By Bob Williams, Stevensville
“Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your eye?”
Both Matthew 7:3, and Luke 6:41, have the same above wording of earthy, exaggeration humor. As long studied, similar passages in Jerusalem based Matthew, also 20 to 30+ years later, in high quality Greek by Luke, that do not appear in Mark, strongly suggest that they both stem from a once common, oral tradition conserving the life and teachings of Jesus, from the tiny village of Nazareth, above Samaria.
Excavations reveal that no more than 480 people lived in Nazareth when Jesus lived there. Those people lived in less than 200, small, single level houses, with small timbers supporting roofs atop mud bricks atop roughhewn stone foundations.
Some scholars hold that the Hebrew word for log was not in common usage along the travels of Jesus. And that the word timber is a better current translation of the word log.
Accordingly, I say to public speech attacking very wrongfully construed Critical Race Theory: Do you not see the timber in your own eye?
Critical Race Theory(CRT) looks at individual institutional barriers against racial minorities. Locked in place institutions which are very difficult to individually remove. In no way does CRT advocate the obvious impossibility of somehow removing a bunch of those barriers.
Common sense shows that barriers against black voters are now increasing.
For the second time since after the War between the States, installing election barriers against black Americans is again in full operation. Forty-seven states are considering some 400 Bills to take voter rights away from people of color. By mid-June, 28 states had passed 41 Laws taking away rights of black Voters.
In effect, the attempt is to steal votes away from certain classes of voters. (Is such an attempt to retaliate against Democrats who allegedly stole the 2020 Presidential election? More later about that.)
With a timber in you eye, do you not see that people of African descent, under current institutions, still suffer significantly worse unemployment, morbidity, also mortality, than do white people. It’s black people who big banks red line out of receiving equitable loans to own their homes, and to acquire home equity. Not whites, but blacks live in the unhealthy zones around Southern petroleum refineries. No doubt about it, not whites, but blacks, are the usual victims of institutions allowing police brutality, and criminal murder.
No doubt about it, in 2013, in Shelby vs. Holder, the institution of the Supreme Court took away from the Voter Rights Act, the right of the Department of Justice to require states with severely racially biased Election Laws, to obtain clearance to institute new voter suppression laws. Like Texas is now doing.
Institutional barriers like in the above paragraphs, are intractable, baked into American economy, society, and government. Most everyone knows reducing those barriers will continue to be a slow, across sectors, process.
From what I read, for 70 years Critical Race Theory has been taught at some Law Schools, also in some graduate level courses in civics/sociology. CRT studies institutional barriers that could be reduced, and thus make for more fair chance for more Americans to have life, liberty, and pursue happiness. Nevertheless, most Public Schools do not teach CRT.
From what I read, a lot of hard right people claim that CRT advocates broad, sweeping, radical changes to society. Nothing could be further from the truth. Sadly, some people are making themselves upset, and in need of a self-induced dopamine lift, by fearing a non-existent CRT revolution.
This may be a good place to take a break.
Here’s something else that needs to be said.
• To the Steve Bannon activists, and dark money funds that instigated grossly misrepresenting CRT, to trigger Fear/Anger/Response behavior, for the purpose of driving more Votes for GOP candidates in the upcoming 2022 Election.
• To the social media non-news platforms that broadly cast smear propaganda about spectres of CRT.
• To politicians who willingly spread disinformation about CRT.
The Tanach and the Old Testament state that the ten commandments were words inscribed by the finger of God into two tablets of blue sapphire stone. Originally they were referred to as The ten words.
Matthew 19:18, also Luke 18:20, both attest that Jesus repeated five of the ten commandments, including: You shall not bear false witness. Mark 19:10 states: “Thou shall not bear false witness. Thou shall not defraud.” Mark wrote in a rough Greek that common people understood.
The organizations, and media influencers, that grossly misrepresent actual CRT, bear false witness against CRT, and do not experience shame. They will continue to fabricate a false, fraudulent, narrative about CRT, to exploit human weaknesses, and drive more GOP money and votes to the 2022 Election cycle.
But wait a minute. Was the 2020 Presidential election stolen? That’s a big question, with easy answers. Incumbent President Trump continually received 60% disapproval polling. Hundreds of millions died from his abject fail to deal with the Covid-19 disease epidemic in the USA. His Cabinet was deeply corrupted. His foreign policy was terrible. In 2016 he colluded with Russians violating US Election Law. In 2020 he conspired with Russians violating US Election Law. Consequently, Democratic groups spent 6.9 billion dollars, while Republican groups spent 3.8 billion dollars, in the last Presidential Election. Consequently, incumbent DJ Trump received only 46.9% of the 2020 popular votes for President; while candidate Trump received 46.1% of the 2016 votes for Presidency.
Joe Biden received 74 more Electoral College votes than did President Trump. If Trump won Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, and Pennsylvania, he would have won 73 more Electoral College votes.
In my opinion only, the rural population votes Republican, while the larger metropolitan population votes Democratic. Right now there’s a tight race between how many votes the GOP can take away from black metropolitan, and suburban, voters, and how many suburban voters are turning away from the increasingly extreme tactics, and white supremacist aspirations, of many GOP candidates; coupled with too many elected Northern GOP Representatives and Senators allied with, even funded, by Southern GOP donors. Current polling shows that 2/3 of Southern voters would like to secede from the United States.
What’s needed? Public financed, short term campaign cycles. And something better than an archaic system where Voters are not provided with the opportunity to Vote for a second, or a third, choice candidate for high Office. Ranked choice voting, with instant runoff election, would not have been considered, or possible, in the previous two centuries. It would increase voter participation in Elections.