It seems many individuals and
corporations have become obsessed with signaling their virtue, especially when
it comes to issues of race. These
individuals would be wise to remember the teachings of Matthew 6:5, which
quotes Jesus as saying, “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites,
for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to
be seen by others. Truly I tell you,
they have received their reward in full.”
In the name of their personal sense of “justice,” many activists have sought to defend the implementation of racist policies without any regard for their negative impact. Instead, they have sought to vilify some groups of people in order to demonstrate their own righteousness— showcasing their pretended virtuousness in the streets so that they may be praised for their moral goodness.
One of the greatest flaws of contemporary American jurisprudence is the insistence of contemporary lower court activists that anti-discrimination legislation and policies should only protect “historically disadvantaged” groups. These activists point to cases like Sheet Metal Workers’ International Association v. EEOC, 478 U.S. 421 (1986), in which the Supreme Court ruled that courts could implement race-conscious relief that created distinct advantages for non-White employees.
Like many countries over the centuries, the ethnic makeup of the United States is in flux. According to some projections, by 2050, the United States will no longer be a White majority nation. However, one major problem with these projections is that they assume ethnic/racial lines are strictly bounded. This narrative is pushed by people who advocate for reparations and the erasure of anything perceived as “colonialist.”
The result of this attitude is a shift in incentives, including incentives affecting businesses. Nowadays, to be perceived as not-Woke can result in cancellation and negative publicity for one’s business. Racial tensions fomented by the death of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter riots have led to businesses being fearful of any perception that they have supported or failed to ferret out even perceived “racism.”
Those exact circumstances created an incident in a Philadelphia Starbucks where a White employee was found by a court to have been fired by her employers on the basis of her race.
The 2019 complaint by a White woman who alleged she had been discriminated against said that her termination happened following the arrest of two Black men in Philadelphia who had been asked to leave Starbucks. The plaintiff alleges the company “took steps to punish White employees who had not been involved in the arrests, but who worked in and around the city of Philadelphia, in an effort to convince the community that it had properly responded to the incident.”
Many people use the erroneous term “reverse racism” to describe incidents like this; such sloppy language provides fodder for those who like to play language games by claiming that “If reverse racism were an issue, it would mean that we live in a world where all racial groups have equal, institutional, social, and systemic power. We don’t …Yes, BIPOC [Black Indigenous People of Color] can be racially discriminatory, but not racist — we do not hold the power of White superiority in any respect.”
Incidents like the one in Philadelphia are not about “reverse racism;” they are about plain and simple racism. What happens when Whites are no longer a majority?
Is it really justice to say that majority non-White groups should have a right to abuse and mistreat an entire people group based on the color of their skin?
No?
Okay, then. We’ve just agreed that racism is bad. And we should not allow its seeds to be re-sowed in American culture under the auspices of pretended justice.
As Proverbs 15:1 teaches, “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” It is high time our society sought to generate a gentle answer to the problem of racism, instead of condemnation, judgment, and a return of violence.
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