, nor defer to the great. But in righteousness, you shall judge your neighbor. Again, we see impartiality. We see also the characteristic of directness you are judging your neighbor specifically for a crime he or she has committed. Listen to Deuteronomy 1915 through 21 and God's concern with the truth, with impartiality, with proportionality, and with directness when it comes to justice.

A single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offense that he has committed. Only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall a charge be a staff. If a malicious witness arises to accuse a person of wrongdoing, then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the Lord, before priests, and the judges who are in office in those days. The judges shall inquire diligently. And if the witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely, then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. And the rest shall hear in fear and shall never again commit any such evil among you. Your eye shall not pity. It shall be a life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. Now, I want to say something about the last line because you might be thinking about Matthew 538 through 42 in which Jesus says you've heard it's eye for an eye, but I say if someone strikes you on the right side of your face, then turn to hand the other cheek. Also, I consulted my notes about this, which explains it this way, my notes in my ESV study Bible. And Jesus shows that this principle, which was meant to guide judges and assessing damages, was never intended as a rule for ordinary personal, interpersonal relationships,

which the faithful should seek to imitate God's own generosity. So that's how we reconcile that without forsaking this principle that is still supposed to apply to the judicial system. The New Testament makes clear that God's judgment and therefore his definition of justice is impartial. Acts 1034. Peter preaching the gospel to the Gentiles. So Peter opened his mouth and said, truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation, anyone who fears him

and does what is right is acceptable to him. That's not talking about the judicial system, but this is the nature of God. James 28 through 9 says, if you really fulfill the royal law according to scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. You are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. That's the New Testament. you show partiality, then you are committing sin. So God's justice is truthful, impartial, proportional, and direct. God's justice also recognizes people's inherent rights. It rectifies them if they have been taken away. And again, this kind of rectifying justice is truthful and partial, proportional, and direct. God's justice is the only true justice that exists.

Anyone who tries to define justice in any other way is operating under a subjectivist, morally relative worldview. There is no objective morality outside of God's definitions of morality, and there is no true justice outside of God's definition of justice. If you don't believe in God, I don't expect you to agree with me, but if you do, there is no way for you to coherently disagree, because it's not me. It's what scripture says. So first and foremost, it needs to be pointed out that objectively. George Floyd did not receive justice. He did not receive justice in his murder. He allegedly was using a fake $20 bill, and he was murdered for that. He was handcuffed while he was being restrained. He wasn't a threat to police officers, and there were four of them.

I mean, what was he really going to do? They said that he resisted arrest, but what was he going to do? And even if you did have to restrain him, did you have to put your knee on his neck for nine minutes until he couldn't breathe and died? He was murdered. And the three other cops involved were cowardly and complicit from what we can see. This is a perfect example of what true injustice looks like. And unfortunately, this is not the first case of police brutality, obviously, as we know. Brianna Taylor was in her home when police came in and shot and killed her. Tatiana Jefferson, who was shot by a police officer in her home last year in Texas. We know the story of Botham Gene, which was just an awful tragic case. He was literally sitting

at home eating ice cream and someone accidentally walked into his apartment in off-duty cop and killed him. These are unarmed people literally doing nothing wrong, unfortunately, tragically, unjustly killed by the police. We also know the story. Actually, you probably don't know the story for reasons that only the media could tell you. The story of Tony Tempa. He was pressed into the ground while the police officers cracked jokes and then he died. Michael Davidson, an unarmed man, a shot and killed at a traffic stop in Alabama. Daniel Shaver literally begging for police officers not to shoot him with his hands over. his head, they shot and killed him anyway. Justine Damon, a woman shot by a Minneapolis police officer, after she called the police to report an assault in her alley, he killed her, only got 12 years in prison.

All of these people were murdered, and they are not the only cases of unarmed people getting unequivocally, unjustly killed by the police. These are examples of injustice, according to the biblical definition of justice. But it's important that we ask ourselves in this conversation, since we are to be lovers of truth as Christians, how big of a problem is this? Shouldn't we want to know that? Is police brutality pervasive? Is it everywhere? And the big question that all of this controversy is really resting on is police brutality racially biased. And to answer these questions, we have to do something super uncomfortable, at least to me, I am super uncomfortable doing this. something that I have been avoiding. I've said in several episodes. I don't like. I don't like doing

this. And that is reading the numbers. The reason I don't like to list the numbers and the statistics that talk about crime and police brutality and racism within the police force is because I am like a lot of you. I don't want to hurt people's feelings. I don't want to sound callous because I'm not. It feels better to let the narrative go unchallenged. And the narrative is that black Americans need to be scared for their lives every day and that they are hunted by white people, particularly white cops, whenever they go outside. Honestly, it is more comfortable for me to let that be as it is. But then I think, hang on. Is that loving? Is it loving for me to affirm fear and terror if reality tells a different story? To fan the flames of anxiety when there may be another side

to the story that shows us a reality that may be a lot better than what they're going to be a lot better than what the media are reporting. No, it's not loving. Yes, let us mourn when tragedy strikes. Let us stand up when injustice occurs. That means in the case of George Floyd, we have every reason to be angry and to protest. It was a case of injustice and it absolutely was a tragedy. We know that. But the question is, is it right and is it accurate to use the case of George Floyd as a symbol of systemic racism in the police force against black people. Are black people killed disproportionately by white cops, which is what we hear? So we have to take a look as uncomfortable as it is for me, as much as I don't want to.

I believe that you guys are worth telling the truth too. According to the Washington Post database on police shootings, 1,04 people were shot and killed by the police last year 2019. Now that obviously it doesn't include people who have been killed by the police in other ways or who have been victims of non-fatal disproportionate force, and we will talk about that as well. But it is the kind of force most discussed when it comes to police brutality is police shootings. So, 1,0004 police shootings. 370 of these were white last year, 235 were black.

The rest were in other categories. These are very similar numbers to other years. Of the 1,004 police shootings, only 41 were of unarmed victims. That's about 4%. So 96% of all police shootings last year were of a person wielding a weapon. And of those who were unarmed, we still don't know the particular case if the victims tried to grab the police officer's weapon. If they attacked the police officer, we don't know what kinds of interactions these were. We can't assume that all of these people who were unarmed and shot by the police were not a threat.

We just don't know that. Of the 41 unarmed people killed by the police last year, 19 were white, nine were black. So 1% of all fatal police shootings were unarmed. black people that's one female and eight males. If you look at the database, which starts in 2015, year over year, this is the case, roughly. More white people killed by the police with black people trailing fairly close behind. However, that alone does not settle the case. That alone doesn't tell us that black people are not killed disproportionately by the police, which is the claim. Why? Because white people obviously make up a much higher percentage of the population. So white people make up about

70% of the population and black people make up only about 12 to 13% of the population. So you will hear in read that black people are much more likely to be killed by the police than white people because there is a higher percentage of total black people killed by the police and the percentage of total white people killed by the police. The website, Napping Police Violence says this. 36% of unarmed people killed by the police were black in 2015, despite black people only being 13% of the population. And that is true.

But the reality is, according to FBI data, Black Americans, despite only making up 12 to 13% of the population, committed disproportionately large number of violent crimes. In 2018, Black Americans committed about 40% of all homicides. White people make up about 70% of the population and accounted for about 30% of all homicide offenders. A 2012-2015 report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that white Americans commit about 44% of all violent crime, and black Americans commit about

23% of all violent crimes, again, making up about 12 to 13% of the population. So the likely reason black Americans have a fatal confrontation with the police at a rate that is disproportionate to their population size is because the crime rate in the black community is also disproportionate to their population size. And in fact, there is a study showing that to be true that we'll get to in just a minute. Let's look at killings overall, though, police killings overall, since the case that we're discussing now, a man, George Floyd, was killed without being shot. According to MappingPoliceviolence.com, which looks at all deaths of people by the hands of the police, it is an activist website, but it has a pretty comprehensive database. There was a total of 1,098 people killed in all ways by the police in 2019, 114 unarmed.

Of those, 48 were white. 28 of these were black. And again, we don't know whether those killings were justified. We don't know the race of the police officer. So the number of unjustified killings of unarmed black people, which is really the center point of all of these controversial conversations, the number of unjustified killings of unarmed black people by white police officers in 2019 is somewhere under 28, probably significantly under 28, because, as we will also look at in just a second,

If you are in a minority community, you are more likely to interact with a minority police officer that doesn't make these situations right or good or not tragic or even justified. I don't know. I'm not saying we should ignore these cases, but that is what they are. Those are the facts. So let's put this into context even more as we discuss this question. According to the Bureau of Justice statistics, there were over 50 million interactions between the public and the police in 2015. That's the most recent year.

There's data for it. That number has ranged over the years. But every year, tens of millions of people interact with the police. So if we take that estimate of 50 million police interactions in 2019. And according to the polls, there were 1,000 for fatal police shootings in 2019. You are looking at about a 0.002% of all interactions between the police and the public that end in a fatal shooting by the officer. 41 of these shootings were unarmed people. That is about 0.000, 9% of all interactions.

And nine of these were unarmed black men. And that is about 0.0.0.2% of all police interactions with the public. And if we're just talking about killed by any fatal force and we go to mapping police violence data, that's 28 our unarmed black people. people killed by the police, either justifiably or not, either by a white officer or not, and again, by any means, not just shooting, that is 0.0056% of all police interactions. Also, just as an aside, when you hear that white people are hunting black people on a daily basis, as we heard after the tragedy and also the injustice of the Ahmaud Arbery case, FBI crime data just doesn't back that up.

533 white people killed by black people in 2016, 243 black people killed by white people in 2016. Similar statistic throughout the years. And of course, every murder matters, every instance of injustice matters, absolutely. But when we hear constantly and without evidence that white supremacists and racist cops are gunning down unarmed black people on a daily basis, we have to find out. We have an obligation to find out whether or not that's true. And there was a time in history when that was more of a reality. And we can acknowledge that history and we should.

We should learn about that history. We should learn from that history. But is that our pervasive reality today? The numbers don't exactly show that. And that is good news. That's good news. Isn't that what we want to remind people of? Roland Friar, an economic professor at Harvard University,

conducted a thorough study in July 2016, looking at the existence of racial bias in the police force. specifically police shootings. He examined over 1,000 shootings in 10 major police departments in Texas, California, and Florida. He said the result of the study, quote, they are the most surprising result of my career. That's what he said. This is according to the New York Times, Mr. Fryer, the youngest African American to receive tenure at Harvard and the first to win a John Bates-Clark Medal, a prize given to the most promising American economist under 40, said anger after the deaths of Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, and others drove him to study the issue. You know,

protesting is not my thing, he said, but data is my thing. So I decided that I was going to collect a bunch of data and try to understand what really is going on when it comes to racial differences in police use of force. And shootings in these tendencies involving officers, officers were more likely to fire their weapons without having first been attacked when the suspects were white. Black and white civilians involved in police shootings were equally likely to have been carrying a weapon. Both results undercut the idea of racial bias in police use of lethal force. But police shootings are only part of the picture. What about situations in which an officer might be expected to fire but doesn't? To answer this, this is still the New York Times article, Mr. Friar focused on

one city, Houston. The police department there let the researchers look at reports not only for shootings but also for arrest when lethal force might have been justified. Mr. Friar defined this group to include encounters with suspects the police subsequently charged with serious offenses like attempting to murder an officer or evading resisting or is resisting arrest. He also considered suspects shocked with tasers. Mr. Fryer found that in such situations officers in Houston were about 20% less likely to shoot if the suspects were black. This estimate was not precise and firmer conclusions would require more data, but in various models controlling for different factors in using different definitions of tense situations, Mr. Fryer found that blacks were either

less likely to be shot or there was no difference between blacks and whites. A 2019 peer-reviewed study titled Officer Characteristics in Racial Disparities and Fatal Officer-Involved shootings. It was published in a scientific journal aimed to examine, and the study was aimed to examine racial bias in police shootings, and it found that black cops are more likely to shoot black civilians, Hispanic cops are more likely to shoot Hispanic civilians, and white cops are more likely to shoot white civilians, that it's really about the demographic rather than any evidence of racial bias. Here's what the study found. As the proportion of violent crime committed by black civilians increased, a person fatally shot was more likely to be black. As the proportion of violent

crime committed by Hispanic civilians increased, a person fatally shot was more likely to be Hispanic. Conversely, as white crime rates increased, a person fatally shot was less likely to be black or Hispanic. We did not find evidence for, this is what the study says. We did not find evidence for anti-black or anti-Hispanic disparity in police use of force across all shootings. And if anything, found anti-white disparities when controlling for race-specific crime. Now, the study by the Harvard professor Roland Fyer did find that black people are more likely to be on the receiving end of non-fatal police force than white people. Again, we don't know if that's by white officers or what the situations or the motivations are, but they apparently are more likely to get roughed up, at least by his estimates, which is in itself troubling. That in itself doesn't point to systemic racism within the police force, but it is troubling, which is why.

is where we start talking about some solutions. This is why I believe I am for police reform where necessary. As a conservative, this is a concern of mine. As a human being, this is a concern of mine. I'm not talking about just racial bias training. I am talking about de-escalation training. 34 states do not have any de-escalation training. The average recruit only receives 10 hours of de-escalation training, de-escalation meaning not allowing a potentially violent situation to get violent. There has also been an increase in the militarization of the police. That's not always necessarily bad, but it can have bad consequences. This is according to an article in National Review by Arthur Reiser and Brett Tolman. The ACLU found in a 2014 analysis that 79% of the 50,000 annual

SWAT callouts were for executing a search warrant. Most commonly in drug investigations, only 7% were for hostage, barricade, or active shooter scenarios in which SWAT teams are are typically used and it's supposed to be used. At least 60% of these operations featured the use of no knock entries and or potentially deadly flash bang grenades. There needs to be in some places not just better training, but also better culture. The vast majority of police officers, as we see from the numbers, do not resort to violent force. And that's a good thing.

Again, that is good news. Most police officers are excellent at their jobs and we should be thankful for that. unfortunately having a bad apple in the police force isn't the same as having for example a bad apple at your accounting firm because when you have a bad apple that's a police officer people unjustly die and they are abused when there are people who do not use their authority responsibly which is why i think there needs to be some cultural and training reform within precincts that need it and here is the second thing more importantly and this will transition us into this kind of new segment of the show. We have to get rid. We have to get rid of public sector unions

that make it almost impossible to fire bad police officers. So unions, as you guys know, they represent employees. Public unions represent employees in the public sector, employees whose salaries are paid by our tax dollars. So that's firefighters, police officers, public school teachers. These government employees are represented by unions, which, like all unions, collect dues from their employees. for membership. Then they use those dues, which you will remember are our tax dollars to support union-friendly politicians, aka Democrats, almost always. They then negotiate contracts that guarantee wages and terms and pensions for these public employees. These contracts have bankrupted

some cities and states, and yet because Democrats and unions depend on each other, it just keeps going. Unions make it very difficult, if not altogether impossible, for any, government employee that pays their dues and therefore is protected by them to be fired. That is why they exist. If you have ever heard of rubber rooms, that's where public school teachers who have been accused of misconduct go while still being paid their full salary, while they are waiting, quote, reassignment. They're not fired.

They are placed on hold in these centers, not working while still getting a full salary paid for by taxpayers, thanks to the teachers union and the Democratic politicians that support them. Just look this up. New York Post reported on a man last year named area Eller, who has been in a rubber room in this reassignment center, as it's called, not teaching for 20 years after he was accused of sexual harassment of teen girls. And his salary hasn't just remained steady for 20 years. In 2018, he made $132,753. That's taxpayer money plus pension and full benefits. This is the result of the teachers union and the Democratic politicians that unconditionally prop it up.

Unions and Democrats depend on each other for power. Unions make it nearly impossible, as I've said, to fire government employees, including bad police officers like Derek Chauvin and including terrible teachers, which also, by the way, directly and seriously affects the black community. There are points made constantly about racial disparities in graduation rates in public schools, how public schools with mostly minority students are failing. And we hear that they need more funding. This is a sign of systemic racism. We hear that they don't have enough money.

Let me let you in on a little secret here. Democratic politicians are largely controlled, like I've said many times, by the unions, especially the teachers' unions. The teachers' unions do not want school choice. They don't want a voucher program that allows a child from a failing school to go to a better school outside of the school. their district outside of their zip code, even though school choice has been proven to help kids from poor areas succeed. They don't want the competition. They're afraid this will result in lost

jobs of teachers and less money and they paint it in a way that makes it sound like they care about failing public schools, but they don't. Listen to this 2017 headline from the Washington Post. Obama administration spent billions to fix failing schools and it did not work. According to the article, One of the Obama administration's signature efforts in education, which pumped billions of federal dollars into overhauling the nation's worst schools, failed to produce meaningful results, according to a federal analysis. Test scores, graduation rates, and college enrollment were no different in schools that received money through the school improvement grants program, the largest federal investment ever targeted

to failing schools than in schools that did not. No difference. No difference. So the failing schools received up the $2 million a year for three years. if they adopted some of his new education policies, and there was no improvement. In fact, there is no evidence whatsoever that simply pumping money into failing schools helps anything into failing public schools. You know why?

Because, I mean, there are maybe many reasons, but a big reason is that these incompetent teachers cannot get fired thanks to the teachers' union. There are still underlying problems that aren't addressed. Of course, we will talk about these actually in a second fatherlessness. But this is a huge problem. Public schools are a huge problem for poor communities. And they are exacerbated, and a lot of cases, even caused by the teachers unions and the Democratic politicians that prop them up. So you want to reform the police so the incompetent murderers like Derek Chauvin can get fired?

You want to change the public school system or change public school so poor kids can have a choice of what school they go to through a voucher program or another school choice program. Get rid of public unions. next thing, diminish the welfare state. And I know that it probably feels like we are too far past. Like it's impossible to do this. But I'm just telling you, this is something that will have to happen if we want to improve the station of the people that we are saying that we care about. A Thomas Soul, a very famous economist who also happens to be black.

And I have to say that because a lot of you out there care about that in relation to these topics. But he makes the point in several of his books that it is the welfare state. not the so-called legacy of slavery that has done the most damage to the black community. He says this. Despite the grand myth, this is Thomas Sol, that black economic progress began or accelerated with the passage of the civil rights laws and the so-called war on poverty programs of the 1960s, the cold fact is that the poverty rate among black people fell from 87% in 1940 to 47% in 1960.

This was before any of those programs began. nearly a hundred years of the supposed legacy of slavery found most black children being raised in two parent families in 1960. But 30 years after the liberal welfare state found the great majority of black children being raised by a single parent. The murder rate among blacks in 1960, according to Thomas Sol, was one half of what it became 20 years later, after a legacy of liberals' law enforcement policies. And it was before the toxic message of victimhood was spread by liberals. We all know what hellholes public housing has become. in our times, thanks to liberal policies. The same toxic message produced similar social results

among lower income people in England despite an absence of a, quote, legacy of slavery there. Seoul argues that the welfare state has incentivized fatherlessness because a woman is guaranteed more money if she is single. We see evidence of this to this day that has been happening now for decades. And fatherlessness, as every social study you will ever read shows increases the likelihood of children of all ages, children of all ages to be more depressed, more suicidal. It increases the likelihood of teen pregnancy, of committing crimes at a young age to be incarcerated at a young age, much more than motherless does. And 65% of black families are fatherless, which has an effect also on the sky high abortion rate among black mothers. Jason Riley on the Wall Street Journal

editorial board, who has written a lot on the black community, since he himself is also black. And again, that is very pertinent to a lot of you in regards to this conversation, said this in an article in 2018. Nationally, black women terminate pregnancies at far higher rates than other women as well. In 2014, 36% of all abortions were performed on black women who are just 13% of the female population. The little discussed flip side of reproductive freedom is that abortion deaths are, abortion deaths far exceed those. via cancer, violent crime, heart disease, AIDS, and accidents. Racism, poverty, and lack of access to health care are the typical explanations for these disparities, but black women have much higher abortion rates even after you control for income.

Moreover, the low-income ethnic minorities who experience discrimination such as Hispanics abort at rates much closer to white women than black women. Do those black lives matter? Just asking. The Brookings Institute found in a study that people who follow these three rules, increase the chances for them to avoid living in poverty. Number one, graduate high school. Number two, get a full-time job. Number three, wait until you're 21 to get married and then have children. Of course, there are always going to be other factors at play in people's lives,

circumstances that they can't control. But the point is that as much as we can, we should be encouraging the kind of life that leads to a greater chance of success. That is not going to be found in another government program. How many trillions of dollars have we been spending since the 1960s on the war on poverty and has the black community benefited. Upward mobility for people of all races has been offered by free enterprise, not unconditional unlimited welfare, which means that all of these issues that are affecting minority communities predominantly, failing schools, lower graduation rates, fatherlessness, poverty, incarceration, all go hand in hand. They're all connected. They're cyclical. It's true for very poor white communities as well. Where are the activist groups when it

comes to these issues, by the way? What do they have to say about children being shafted by the public school system? The welfare state that leads to fatherlessness, that leads to juvenile crime, that leads to incarceration, that leads to poverty over and over again, about the thousands of black men and children, children killed by other black men every year, about the thousands upon thousands of black babies that are aborted before they take their first breath every year. Do they not matter? But instead, we are only seeing certain instances of black death that pale in comparison numbers-wise to the other problems and to the other causes of death that we are seen in the

black community. Why don't their lives matter? Why don't they get a blackout day? Why don't they get a hashtag? Like, why am I not seeing Christians post about that? You only care about Black Lives when it's trendy. That's not godly, but we'll get to more of that in a second. I don't want to get carried away.

So to recap, if we want to give children the opportunity to succeed, get rid of public unions so that public schools can actually be held accountable. And again, I'm not saying there's not more reform to be had there. There is. Allow school choice so parents can send their kids to a better school in a different district so they can do well. Graduate, get opportunities to work if they are given the opportunity to succeed by going to a our school, shrink the welfare state, which I know that seems like an impossible task, which

maybe it is, but to this day encourages the fatherlessness that we see devastating many communities and stop setting up Planned Parenthood clinics and minority communities to take Black Mother's money and abort their babies, which, by the way, is what Planned Parenthood has been doing since it was founded by KKK supporter Margaret Sanger. Just FYI. These are all a great starting point for positive change. Argued not by me, but by black intellectuals whose voices the media will never elevate. They'll never elevate. Why? Because pushing for these issues, getting rid of public unions that yield that protect bad teachers and police officers, offering school choice, shrinking welfare, discouraging widespread abortion is synonymous with saying one thing that the media that the left does

not want to say, stop voting for Democrats. Stop voting for Democrats. Democrats have been in charge of every city with a large minority community for decades, for generations, all of these cities where crime is high, where black teenage boys, kids are being murdered in cold blood on a daily basis. Chicago, Detroit, L.A., New York, these are democratic cities and have been for a very long time. Some of them have been led specifically by black Democrats for decades and for what? Democrats are behind every single failed policy that we are talking about right now and their support for the black community is a farce. These public unions and Democrats prop each other up all over the country. Democrats get votes by promising more destructive welfare. Democrats rely on the support

of Planned Parenthood killing thousands and thousands of black babies every year. It should offend you. It should offend you when these Democratic politicians who have been in office for decades tell you they want change for the black community. When? When's that going to happen? You can hate Donald Trump and Republicans all you want. And I'm not telling you to. vote Republican because, yeah, I'm not trying to convince you of that. I understand Republicans have our own problems, their own problems and can do a heck of a lot, a better job of governing and a better job of outreach. Absolutely. I'm just saying you can't blame them for what's going on right now. Democratic politicians have a stronghold on the black community

and they are not helping. They're not helping. They're beholden to the unions actively fighting against the interests of the poor. They're beholden to their special interests, which contradict the interests of the communities that we are talking about helping. So why aren't more Democrats, for example, condemning Antifa, the mostly white group of anarchists helping fund and organize the riots throughout the country? I've seen video after a video of black protesters, peaceful protesters, asking white Antifa members to stop desecrating their community. Now, these protests aren't mostly Antifa.

I don't think we can see that from the videos, but they are at the very low. least throwing gasoline on the fire? Why aren't more Democrats taking a stand against these riots, which are literally obliterating the livelihoods of people of all races? There might be some speaking out in general terms saying, you know, stop being violent, stop rioting, but are any of them calling out Antifa specifically? They are mostly saying a lot of these Democratic politicians who won't condemn the riots at all, who won't condemn violence and not just Democratic politicians, but also liberal members of the media, they're saying ridiculous things, like riots are the language of the unheard. Give me a break. Give me a break. These people are not burning down capital buildings

and looting target and breaking into Louis Vuitton for George Floyd. They're not. Remember when we talked about justice at the beginning of the episode, true justice is truthful, direct, proportional, and impartial. These riots don't correlate with justice. Peaceful protests. I, here for that. Absolutely. I support you. Go for it. I don't even care if whatever cause you're protesting for, I'm not talking about this situation, but in all situations, I don't care. It is your right, your First Amendment right, that I will fight for over and over again, for you to be able to peacefully protest for the causes that you believe in. And by the way, if police or anyone using force is trying to stop peaceful protest, I am against that. That needs to come to an end.

you have a constitutional right to peacefully protest. And by the way, there are a lot of peaceful protesters about this. And yes, go out there. I love seeing the videos that I am seeing of police officers and community members hugging, praying together, coming together. Yes, and amen. I am not against being angry. I am not against being outreach.

I'm not against the protesters. But I am against a lot of the hypocrisy that we're seeing, the glorification of violence and the violence itself that are ruining people's lives. It's ruining people's lives. lives. I want you to watch or listen depending on how you are taking in this podcast to this woman whose life was destroyed by these riots. Your frustrations, and I would love for you to share them with the community right now because you and so many others are going through such a rough time. How was last night?

Scary. I live in the Harrod's right back here, and I've seen them as they came down Lake Street. But then they turned and started coming over here, and I'm sitting out, looking at my window. And they went straight to off. And I go to. I have nowhere to go now. I have no way to get there because the buses aren't running. These people did this for no reason. It's not going to bring Georgia back here.

George is in a better place than we are. Last night, I'm going to be honest. I wish I was where George was because this is ridiculous. These people are tearing up our live legal. This is the only place I could go to shop. And now I don't have anywhere to go. I don't have anywhere to get there. This isn't justice.

This is not justice. These riots are literally punishing people for a crime they did not commit. What is a better definition of injustice? And enough with the absolutely absurd. statement, stop caring more about buildings than lives. Do you know what buildings represent? Do you know what businesses represent? Do you know what these homes and some of these apartment complexes that are burned down represent? They're not just buildings. You absolutely vapid person. These businesses and homes represent people. Quite honestly, I cannot think of anything more privileged than you. Save it home with your

iPhone posting on Instagram about how virtuous you are saying ridiculous things like businesses can come back but George can't get out of here get out of here with that do you know what it's like going from paycheck to paycheck i don't but i'm trying my best to put myself in their place to have the only affordable grocery store in your area burned down set on fire by rioters many of whom don't even live where you live to now have nowhere to get formula for your newborn baby or diapers to be a poor elderly person who now has no public transportation to get where they need to go? What are these people supposed to do? That's the reality for thousands of people right now thanks to these riots.

And unlike some of you apparently, I and a lot, millions of logically thinking people can care about them, can care about the people whose lives have been ruined, and also care about police brutality, wherever it shows up, can also care about injustice, also care most importantly about George Floyd's murder. I don't know why. I don't know why except for, I guess that so many people have ceased to be able to critically think. I guess that's why so many people are unable to simultaneously hold two thoughts in their mind. They're simultaneously unable to say, wow, this was murder, this was injustice. We should be outraged about George Floyd's murder in any instance of injustice, in any instance of murder that we see. And

we should also care about the people who don't have access to food thanks to the riots. That doesn't mean that we don't know the gravity and the permanence of murder. Of course we do. Christian woman. Christian woman. I've been talking to you this whole time, but I am just, I'm trying to shake you by the shoulders. Do you think, do you think honestly from what you know about God, not what you feel about God, but what you know about God in the Bible, do you think that God doesn't care about both

of these things. God cares about justice. Justice Floyd's murder was an injustice. These riots also aren't justice. They are evil. And all the celebrities, Justin Timberlake, Seth Rogen, Steve Korell, funding bailouts for arsonists and assaulters in anarchists. It's evil. It's evil. It is privileged. It's idiotic. Let's see if these celebrities want to bail them out when they come to derogated communities to burn down their property. Probably not. Probably not. Probably not. But, and as we've already talked about, the numbers don't support the narrative that the media and Democratic politicians are so passionately trying to push, which is only making the reaction worse. Barack Obama comes out in his subtle way, condemning the violence, but validating the feelings of hate and insisting that black people just need to vote in November. And look, yes, go vote.

I'm all for voting. Get politically involved. But the question is that he doesn't address and what none of these Democratic politicians want to address is vote for whom for you? Didn't Ferguson happen under your watch, Barack Obama? Didn't failing schools continue to fail under your watch? I am so sick and tired of the moral ambiguity of our politicians on the right and the left, by the way. Our journalists, our church leaders who are all regurgitating leftist talking point after talking point without stopping for one second to ask if what they're saying is true. Have you looked at the numbers?

Do you care about the truth at all? I am so tired. I'm so tired of white women on Instagram who read the news, who maybe read the news for the first time in their lives yesterday all of a sudden becoming experts on social issues. It is insufferable. I'm sorry. I'm sorry it is. And most people on both sides of the aisle actually agree with this sentiment, like we bonded over it over the past week. Again, I ask, particularly to Christian women, do you know if what you are saying is true? Do you know what your hashtag represents? is the narrative correct? Are the remedies being prescribed just truthful and good? White privilege,

that's something that I have seen going around a lot in white Christian circles on Instagram. We should just ask quickly, is white privilege a thing? At one point, I probably would have said unequivocally no. And if you ask a black conservative, they will definitely say no. But honestly, I think from my opinion that it depends on how you define it. What most people mean when they say white privilege is actually majority privilege. Every nation on earth has it. I'm not necessarily justifying all forms of that, but it's true. There is majority privilege.

If you are the ethnic majority in the country, you have the privilege of being represented more in the media, having more products that cater to you, having more politicians that represent you. This is true for every majority in every country on earth. Now, that's not to say that white privilege that comes at the expense of black people has never existed. Of course it has. That's very obviously seen throughout our history and majority privilege throughout the world often comes at the expense of the minority and the marginalized.

And so, of course, that can absolutely happen. But we have to be specific when we're talking about what white privilege is and what we actually mean. What most people actually mean is some kind of majority privilege, not something that is universal. We can talk, sure, you can talk about white privilege, but you can't say that it's this, universal project. People in Afghanistan don't have white privilege. There are not people in China who have white privilege. And the most important question isn't really whether it exists or what it looks like, but what are we to do? What are we to do? I've seen a lot of commands for what people with privilege should do to make sure we are sufficiently anti-racist. Some of the things are overt and obvious and other things are not so much. Apparently a meritocracy, for example,

is white supremacist. Maga is white supremacist. Logic is white supremacist. are things that I've actually seen. And this is what Christians' social justice, false liberation theology does. It exchanges the free truth of the gospel for a social gospel, which is not about advancing Christ's kingdom here on earth, but manifesting a socialist utopia where all outcomes are equal. What Thomas Soul calls cosmic justice, which is really not justice at all. I highly recommend his book, Quest for Cosmic Justice, as well as Vision of the Anointed. They place burdens on people that are heavy, that are unattainable.

You can't ever say exactly the right things. You can't ever be contrite enough for the fact that your ancestors 200 years ago may have owned slaves. You either have to sit down or stand up. You need to speak up or shut up. You need to be humble or bold. You can't ever be woke enough. You're supposed to love yourself but also divest of your whiteness. Don't be ashamed but repent of the white supremacy that you were never even guilty of.

I have good news in exchange for that. I don't have good news. The Bible has good news. That that is not the gospel. The gospel is that Jesus died to save you from your sins and reconcile you to a holy God. In exchange for the heavy burdens and difficult yoke of sin

and worldly standards of righteousness, he gives you a light burden and an easy yoke that he empowers you to carry, which is this. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. don't get caught up in the worldly virtue traps.

The virtue trap says, unless you post right now and you repeat all the woke talking points and express appropriate outrage toward the things that you must care about, you are not truly virtuous. Girl, you are free from that. You're free from that. Following Jesus means that you are free from trying to meet the ever-changing standards of the world. However virtuous they may seem. When the church is taking cues from the world on how to respond to tragedy, we've got a huge problem. So what should we be doing? Of course, we should be mourning with those who mourn.

We should be loving God. We should be loving our neighbor. Go to my Instagram profile. You can see how to help people who are rebuilding their businesses and cities, at least in Minneapolis. I'm going to try to do this for multiple cities. Give your time, money, energy to those who need it. If you care about changing things on a political level, get involved in local politics. See what's going on in your public school system. You never know. You never know if you are the impact. If you you are the change by the grace of God that your community needs. And if you care about racism, which of course does exist because people are sinful and we have hate in our heart.

As my friend, Darrell Harrison says, though, we have a sin problem, now the skin problem. Then stand up where you see this kind of hate. Stand up where you see all hate, not just when people assume it, but when it's actually there. Fight for the vulnerable. Cling to true justice, God's justice. Avoid selective outrage, which I too have. been guilty of. It's so easy. Remember the names of the people that we listed at the top who have

recently been shot and killed by the police? You probably knew some of their names, but not all of them. Because the media only promotes one set of names. My mom was giving me this analogy that if you look, if you only saw, if you were held a microscope, if you had a microscopic view of a beach ball and you only saw the red part of the beach ball, you would assume that it's a red ball. but it's actually just a portion of the ball. There are lots of different colors on the ball. That is what the media does when it comes to the racial narrative. It only shows one side of the story.

And unfortunately, Christians along with everyone else, we take our cues from the media, we take our cues from the secular world, we take our cues from the mainstream, and we gin up outrage and we follow along with movements without knowing the other side of the story, without knowing the rest of the data, without knowing or caring about the truth at all.

we want to fit in with the world's. We want the world to, we want to fit in with the world's definitions of compassion and justice and truth. Remember, that Minneapolis cop who murdered the white woman in cold blood, he was a black police officer. She was a white woman. Only got 12 years of prison. Like, we care about that too. Like, we care about instances of injustice. We don't just care about what the media tells us to care about. That means we seek truth. We look at the facts at hand. we don't jump onto trends and fall into virtue traps. We speak what we know is true to the best of our ability. And above all, believe in and share the gospel,

which changes hearts and is the only way to change communities and society as a whole. Pastors. Pastors. Why aren't you preaching the gospel right now? What the world needs isn't another conversation about white privilege. Preach the gospel. Don't you know that that is the only good news that truly reconciles, that first reconciles us to a holy God, the most important reconciliation that exists and also makes our relationships right with other people.

And no, this is not a truncated gospel. I understand that the gospel saves. It also empowers us to do good work, absolutely. But I'm seeing too many pastors not talk about the gospel at all. And all of their tributes and all of their posts and all of their, I'm sure, very well-meaning conversations about social justice. I am seeing so many pastors say, you know, we've got to do better. hashtag this, hashtag that join this activist group. We need to be aware of our white privilege.

We need to be aware of our history. And nowhere in that post, did I see two simple words that Jesus saves, that Jesus reconciles, that the gospel is the only answer to what ails us? Do you not care about people's souls? Do you care only about skin and not sin? That's not your job as a pastor. And by the way, that's not your job as a Christian. I've seen so many Christian women resharing these popular, worldly memes about what we need to do and talk about what they're going to do in the way of social justice, not mentioning Jesus's name once. Who do you think Jesus is? What kind of power do you think he has? Do you think he doesn't care about people's souls? He does. He does. And I find it so patronizing as well. This is something else that I see. When I see white pastors, they talk about on Sundays to their mostly white churches. They talk about the gospel. They preach the Bible to their white congregants. But then when they start talking to black people and the black community, they don't talk about the gospel at all. They talk about social justice. They talk about being woke.

They talk about only earthly issues and not the issue that all of us have is that we live forever. That is the issue. That we live forever. That our souls are going to one of two places and that Jesus is the only way, the only truth and the only life. And no one comes to the father except through him. Like do white pastors that only talk about white supremacy to black people that only

apologize for white privilege that only talk about us. systemic racism rather than, rather than the truth and the transcendent reality of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Do you not care about their souls? I don't know. I don't know. If you're a Christian that is only preaching, I'm not saying we can't talk about justice. Of course we can't. Can't talk about politics. Of course I believe that. Of course I believe we should talk about earthly issues that are also, of course, spiritual issues. Of course, I believe we should talk about controversial topics. but if your core answer is social justice, a hashtag blacking out your Instagram picture or conversations that are not actually rooted in truth and not sharing the saving gospel of Jesus Christ,

maybe it's time for you to check your privilege. Just saying. Okay, that's all I have today. I know there are a lot of other things that you guys want me to talk about, but I will be back here on Friday. I'll be talking to Albert Mueller, and he is host of the podcast called The Briefing, as well as he holds several other titles. And it will be a great conversation. I'll see you guys then.