Giving "The Talk"

Ethnic gnosticism and the fear-mongering lies surrounding police brutality

Last night, President Joe Biden gave the State of the Union speech, a speech where he once again pretended to be some sort of great unifier while simultaneously promoting inherently divisive ideology. In addition to performing a typical exercise in deception, blame-shifting, and pleas for ever-expanding government power in the name of the utopian greater good, he also engaged in shameless racial pandering/manipulation and perpetuation of the ideas of ethnic gnosticism, racial grievance politics, and blatant lies surrounding law enforcement.

The parents of Tyre Nichols, the black man who was recently killed by 5 black police officers in Memphis, TN, were invited to the speech and Biden made a point to acknowledge them to a standing ovation. He would then go on to bemoan how unimaginably horrific it must be for them and others who share their skin tone to live in the United States of America. Biden proclaimed that being black was akin to tragic victimhood, particularly when it comes to police, and that he, as a white man, could not possibly fathom what it would be like to have to give your children “the talk.”

“The talk” is, of course, supposed to be this sort of esoteric conversation that only ever exists in the households of dark-skinned, perpetually oppressed Americans, who apparently all huddle together in their secret damp closets on the Underground Railroad while they light their oil lamps, hold hands, and sing old Negro spirituals before sternly warning their traumatized children about the dangers of dancing with the white devils of law enforcement.

I have taken to the term “ethnic gnosticism” to explain this ridiculous attitude, which is a term coined by the prominent theologian, Voddie Baucham. It expresses the idea that black people (or non-white people in general) possess some kind of uniquely specialized, practically spiritual knowledge of racism and oppression and live a sort of mystical existence that no white person can ever comprehend. This is what President Biden was expressing - the idea that black people are essentially some kind of mystical creature, whose experience as human beings bears no actual resemblance whatsoever to that of the eternally privileged race of white saviors. This “talk” that black people supposedly have with their children is wholly unique to black people because of their esteemed position on the hierarchy of oppression and cannot possibly be grasped by anyone else. You must be blessed with a holy vision by the gods of racial grievance in order to even begin to understand.

There are essentially two aspects to this foolishness that need to be addressed. The first is that black people are somehow being systematically oppressed and must employ some sort of specialized race-specific survival techniques to evade being killed by a police officer. Underlying this assertion, of course, is the erroneous presupposition that black people are routinely murdered by law enforcement. The second aspect to address is the idea that non-black parents give no sort of instruction to their own children regarding how to behave around law enforcement (or authority in general) and they all, instead, float through life on a fluffy cloud of privilege and butterflies.

The two issues are not unrelated and they both stem from this apparent need to elevate the idea of a “black existence” to the level of religious sacrosanctity. It is a divine holiness that can only be grasped by the blessed saints who are unjustly persecuted for their faith (i.e. their race). They, then, have a unique obligation to teach their children the original sin of white supremacy and how to put on the whole armor of wokeism in order to survive the poisoned fruit of racism inherent in the very fabric of our fallen institutions. Amen.

To begin with, the claims of black oppression along with the idea that black lives are somehow in danger from being snuffed out by police are utterly false. While it is true that black people, as a group, are more than twice as likely to be represented among suspects killed by a police officer, black people are also represented among those who commit violent crime (i.e. crime that would make it far more likely to be killed by a police officer) at more than twice the rate of other groups. As such, if you control for violent crime rate disparities, the disparities in police shootings vanish completely, and funny enough, you find that white suspects are even slightly more likely to be killed.

In 2019, the FBI UCR report showed that white suspects committed 209,848 violent crimes and black suspects committed 129,346. That same year, the Washington Post Fatal Force Database reported that police killed 424 white suspects and 251 black suspects. That means that police killed 20 white suspects for every 10,000 white people arrested for violent crime, and 19 black suspects for every 10,000 arrests for violent crime. How is that possible in a world where law enforcement is utterly infused with white supremacist hate and violence? Additionally, 12 of the 251 black suspects killed were unarmed that year and 26 of the 424 white suspects killed were unarmed. That means that in 2019, white suspects killed by police were more likely to be unarmed when killed (6.1% vs 4.7%). Clearly, this is evidence that law enforcement is nothing more than slave patrols!

Regardless, the ultimate truth is that police rarely kill anyone of any race. Around 1,000 deaths of suspects each year (the vast majority of them justified) compared to around 10 million arrests means that police kill approximately 0.01% of suspects. That isn’t even including all of the non-arrest contacts that police make on a daily basis, which would drive that percentage even lower. The logic, then, should be that if police killing suspects is already rare, then police killing suspects under questionable or unjustified circumstances is extremely rare, and then police killing suspects who are black under questionable or unjustified circumstances is even rarer than that. The problem of racist, killer police running rampant and hunting down black children who weren’t taught how to put their hands at 10 and 2 is entirely fabricated.

Now, the other issue is this nonsensical idea that no one but black people teach their children how to interact with law enforcement. The assertion that white parents don’t need to teach their children to respect authority or teach them the wisdom in refraining from giving a police officer a reason to see you as a threat is asinine. Any good parent is going to teach their children respect and how to act in the presence of authority. Respect and common sense have no color. But if we’re going to play these games, according to the 2019 statistics, it should actually be white parents teaching their kids how to interact with police, since they are more likely to be killed while unarmed. But I digress.

It is also particularly rich that the left continues to push this narrative of racial oppression and profit off of the deaths of black criminals, pretending like police are the driver of black homicides. Meanwhile, thousands upon thousands of black people are being slaughtered in street violence by other black people, including young children, who are gunned down every single day in Democrat-run cities with their destructive soft-on-crime policies. If a black child living in one of these crime-ridden neighborhoods ends up being murdered, they will almost certainly have been murdered by a black criminal and not by a police officer. Even worse, the lefist policies in these cities hamper law enforcement and empower the criminals, which in turn, make these neighborhoods far more dangerous and increase the likelihood that the child will be killed. The people who end up murdering these kids all have extensive criminal histories with a multitude of arrests and prior convictions and still, they remain on the streets, free to terrorize these neighborhoods, because Democrats want racial equity. And it all goes ignored. There are no think pieces. There is no national media outcry. There are no invitations to the State of the Union. Why? Because it isn’t politically expedient. Democrat policies enabling a culture of degeneracy and violence are what’s getting black people killed. So, spare me the hysterics about law enforcement.

Ultimately, this obsession with race and racial oppression needs to end. We have to stop this divisive insanity and let go of this incessant need to cling to the past, perpetuating grievance and victimhood. Most importantly, we have to stop letting despicable politicians like Joe Biden use race as a political cudgel to try to manipulate us, control our emotions and thus, control our thoughts and behavior, all while ignoring the disastrous consequences of their faux compassion. Children should not be taught fear, anger, resentment, vengefulness, or hostility. They should be taught to reject an external locus of control and accept that they are in command of their own life and their choices and that they have the power to shape their own destiny. Teach them strength, resilience, work ethic, respect, honor, compassion, gratitude. Let go of collective racial identity and let them be an individual - a human being. Stop teaching them how to be a victim and teach them how to be a victor.

If you really want to give a talk, maybe you should give a talk about that.

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