Today's Thought - Racism Never Left

+ First - join us for Worship at 8 & 10:30 this Sunday, and for Faith Forum at 9am in the Heritage Room - it will be an awesome day to be together.

?Two lines from a show from NPR: "Arlington National Cemetery has removed historical sections about prominent African-American, Hispanic and female veterans from its website." AND "Pentagon officials have been directed by the President and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to get rid of all content at the Pentagon that relates to diversity, equity, inclusion programs." Arlington National Cemetery stops highlighting some historical figures on its website : NPR. Another article I read said that, no, this wasn't removed, just taken out of a prominent spot and put in a place where the information is difficult to find. Now, I know that a lot of people are wound up about DEI, what with all those thousands - no, millions - of trans-athletes taking spots on sports teams away from the rest of us (I've heard that it's actually somewhere between 3 -11 out of 150,000), and the billions of undocumented immigrants who are both taking our jobs away AND getting welfare and college scholarships. (Too much sarcasm?) But seriously, General Colin Powell's information was taken down. One of the few people that most Americans can agree we like a lot.

This isn't a fight over DEI or CRT or anything else. This is a recognition that the racism that built this country - the racism that caused us to embrace the idea that enslaving people was good for business - the racism that caused the still active Civil War - has never left. We are an independent bunch, but we are also a fearful bunch, and that fear is manipulated by people who want to keep all of the marbles for themselves. They tell us that this - you fill in the blank - kind of person is out to destroy us and take our stuff, so we need to make their lives a living hell. They convince us that - you fill in the blank - are going to molest our kids or take our jobs or bring our property values down, and we watch those "dangerous" people while the people in power do exactly what they warned us about.

Allowing fear to control us always leads to terrible things happening. Allowing the (racists, bigots, misogynists, etc) to win always brings about pain and suffering for the rest of us who are just trying to get along and live our lives. It starts with fear and ends with hate and violence. Don't buy into their manipulation - don't buy into their hatred and bullying and deception. They are the ones trying to destroy us. Don't buy what they are selling.

Prayer - Holy God, nurture our better angels and teach us to be wise as serpents and gentle as doves. Love is better than hate. Amen.

Today's art is "The Statue of Bigotry" by Kevin Harty.

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