Recently, I mentioned on social media that former President Trump and Senator JD Vance are racists. I posted:
Trump and Vance are determined to come off as racists. This may appeal to Confederate Flag waving Whites, but this doesn’t play well in general.
VANCE: Donald Trump said something very simple, totally inoffensive, but frankly, obviously true to me, which is that Kamala Harris is a chameleon.
She’s a fake, and the American people have to look at her record if we actually want to know how she stands on the issues, because her words simply can’t be trusted.
REPORTER: How can you fake a race? If it’s both Indian and black, how can she fake a race?
VANCE: She fakes who she is depending on the audience that she’s in front of, and that’s who she is, and that’s who she’s always been.
A commenter replied:
No Bruce.. it’s called pandering… Somehow the left has been pandered to for so long by their politicians they not only accept it you’re now defending it and promoting it as something good! Don’t let them do that to you man.
My response:
** *, I have no idea 🤷♂️ what you mean. Are you saying Trump and Vance aren’t racists; that I shouldn’t take their words and actions at face value?
We went back and forth a bit. The commenter finally said:
The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser but you can’t objectively know they’re a racist when it’s clearly an opinion formed by edited media bites and talking head on certain TV channels and you do not consider other sources of information. You’re objectively not being objective. So it is you who are not being logical aren’t you? You are still using that old time religion epistemology and compartmentalizing your beliefs that you can’t possibly back up and protect them. Also the race card is trite and there is too much information and fact now that refutes most of the claims. When it’s used by the left it’s because they can’t think of anything else.
And:
The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser sigh back at you.. really Bruce? I’m not claiming to 100% know what media you consume but it’s clear from your posts and the echo chamber you created on your profile here that you’re captured by a leftist political ideology and that you’re probably a prime candidate for philosopher Peter Baghosian’s “substitutionary hypothesis”. No I don’t see any credible evidence that Trump is a racist in fact the video link I posted above is one of many pieces of evidence against that assertion. Did you watch it? The only people asserting a name calling “racists” call on him are people who do not look at the evidence. So logically you’re either only consuming false media claims or in the political cult. And it isn’t even controversial to claim the fact that Google is absolutely engaged in result changes on their site and are heavily biased towards the left of the political spectrum. That’s not a conspiracy theory. I hope your hatred for people who disagree with your assertions will go away and you will consider that maybe you can be wrong about politics.
What follows is an article by Abby Zimet. Used with permission from Common Dreams
Hopefully, horrifically, the Trump War Room’s “comically racist” new ad – juxtaposing two images of “your neighborhood under Trump” and “your neighborhood under Kamala” – can at last put to rest any ludicrous, lingering questions as to whether the flailing felon, rapist and GOP presidential candidate, whose decades-long history of bigotry is well-documented, is really racist. Screamingly, repulsively, truly-Holy-Mother-of-God-vile: YES.
A day after Trump’s Megalomaniac Fascist Fest with Elon Musk – more on that soon – comes the latest obscene proof there is no bottom here on race, or anything else. Shocked, we are not. This is the guy who, along with his Klan father, was sued by the Justice Department 50 years ago for refusing to rent apartments to Blacks; who made an ugly public name for himself by loudly insisting the Black, now-exonerated Central Park Five be executed and starting the Obama birther frenzy; who for years reportedly belittled and discriminated against Blacks, including using the N-word, during his crappy TV career; who boasted about all the (imaginary) things he’s done for “the Blacks,” compared himself to Lincoln, cited “Black jobs” and “shithole countries,” and just trashed both Kamala Harris – who “just became a Black person” – and “horrible” black female journalists for being uppity.
So, sure, bring on a campaign ad deemed “the most racist thing ever.” Tuesday’s post features two side-by-side images: One shows a suburban, flag-draped house captioned, “Your neighborhood under Trump”; juxtaposed with it is an image of a group of mostly Black people packed onto the street captioned, “Your neighborhood under Kamala.” The text above it reads, “Import the third world. Become the third world.” The people on the curb were reportedly African immigrants outside a shelter in New York City; they had come, like so many before them, seeking safety and equality from an America that boasts it will welcome “your tired, your poor/your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” but too often doesn’t, especially when run by racist clowns who know only how to fearmonger, hatemonger, “other” Black and Brown bodies and mindlessly rip the “shithole” countries they’ve fled in mortal danger.
People who’ve become sorrowfully inured to the outlandish evil of Trump still managed to be horrified by racism so explicit “there have been Klan rallies which employed more subtlety.” “This is one of the most racist posts I’ve ever seen. Wow,” wrote one, and, “The racism is off the charts.” “Don’t just take our word for it,” wrote the NAACP. “They are showing all of us just how racist they are. This is what’s on the ballot this November.” “This” – this abomination – is also what Nina Simone could have been summoning years ago with her song Sinnerman, an African-American spiritual inspired by the Book of Exodus about an unholy man running from God and begging for forgiveness on Judgment Day, in vain, from the rock, the sea, the devil: “Oh Sinnerman, where you gonna run to?/Hear me prayin’, Lord Lord/Hear me prayin’ Lord Lord/Sinnerman, you oughtta be prayin’/Up come power/Power, Lord.”
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
By Abby Zimet, used with permission from Common Dreams
As the dystopian movie Civil War sets records depicting the “colorful horrors of the American future” on its current trajectory, we saw the same mindless, time-honored rancor play out at “Ole Miss being Ole Miss,” where a pack of rabid, jeering, shit-for-brains frat bros with white-supremely punchable faces set upon a black female student protesting genocide in Gaza. On foul display: That “Southern Heritage we’re always Jim Crowing about,” and, without change, the next generation of GOP goons and bigots.
Robert Reich recently posted a message of hope to his students, graduating at a “tremulous” time in a world beset by racism, genocide, climate change, culture wars, rising authoritarianism. Like many of us, Reich also entered adulthood at a bitter time, in 1968, amidst war, assassinations, cities burning. “I ask my students to hold on,” he writes. “To use their lives and careers to make America better. To try to heal the world.” It’s a tough ask in a fractious time, now grimly depicted in Alex Garland’s Civil War about a nihilistic America “at war with itself.” What one critic calls “a cautionary tale about America’s inevitable self-destruction,” it offers a harrowing look at “the horrors that lie ahead for a great country on the rocks – and what America has done to itself already,” with its “motiveless carnage,” tarnished ideals, president “who has raped the U.S. Constitution,” and beleaguered free press, including “an aging survivor of what’s left of the New York Times,” “trying to record what they witness in the line of fire (as) the rest of us die.” Its bleak message: “If things continue in the (current) political direction, no one will be safe from annihilation in the next decade.”
In real life, America’s political landscape takes it down a notch or so, but still leans dark. A GOP-controlled House big on “pointless gestures and posturing” just plumbed new McCarthyist depths by passing a bill that conflates anti-Zionism with antisemitism, “an insult (to) historical memory erasing decades of Jewish anti-Zionist politics”; its crypto-fascist “leader” Mike Johnson plans hearings on anti-genocide college protests to “look at the root causes funded by, I don’t know, George Soros or overseas entities.” A corrupt, far-right judicial system now includes in its plutocratic ranks not just Alito, Thomas et al but Trump fangirl Aileen ‘What Classified Documents?’ Cannon, who claims her newly exposed omission of fat-cat-funded vacations was “completely inadvertent.” Thanks to such chicanery – and despite efforts to protect election integrity and its stewards – a new survey shows over half of all election officials fear for their safety, from harassment to assault, and for their ability to do their jobs without political meddling. And the “petty little shit-stain” who so helped shred our democratic norms is still free (for now), and jabbering.
Of course, the “whining train-wreck” now seething through his sordid criminal trial – as Stormy Daniels say she was “ashamed” of their (ewww) sexual encounter – still pursues his rampage back to power. Last weekend, free from the legal strictures he gripes keep him from campaigning, he again fled to his tacky golf club to beg rich people for more money to keep him out of jail; with no low, he even scrounged for $9,000 in gag order fines. At a $40,000-a-plate bash, he groused about taking selfies with small donors who don’t deserve them, called Biden “the Gestapo” and Jack Smith “a fucking asshole,” deemed 40% of Americans moochers who “get welfare to vote and then they cheat,” and paraded his trashy VP hopefuls like a motel pageant of Miss Florida also-rans: Doug Burgum – “He’s a very rich man”; Kristi Noem, now urging Biden’s dog Commander be added to the kill list – “Somebody that I love”; Byron Donalds – “Somebody who’s created something very special, donors worth millions of dollars…I like diversity. Diversité, as you would say.” And sniveling lapdog Tim Scott, in limbo with no word from on high even as he faithfully declines six times to say he’ll accept the 2024 election results.
Sigh. With such civic and moral mentors, thus do we get the savage, racist, redneck frat boys at Ole Miss who somehow never learned – so much for teach your children well – it is not acceptable, when witnessing a group of righteous fellow students acting in conscience to protest the slaughter of many thousands of innocents in Gaza, to single out a black woman and leer, jeer, boo, screech, give her multiple fingers, jump up and down making grotesque faces and grunting monkey noises, clutch their crotches, throw food and cups of water, chant “We Want Trump!” “Fuck Joe Biden!” and shriek, “Who’s your daddy?,” “Take a shower,” “Lizzo, Lizzo!”, “Fuck you fat-ass!” “Your nose is huge!” “Shave your legs!” “Fuck you fat bitch!” and “Lock her up!” The woman, identified as graduate student Jaylin Smith, kept filming as the idiot yahoos, safely surrounded by hundreds of barbarian peers, some in stars-and-stripes overalls, feverishly bounced around her. Reports said they outnumbered by about 10-to-1 the roughly 30, diverse students with UMiss for Palestine, who calmly carried Palestinian flags and signs: “Free Palestine,” “Stop the Genocide” and “U.S. Bombs Take Palestine Lives.”
Many of the yokels – one sage: “A thousand faces of ‘peaked in high school’…The end product of a failed state” – reportedly had no idea what the protest was about. Said one, “I don’t know what they’re doing here. I just want them gone.” See the ever-prescient William Faulkner: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” For many, the ugly spectacle summoned “the ghosts of UM’s past” at a school nicknamed for a plantation term, that long called its sports teams the Rebels and its mascot Colonel Reb, still has only 11% black students in a state nearly 40% black, and remains famous for the 1962 riots that followed the admission, a full eight years after Brown v. Board of Education banning segregation, of 29-year-old veteran James Meredith, the school’s first African-American student, whose arrival on the Oxford campus was accompanied by 1,400 US Marshalls and federal troops and who later said of the experience, “I considered myself engaged in a war from Day One.” In 1964, Nina Simone released her searing song, Mississippi Goddamn: “Hound dogs on my trail/school children sittin’ in jail/thinkin’ every day’s gonna be my last/I don’t belong here, I don’t belong there.”
After video of the douchebag behavior toward a lone black woman by a horde of hooting good ole boys was met with outrage, UM Chancellor Glenn Boyce faintly acknowledged the school’s “challenging” history, noting, “Incidents like this can set us back.” Citing “offensive and inappropriate” statements and “actions that conveyed hostility and racist overtones,” Boyce said the school would “investigate” the conduct of at least one student and “determine whether more cases are warranted.” “Behaviors and comments that demean people because of their race or ethnicity…undermine the values that are fundamental to a civil and safe society,” he said in a statement. “People who say horrible things to people because of who they are will not find shelter or comfort on this campus.” Still, it remains to be seen if so-called adults who likewise say horrible things – like Mississippi’s Gov. Tate Reeves, who posted video with, “Warms my heart,” and Georgia Rep. and “racist POS” Mike Collins, who captioned the repulsive scene “Ole Miss taking care of business” – will also be held accountable. (His Congressional office number is 202-225-4101. Just sayin’.)
A ghastly piece of work who’s suggested murdering migrants by throwing them Pinochet-style from helicopters and introduced a bill to ban federal “zealots” from removing Greg Abbott’s deadly razor buoys from the Rio Grande, Collins later backtracked, slightly. He bombastically noted there “seems to be some potentially inappropriate behavior that none of us should seek to glorify” and suggested if someone “is found” to be a racist POS “they should be punished (and) will hopefully seek forgiveness” before doubling back down on “pro-Hamas, anti-American, Antifa anarchists” who “run roughshod” over nice rebels “there to learn and enjoy college.” Meanwhile, UM’s NAACP chapter swiftly condemned counter-protesters’ “reprehensible actions,” identified the monkey asshole as James “JP” Staples from Phi Delta Theta, and called for his expulsion along with that of Connor Moore and Rouse Davis Boyce from Kappa Alpha Order as the “primary perpetrators.” The next day, Phi Delta Theta removed Staples for behavior that was “offensive, outside the bounds of this discourse, and contradictory to our values.” The school has yet to take any further action.
But Toby Morton has. A writer for South Park and MadTV, Morton is also the “immature and irresponsible” creator of a series of Fascist Websites paying tribute, thanks to idiotically unregistered domain names, to the vile likes of Greg Abbott – “People die on his watch” – Elise Stefanik – “Let’s keep it white” – DeFascist 24 – “I’ve always strived to promote a safe and welcoming space for every white nationalist in Florida and beyond” – and Tennessee’s Cameron Sexton: “You racist? I got your back.” Now, he has a campaign website for J.P. Staples – “Racially driven experience in hate” – starting with a Hitler quote, “The first million was the hardest.” “I’ve been carrying this burden for far too long, and I can’t hold it in any longer,” it reads. “I hate so much it consumes me…I hate the way black people look at me, the way they talk, the way they exist…Here I am, confessing my deepest, darkest secret. I’m a scared little bitch. I fear those who are superior to me. I fear people will see who I truly am – a piece of shit. Thankfully, I represent many Americans and how we think.” And there are testimonials! Kristi Noem: “Does he have a dog?” MTG: “Welcome to the GOP.”
Staples has scrubbed his social media accounts, forgetting the Internet is forever, but sleuths were quickly on it. From a Texas MAGA family whose father is a repeat DWI offender, “Monkey Boy” evidently “hates all races but his own.” His posts are both racist and anti-Semitic, raging at “cock-sucking Jews” who after a week removed from streaming a movie he wanted to watch and idly wondering “if Jews use the term ‘baby in the oven'” for someone pregnant. Observers mused on his future job prospects: Hero good ole boy a la Kyle Rittenhouse, or landscaping assistant, Trump advisor, guy “asking people if they want fries with their order for the rest of his life?” Many see him as “a sterling (result) of spectacularly bad parenting – mini-racists pop out.” “You’re looking at the next generation of racists,” said one, who included girlfriends “cheering (them) on – the Klan rode up to the meeting, but the wives sewed the capes and hoods.” They deem him “the true face of Mississippi,” of “the Republican Party and how they behave when nobody’s looking” – or even when we are – and of the ghosts of America’s racist past: Still and all, “They walk among us.”
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Western civilization is under attack. White people are under attack.
I’m not Adolf Hitler, but when the left mobilizes the 93% of the world that’s not white, to then say white people are bad and we have 20-1 Black-on-white crime in the big cities. 10-1 in the rural areas…
It’s not the majority of black folks, but it’s a very active minority that’s attacking us. And the FBI and the ADL fight like the devil to cover that up. It needs to be repudiated. If we had 20-1 white on Black crime, they’d be against it.
What a load of horse shit, unworthy of response outside of debunking Jones’ claim about black-on-white crime in rural areas.
Evidently, Jones doesn’t know that most rural people are white. I live in rural northwest Ohio — in the county of Defiance, population of 37,778 (2020 census). Less than two percent of residents are black. There are four times as many Hispanic residents as there are Blacks. While local Blacks can and do commit crimes, most crime is White on White crime, and not the ten-to-one Black on White crime ratio Jones suggests.
Sadly, Republicans who only listen to Fox News, OAN, and racists such as Jones, North Carolina Republican candidate for governor Mark Reynolds (yes, Blacks can be racists), and Donald Trump, will come away thinking the ten-to-one Black on White crime stat is true. It’s not, but the people who need to hear this never read or listen to “fake media.”
And before someone objects, I am well aware that Blacks as a whole have a higher crime rate than Whites. Are you ready to discuss why that is? Or are you really only interested in another meme to support your racist agenda?
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Mark Robinson, an Evangelical Christian, is North Carolina’s lieutenant governor, and the 2024 Republican candidate for governor.
In his own words, this is the man Republican North Carolinians want to be their next governor:
I am so sick of seeing and hearing people STILL talk about Nazis and Hitler and how evil and manipulative they were. NEWS FLASH PEOPLE, THE NAZIS (National Socialist) ARE GONE! We did away with them. Communist created the Marxist Socialist that CURRENTLY control Europe, fill the ranks of OUR OWN Democratic Party, and control our mass media. Compared with the Communist the Nazis were upstart amateurs in terms of manipulation and MURDER.
Nazis are always the ones who are mentioned when people talk about ‘totalitarian’ governments that commit mass murder, the 100 million plus killed by the Communist are largely ignored and our own government is FULL OF MARXIST SOCIALIST who are hell bent on destroying our Constitution and spreading MARXISM. I’ve grown VERY weary of this. I can plainly see the plan of the Marxist and how they hide behind ‘Hitler,’ whose name is CONSTANTLY on their lips.
[Roots] is nothing but Hollywood trash that depicts the ignorance and brutality of the goyim, and the helplessness and weakness of the shvartze.
There is a REASON the liberal media fills the airwaves with programs about the NAZI and the ‘6 million Jews’ they murdered. There is also a REASON those same liberals DO NOT FILL the airwaves with programs about the Communist and the 100+ million PEOPLE they murdered throughout the 20th century.
Note to liberals; I’ll accept ‘Gay Pride’ when you accept ‘White Pride.
I believe that homosexuality is a sin and that those people who are ‘proudly coming out of the closet’’ are standing in open rebellion against God…………….AND I DON”T CARE WHO KNOWS IT OR LIKES IT!!!!!
Okay here it is and it may make some folks mad, but oh well…… First, let me say that I pray for the souls of all those killed, healing for all those wounded, and comfort for the family members of the terrorist shooting in Orlando. However, homosexuality is STILL an abominable sin and I WILL NOT join in ‘celebrating gay pride’ nor will I fly their sacrilegious flag on my page. Sorry if this offends anyone.
The Rainbow is the beautiful symbol of God’ s promise to man. IT IS NOT the symbol of sickening homosexual perversion!!!!
Dear Transgender crowd, You CANNOT tran-sin GOD’S creation. Sincerely, A Bible Thumper.
Nothing is more disgusting to me than effeminate males who carry purses and have ear rings in their ears. #stomachturningmadness
So apparently, using the British word for cigarettes [fag] violates Facebook’s ‘community standards. “LOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!!!!!
Why does Facebook think it’s okay to insult God by using His rainbow as a symbol of perversion, but doesn’t think it’s okay to insult homosexuals by calling them fa [gs]…… Oooops. Better watch myself.
They might as well make this [NFL football] “f@g” uh-um I mean, flag football.
We have pushed homosexuality over the top. Mark my words PEDOPHILLA is next, which will be closely followed by the END of civilization as we know it
February is Black History Month. I guess the shortest month of the year is all we need to learn about the separate but equal history of a people who have achieved so little.
Random thought; (after Christmas edition). Kwanzaa is Hanukkah on food stamps.
[When asked if he considered himself part of the African-American community] I told them NO!” They asked me why and I said; ‘Why would I want to be part of a ‘community’ that devalues it’s fathers, overburdens it’s mothers, and murders its children by the millions? Why would I want to be part of a ‘community’ that sucks from the putrid tit of the government and then complains about getting sour milk?
Crime ridden black neighborhood are that way because many of the people who live there would rather fight the police than fight crime.
And this my friends is why ‘the hood’ is steaming pile of human waste.
On the plantations of the southern United States, it was house servants and negro overseers who kept the master informed about ‘trouble makers’, and facilitated the ‘divide and conquer’ that kept the masses of slaves compliant and in control. Those house slaves and overseers did their dirty work for a few crumbs off the masters table and a spot on the floor (like a dog) in the ‘big house’. Today is no different, only now it’s ‘reverends’, and ‘senators’, and ‘rappers’, and ‘actors’, and their payment is fame along with money. They are parasites who love money and seek power. Unfortunately, that money often comes at the the expense of those they claim to be fighting for, and the only real power they have is holding the chains that continue to keep many of those people in bondage. It’s time for PEOPLE, not just black people, ( for these types of parasites exist in all cultures ) to see these bastards for what they are; blood suckers who are sapping the strength out of our people.
Dear Negroes, You are free to be anything you like. (i.e. ball player, rapper, comedian, garbage man, pimp, drug dealer etc..) EXCEPT a conservative Republican. If you are a conservative and run for office or become an outspoken critic of our liberal ideology, we will be forced to treat you like a black man at cross burning, and you know what that means boy. Enjoy the rope burns on your neck. Sincerely, The Open Minded Liberals of America.
I’d like to take this time to say thank you to Dr. William Barber (aka Sambo or is it Quimbo) for his tireless efforts in helping white liberals in there quest to keep blacks in North Carolina poor, dumb, and voting for the people who want them to stay that way.
That whole ‘white privilege’ crap kills me. The red headed slaves of Rome would get a real chuckle out of that term. So would the miners of Ireland in the 1800s and the factory workers of London during the industrial revolution and the pilgrims, and…….”
I’m gonna say this and I don’t give a FROGS FAT ASS who doesn’t like it or what you say about me. I am TIRED of blacks and mexicans running around shouting about being proud of their race but when a white person does it they call them a bigot. Look here people, white folks came here with N-O-T-H-I-N-G and and built the most powerful nation on Earth. And they did it by FORCE OF WILL. I’m not saying that Mexicans and Blacks should not be proud, but who do you think has the most to brag about, the folks who built Mexico, the folks who bulit the Nations in Africa, or the folks who built The United States.
if others can thump their chest and claim pride in their race, so can white people.”
If it offends you when white people say ‘WHITE PRIDE’ how do you think it feels when you say ‘Black POWER?
Why is it we NEVER EVER hear about anyone protesting against MUSLIMS praying in public. #coulditbefear?
I keep seeing all these t-shirts, bumper stickers, and front plates that say things like ‘Mexico #1’, ‘I heart/love Mexico’ and ‘Viva la Mexico. My questions is; If you ‘love’ Mexico so much, why did you leave THERE and come HERE?!!!! p.s YEAH I SAID IT!!! #mexicomustbe#2causeyouleftupouttathere
Most of the people who are angry about a miserably poor, corrupt nation [Haiti] full of Voodoo worshippers being insulted, are the same people who beam with “pride” looking at a 10 year old drag queen.
Why is it that the nastiest, dirty looking, trailer trash, ghetto, bad breath and teeth having, not washing their hands after using the bathroom, pick their nose, digging in their behinds, nasty house having, funky butt fools ALWAYS be the most picky at work?
AND NOW IT’S TIME TO PLAY…………..How many occult symbols can you spot in the Olympic Games Opening Ceremonies!!!!!!!
Planned Parenthood; Doing the devils work, with liberals support, for the New World Order.
The only ‘fact’ that has come out of this Bill Cosby story is that the Illuminati will destroy you if you piss them off.
I don’t believe the Moon Landing was faked and I don’t believe 9/11 was an ‘inside job’ but if I found both were true…I wouldn’t be surprised.
I am SERIOUSLY skeptical of EVERYTHING I see and have seen on television. From the murder of JFK to 9/11 to Las Vegas. EVERYTHING.
I know this may sound paranoid and crazy, but I truly believe that the ‘judgement’ format of these ‘reality’ competition shows ( i.e. American Idol, DWTS, Chopped, etc. ) is sign of things to come in the REALITY of the New World Order.
Sadly, what we suspect is true. It seems the globalist will stop at nothing to destroy the progress of American Exceptionalism that this PRESIDENT [Trump] promised and DELIVERED.
So what First LADY Melania Trump speaks five languages. First “lady” Michelle Obama spoke five also; female, male, ghetto, anti-American liberal, and wookie.
The Obamas continue to linger, like the stench of human waste that fouls the air and assaults the nostrils.
Kamala was making much more sense during the Democratic Presidential debates when she was calling Joe Biden a sexist and a racist. I’m sure ol’ Putin is shaking in his jack boots worrying about this nit wit. Wow!
Kamala Harris is a leftist idiot who is fearful that the “right” to MURDER the unborn will be threatened if Brett Kavanaugh is confirmed. She’s part of the unhinged and out of touch wing that dominates the Democratic Party. She should quit trying to kill the unborn and go home to California and clean up the mess there.
Hillary Clinton is the epitome of leftist paternalistic racism. Time and time again she has shown her true COLORS. From “super-predators,” to hot sauce in her pocketbook, to “they all look alike,” this witch flaunts her blatant disrespect of black folks with enthusiastic zeal, knowing full well she won’t be called to task for it. But she’s been rejected by America and exposed as a liar and ineffective leader, so in the end….what difference does it make?
Only this hate filled, terrorist supporting radical could get away with what she said. It’s partly because of her skin color, partly because of her sex, and mostly because of her “religion.” It’s absolutely sad that so many people in this Nation have become so weak, cowardly, and BLIND. If we do not stop anti-Semitic, anti-American, pro-terrorist radical monsters like Ilhan Omar our Republic is doomed.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a leftist lunatic who has been possessed by the demon political satanism of socialism. She’s is doing her best to possess others.
The people of the 14th Congressional District sent this brainwashed socialist stooge to our nation’s capital. She is there to help usher in the movement that will “legitimize” socialism within our Government. It seems that Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is a mindless buffoon who is clueless as to how capitalism actually works, and blinded to the fact that socialism will bring us to our knees. The fact is she is neither a buffoon or blind. She is well versed in the satanic gospels of Karl Marx and Saul Alinsky, and she sees quite well. She has the same vision as every other socialist, which is to be an elitist who sits on high through the work of those below her who struggle to survive. She understands that in order to bring this nation to its knees she must work to destroy our economy by expanding the welfare state, destroy our sovereignty by opening our borders, and destroy our future by brainwashing our youth with the political satanism of Socialism. The jokes about this “clown” are funny, but lest we forget how other movements in other nations got started, and where and who they led to; Stalin, Hitler, Mao, the Gulags, the Death Camps, The Great Leap Forward. She may look and sound foolish, but she is as dangerous as cyanide in kool-aid. The people of New York’s 14th District sent her, but if we don’t stand against her and others like her, we will all suffer her consequences.
Who is Trailer Shift [Taylor Swift] and why should I care?
Note to Oprah Winfrey; Racism will end when YOU stop being a racist.
ay-Z teaches our young men how to be foul mouthed thugs and his wife teaches our young women how to be hyper-sexual whores…..I guess y’all are okay with that and so is Hillary Clinton.
So is it correct that Beyoncé has been nominated for an award for singing Rock n Roll?” If this is true we have two problems.
First of all she doesn’t sing rock ‘n roll, and second…….SHE’S NOT A SINGER!!!!! #shesabootyshaker
Look at those words Time used. This leftist stooge [Brittney Griner] had all the freedom a human could want in The Untied States of America and literally REFUSED to stand up for it and did not appreciate it. Now locked up in a despotic nation she craves the very freedom she spat upon. I care not what fate she faces. Her poor choice got her locked up, and her arrogant ingratitude gets her no sympathy.
Lindsey Vonn is a CLASSIC liberal. She talks big political smack and when that big talk BLOWS UP in her face she plays the victim. Remember dummy, YOU started it with your anti Trump statement. Now that you lost don’t get mad that people are clowning you. You should have stayed in your lane and concentrated on skiing instead of taking digs at our PRESIDENT.
I disliked and vehemently disagreed with “president” Obama. However, it NEVER made me disrespect this Nation or our FLAG and all it STANDS for. Unpatriotic nitwits like this MORON [Megan Rapinoe] are simply taking their chance to spit on the flag and all it represents. It’s not about PRESIDENT Trump, it’s about arrogance and disgusting disrespect, and the “lady” has that in spades. Perhaps she should have a long conversation with some of the ladies she is playing against. You know, the ones who come from nations without Title IX.
We’re going to defend women in this state. That means if you’re a man on Friday night, and all the sudden on Saturday, you feel like a woman, and you want to go in the women’s bathroom in the mall, you will be arrested — or whatever we got to do to you.
I don’t care how much you cut yourself up, drug yourself up and dress yourself up, you still either one of two things — you either a man or a woman.
It is absolutely AMAZING to me that people who know so little about their true history and REFUSE to acknowledge the pure sorry state of their current condition can get so excited about a fictional ‘hero’ created [Black Panther] by an agnostic Jew [Stan Lee] and put to film by satanic marxist. How can this trash, that was only created to pull the shekels out of your [slur] pockets, invoke any pride?
Half of black Democrats don’t realize they are slaves and don’t know who their masters are. The other half don’t care.
I Absolutely Want To Go Back To The America Where Women Couldn’t Vote.
The only thing worse than a woman who doesn’t know her place, is a man who doesn’t know his.
We’re called to be led by men. When it was time to face down Goliath, [He] sent David. Not Davita, David.
Feminism was planted in the ‘Garden,’ watered by the devil, and is harvested and sold by his minions.
If I had all the power right now, let’s say I was the governor and had a willing legislature, we could pass a bill saying you can’t have an abortion in North Carolina for any reason.
Once you make a baby, it’s not your body anymore – it’s y’all’s body.
In those [elementary] grades, we don’t need to be teaching social studies. We don’t need to be teaching science. We surely don’t need to be talking about equity and social justice.
Will somebody please explain to me the purpose of homosexuality? … What does it create? It creates nothing.
I remember when children knew their place, and when they got out of place and got sassy, ADULTS would put them back into it.
I’ll tell anybody, I got them AR-15s at home and I like to go target shooting and all that. That’s not what they’re there for. I’m not ashamed to say it, I’m probably not supposed to say it, but I’m gonna say it anyway — I got them AR-15s in case the government gets too big for its britches. Cause I’m gonna fill the backside of them britches with some lead.
We [Robinson paid for his wife’s abortion] allow the murder of the most innocent human beings on earth and we do it with impunity. If we do not purge abortion from our shores for the cause of life the same way we purged slavery for the cause of liberty, this nation will not continue to stand.
God sent women out … when they had to do their thing, but when it was time to face down Goliath, [He] sent David. Not Davida, David. In the Bible, God sent Moses to lead the Israelites. “Not Momma Moses,” he said. “Daddy Moses.”
I have found that women in general don’t like to be out-talked. When you go out in groups, it often comes down to discussions, women on one side, men on the other. And back then, I’d be just hurling it. Often women would get quite angry. They love to be able to talk a man into submission. And with me, it never happens. They can’t do it.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Exactly 120 years ago on Feb. 7, 1904, which was twenty-two years before the precursor to Black History Month was first celebrated in 1926, one of America’s largest and most gruesome lynching events took place.
As reported in the Los Angeles Herald on Feb. 8, 1904, [52-year-old] Luther Holbert and … [an unnamed woman] were burned at the stake … by a mob of 1,000 [white, mostly Christian] persons …. [in Doddsville, Mississippi and it occurred] in the shadow of the negro church here.”
And as documented by Equal Justice Initiative, a pro bono litigation organization headed by prominent civil rights attorney Bryan Stevenson, “According to an eyewitness account published in the Vicksburg, Mississippi Evening Post, Mr. Holbert and the unnamed Black woman were tied to trees while the funeral pyres were prepared. They were then forced to hold out their hands and watch as their fingers were chopped off, one at a time, and distributed as souvenirs. Next, the same was done to their ears. Mr. Holbert was then beaten so badly that his skull was fractured and one of his eyes hung by a shred from the socket. The lynch mob next used a large corkscrew to bore into the arms, legs, and bodies of the two victims [while they were still alive and fully conscious], pulling out large pieces of raw flesh. The victims reportedly did not cry out, and they were finally thrown on the fire and … burn[ed] to death. The event was described as a festive atmosphere, in which the … spectators enjoyed deviled eggs … [and] lemonade ….”
Stop and pause for a few seconds and think about what those deviled-egg-eating devils did. Imagine that Black man and woman’s absolute terror and excruciating pain.
Whenever you think you’ve heard the worst of America’s gruesomely nightmarish racist brutality, you often find out that it’s much worse than you had imagined.
Oh, and by the way, only one person- a man named C. C. Eastland- among the 1,000 was ever arrested. But on Sept. 22, 1904, a judge summarily dismissed all charges.
Also, I should mention that the person who led that lynch mob was James Eastland who had a son also named James Eastland. That son later became Mississippi’s longest-serving United States Senator and spent his entire political career virulently opposing every civil rights bill introduced in Congress.
As pointed out by the NAACP, “From 1882 to 1968, [there were] 4,743 lynchings … in the United States … . The highest number of lynchings during that time period occurred in Mississippi, with 581 recorded” and two of them were Holbert and the unnamed woman.
As noted in the seminal Black’s Law Dictionary, which is used daily by law professors, judges, lawyers and law students all across the country, lynching is defined as “the action of unofficial persons … who seize [someone] … suspected of crimes … and inflict summary punishment upon them ….” Accordingly, the last official lynching (that the public is aware of based on what has been published in major media outlets) was just four years ago- during Black History Month- on February 23, 2020 when 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery in Satilla Shores, Ga. was hunted down and shot to death.
You would think that this country had long ago outlawed lynching based on what happened from 1882-1968 (and earlier), but it didn’t. In fact, it wasn’t until March 29, 2022- less than two years ago with the enactment of the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act- that lynching became a federal crime for the first time ever.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Last year, my client Susan called me to discuss her immigration case.
During our conversation she referenced the news that immigrants were being bused from the southern border to cities in the North, often under false promises, only to be left stranded in an unknown city.
In confusion and fear, Susan asked me: “Why do they hate us so much?”
While I couldn’t answer Susan’s question, her underlying concern highlights a startling escalation of public aggression against migrants over the past year.
Many outlets describe recent migration through the Americas as a “flood,” “influx,” “wave,” or “surge”—language that reinforces the notion that migration is akin to an imminent, uncontrollable, and destructive natural disaster.
There seems to be a growing “us” versus “them” mentality towards immigrants. This divisive language serves no purpose other than to divide our country, undermine the legal right to seek asylum in the United States, and cultivate a fear of the most vulnerable.
A clear example is showcased in recent media coverage of northbound migration across the U.S.-Mexico border. Many outlets describe recent migration through the Americas as a “flood,” “influx,” “wave,” or “surge”—language that reinforces the notion that migration is akin to an imminent, uncontrollable, and destructive natural disaster.
Woven into this framing is the near-constant use of the term “illegal” or “unlawful” to describe unauthorized crossings. As an advocate for immigrant survivors of domestic violence, sexual violence, and trafficking, I’m alarmed by the use of this language to describe a migrant’s attempt to survive.
Moreover, it’s often simply incorrect. A non-citizen who has a well-founded fear of persecution in the country from which they’ve fled has a legal right—protected under both U.S. and international law—to enter the United States to seek asylum.
When mainstream media wield the term “illegal” as though it were synonymous with “unauthorized,” they misinform readers and falsely paint asylum seekers as criminals.
Worse still, they encourage politicians who call immigrants themselves “illegals,” a deeply dehumanizing term. And the more dehumanizing language we use, the more likely it is that we will see immigrants as the “other” to justify cruel immigration policies.
We must retire the use of this inflammatory rhetoric, which distracts from real solutions that would actually serve survivors arriving at our borders.
Migrants expelled back to their home countries are at grave risk of severe harm or death at the hands of their persecutors. Those forced to remain in Mexico as they await entry to the United States are increasingly vulnerable to organized crime or abusive and dangerous conditions in detention.
The words we use in everyday discourse mean something—they can spell out life or death for those among us who are most vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. Now more than ever, I’d urge the public and the media to retire the use of sensationalizing, stigmatizing, and misleading imagery and rhetoric surrounding immigration.
Now is the time to apply accuracy and humanity in our depictions of migrants. Let’s not repeat the errors of our past.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
The Sounds of Fundamentalism is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a video clip that shows the crazy, cantankerous, or contradictory side of Evangelical Christianity, please send me an email with the name or link to the video. Please do not leave suggestions in the comment section. Let’s have some fun!
Today’s Sound of Fundamentalism is a two-minute video clip of Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) megachurch pastor Jack Hyles telling an overtly racist joke in one of his sermons from the pulpit of First Baptist Church in Hammond, Indiana. (You may have to turn your device volume up to hear the video.)
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
People didn’t used to be so brazen about it. The topic used to be one that caused feelings of shame, grief, and embarrassment. Much like sex and cancer and death, the topic of racism used to be one that Christian parents were reluctant to discuss with their kids. They wanted to make sure they said the right thing. Parents were careful to point to Martin Luther King, Jr., as somebody who fought racism with integrity and sought a society where color would not matter. They focused solely on “good” Black activists like King and Rosa Parks, as examples of Christians fighting racism in socially acceptable ways. Staying within a safe, comfortable vision of idealistic America, while nevertheless acknowledging the shame of racism, these parents thought they were doing the best they could. They tried not to think about it too hard.
All this has changed. It’s 2023, and massive changes have swept through America. With right-wing Christian extremism on the rise, more and more Christians are showing their ugliest sides. Well-meaning white believers have abandoned their façade of caring about justice, and now openly display racist rants on social media, listen to racist pastors, etc. Really, this shouldn’t come as a surprise to those who are well tuned in. It is nothing to be surprised about—nothing that has not been a long time in the making.
Nevertheless, as someone who still considers herself a Christian, it is shocking and disturbing to come across racist Christians online and in the real world. It is shocking when the church you once attended weekly sends out a bus to Washington on January 6th, 2021, when a person who went to this church is rumored to be running a brazenly racist Trump merchandise stand out by the highway, when the pastor claims that slavery was a small part of American history and that George Floyd died of a drug overdose. It is shocking and disturbing when your parents’ friends online are all rabid conservatives who call liberals horrible names, saying that you cannot be a Christian and vote differently from the way they do. I have seen violent threats, profanity, rage, hysteria, and hatred—all coming from people who, in the same breath, promote Bible verses about God’s love and devotional excerpts. There is an ugly stain of racism spreading and spreading among white Christians I know, and it is doing more harm than we can possibly imagine in our smug, self-righteous state of mind.
White, right, salt and light…that’s their life philosophy. They used to not be so obvious about it, as I said. They used to quote King’s “I Have a Dream” speech and share heartwarming stories about Black people uniting with white people. Even if their anti-racism was superficial, it was better than nothing. They used to quote clever clichés such as “It’s not the race, it’s grace. It’s not the skin, it’s sin.” They used to say that there is no Jew or Greek with Christ, so there should be no Black or white, either. They used to plaster over Black people’s anger by saying all lives matter. Not anymore. Now, they’re coming ever closer and closer to saying that Black lives don’t matter.
I came across this obscure, redneck IFB pastor in a cowboy hat, who posted a YouTube video called, “WHITE PRIVELEDGE.” The video’s seemingly ignorant and misspelled title was absolutely done on purpose. The video was nearly twenty minutes long, and the comment section dripped with “amens.”
I regretted watching the video. I wanted to throw up, more like it. He started out calling Black people thugs, then listed the ways in which he apparently had it worse than Black people when he was growing up, because he was raised tough and old-fashioned on a farm and got “whupped” and had to work for every privilege he got. After he was smug for a good ten minutes, he listed off every imaginable negative stereotype about Black people. Among them, he told Black people to stop wearing hoodies, stop listening to rap music (“nobody likes it”), stop “murdering your children at Planned Parenthood,” stop singing loudly and dancing in church, stop rioting and burning buildings, stop “whining,” stop “smirking,” stop being deadbeat fathers, stop getting unearned government benefits…and on and on and on. The only Black people this pastor approved of, in fact, were a select few with conservative views similar to his, who never challenged his white American authority in any way. In addition, he wasn’t too kind about poor white people who rely on welfare (such as my family when I was a kid). He was proud that his ancestors came from the British Isles and they brought the good old-fashioned Bible with them and they built this nation and they taught him values—unlike those low-born, urban thugs out there.
Don’t tell me that white Christian conservatives aren’t racist today!
Racism hides behind code words. These code words are known as “dog whistles” to some, but they’re mostly just thinly veined propaganda. Here are some code phrases to watch out for: “Western civilization was built on Christian values,” “In the good old days of the 1950s,” “When America was great,” and even “Biblical values” and “family values.” Yes, “family values” is a racist code phrase. Because these people believe that the Black family is dead, and that Black people cannot form successful families, they think that a Bible-believing, white family is the answer to everything. This reasoning mirrors American history, in which slave families were ruthlessly split up to be sold because the slaveholders believed that Black people inherently lacked family instincts. Also, they mourn the fact that these family values began to fade out during the cultural revolutions of the 1960s—the decade in which both of the main cultural revolutions, the Civil Rights Movement and the emergence of rock and roll, were fueled by the Black community. They may try to skirt the fact that they believe upholding Black civil rights has ruined America, but they really believe it, deep down inside.
And there are many more racist code phrases. The best thing to do if you encounter them is to contradict them as outright falsehoods.
As conservative Christians in the 2020s, we have invented a whole new list of sins. These sins are nothing like they were in previous decades. Here are the top sins: social distancing, wearing a mask, getting vaccinated, voting Democratic, and being “woke.” What exactly does it mean to be woke? It is another one of those code words that is thrown around vaguely to mean whatever the speaker wants. Yet it causes extreme emotional reactions because of the strong images it brings to mind. Many Christians who are forever calling other people “snowflakes” for not tolerating their conservatism, at the same time, have a “cancel culture” of no longer associating with anyone they consider “woke.” The Salvation Army may be on the “woke” list one day for seeming to support BLM, and the next day, it may be a popular preacher who shows empathy for BLM protesters. The next day, it may be a longtime friend who disagrees with the generally accepted view of racial reconciliation. Peaceful disagreement doesn’t exist anymore. Now, the question that God will ask everyone on Judgment Day, is, apparently, “Were you woke or were you not woke?” (My fingers are sore from all these air quotes.)
Just today, I saw a Facebook post on a Christian “discernment” page. It showed a crowd of Black Lives Matter protesters shrouded in darkness, holding signs that read STOP WHITE OPRESSION. Facing off against the evil protesters was one lone, brave, white Christian, holding a cross high. Written in small letters above the pictures were the words “Viking Christian.” This left little doubt as to what the creator of this post thinks about racial reconciliation and Black people in general. Sure, isn’t that being Christlike, to demonize all Black people and glorify all white people?
Do you want to know what the top deplorable sin is in the eyes of God? Pride. Check out the book of Proverbs. There are also plenty of verses in there about the righteous person standing up against the poor being oppressed. Don’t let people kid you—not even your church. There is no “sin of the year.” Wokeness is not necessarily a sin. White American nationalism is a sin because it can’t be separated from pride.
But it’s impossible to talk very long about this touchy subject. The white Christians I know are very eager to stand up for truth. They are so eager to stand up for truth that they annoy the shit out of me. I wish they’d stop standing up for the truth for three seconds and listen to what I have to say. I’m not asking them to agree with me or change their minds—I just wish they’d understand me in some way. I wish we could get across this impossible woke-versus-anti-woke barrier in some way! Ugh! Instead, they bully and intimidate everyone and anyone who shows the teeniest little smidge of liberalism. Paranoid and seizing upon every conspiracy theory they can find, they cling to morally bankrupt former presidents, tout sketchy agendas in all capital letters, call their opponents stupid; and yes, of course, take out all their pent-up, narrow-minded frustration on Black people along with other minorities.
People didn’t use to be so brazen about it. They didn’t used to be so bitter, either. There is a spirit of harshness, meanness, and bitterness that is ripping relationships to shreds, leaving cold silences for former friends, and screaming on the street corners. People are so bitter and sure of themselves these days, that the only way to stay safe is to make sure you don’t empathize with anyone different from you. Don’t spend too much time with people of different backgrounds. They might change your mind about the deeply-held views you’ve had since childhood. If you see them as people just like yourself, then you will no longer have a basis to be divided. So stay unified—and stay white! We built this country, anyhow, didn’t we?
I guess that’s the reason the Christians I know are so insistent that they’re fighting a culture war. It’s part of human nature to want to stay divided, at war, and on the winning side. Yet they’re pitifully wrong. If they look too closely at the culture war they’re fighting, they’ll see that they’re fighting for all the wrong things. It’s not Christian at all. In fact, it’s a race war, and they either unconsciously or consciously see Black Americans as their opponents.
We are not the light, and they are not the darkness. I am surrounded by racist Christians in a world of wokeness, in which nobody listens to each other or cares about each other. And I’m still trying to find my place in a world that doesn’t understand.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Have you ever wondered why Blacks have dark skin? Back in the days of my youth, my pastors believed it an important question to answer. Now, no one ever asked, “have you ever wondered where Whites get their light skin?” What was vitally important was sussing out a definitive answer for why some people had Black skin. The easy answers, of course, were melanin and proximity to the equator, but when you believe the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God, the right answer to this question must come from the Bible. After all, the Bible is God’s supernatural answer book. Whatever the Bible says about history, biology, and genetics is true. Now, the Bible never explicitly explains why Blacks have dark skin, but since Adam and Eve were White, well, where did Blacks come from? No amount of white-on-white breeding will produce Black children, so there must be a “Biblical” answer to why so many people have dark skin, right?
As a young Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB), I was taught that Genesis 4 clearly revealed to any racist who wanted to know why Blacks had dark skin. Genesis 4:15 says:
And the Lord said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.
Genesis 4 details the story of Cain murdering his brother Abel. One of God’s punishments for Cain was setting a “mark” upon him. More than a few Baptist preachers, especially Southern Baptist segregationists in the South, believed that this mark was God turning Cain’s oh-so-European White skin Black. These Jesus-loving racists went to great lengths to trace the lineage of Cain down through history, showing — in their minds anyway — that Cain’s descendants had Black skin. Of important note was the fact that Noah’s son Ham married a Black descendant of Cain, thus continuing the curse down through human history. I knew of Baptist preachers who spent countless hours tracing the genealogy of Cain through the pages of the Bible. These preachers believed that Blacks were intellectually inferior to Whites, and were best suited for manual labor. Slavery in the United States was justified by Christian pastors who believed the Bible taught that Blacks were a cursed race that needed redemption. Slavery, then, was an act of benevolence — White slave owners giving their Black charges a far better life than they would have had in Africa or the Caribbean islands. This wretched thinking continues to drive how the United States interacts with countries with populations that are primarily non-White — you know, Trump’s “shit-hole countries.” These poor, inferior, ill-bred, ignorant people need our benevolence and help, even if it is given to them through military force or a coup.
By the time I left Midwestern Baptist College in the mid-1970s, I had cleansed my mind of the racist training of my youth. Sadly, Midwestern was rife with students and professors who believed that Blacks were inferior/cursed. I don’t believe the founder of the college, Tom Malone, held these views. After all, the college had a handful of Black students, far more than Bob Jones University had at the time. Malone, by the way, was a graduate of Bob Jones College and came of age in Alabama in the 1920s. If he was racist, it wouldn’t have surprised me, but I never saw anything from him that suggested he was. The same couldn’t be said for the man who was in charge of the bus ministry. Under his watch, he canceled all the bus routes to and from Detroit. These routes normally ran in the afternoon, bringing riders to what was called “B Sunday School.” Since most of the riders from Detroit were Black, students considered the afternoon “B Sunday School” to be “Black Sunday School.”
All freshman students were required to work on a bus route. After I returned to college for my sophomore year, I quit the bus ministry, choosing instead to preach on Sundays at a drug rehabilitation center in Detroit. The bus director cornered me one day as I was leaving school and chastised me for quitting my bus route. He told me I had a bad attitude — no shit, Sherlock! The bus director got more than he bargained for. I replied, “And you are a racist! I know why you canceled “B Sunday School!” We parted company, never to speak to one another again.
In the late 1980s, I attended a Street Preacher’s Conference in Washington, DC. While there, I met a man who was a rabid follower of IFB preacher Peter Ruckman. As we were fanning out from the Washington Mall to preach, the man told me that he didn’t bother witnessing to Blacks. “They don’t have souls, you know, so there’s no reason for us to witness to them.” I couldn’t believe what this “godly” man was saying. He was condemning to Hell a vast portion of the human race, all because they had the wrong skin color. I told him I didn’t believe such nonsense, and then I quickly walked away.
Racism is alive and well in the IFB church movement, the Southern Baptist Convention, and Evangelicalism as a whole. Thanks to our former White-Supremacist-in-Chief, Donald Trump, racists driven deep into the closets of Evangelicalism have now found the light of day and are quite willing to vocalize their racism and bigotry. That a Christian member of Congress can ponder out loud his wonderment over White supremacy being a “bad” thing, and Christian Fox News hosts can say that there’s no racism in the United States, tells me that we are far from living in a post-race world. And if God is for racism and bigotry, who are we to argue with the white Jesus, right?
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Recently, my husband and I were taking a walk when we passed by a neighbor’s house. The neighbors are a couple who have kids close in age to our own kids. Sam* coached our kids in baseball and served a term on town council, and Deanna* volunteered at the elementary and middle school. Both are active in the town’s Catholic church as well as in the community. Sam and Deanna were outside as we were passing by, so they came over to talk with us. Their older son Dan* just finished his junior year of college, and the younger son Nate* is a senior in high school. Dan chose to go to a Catholic university located about an hour and a half away from home, and according to his parents, it was the right place for him. We discussed how our kids were doing and asked where Nate was planning to attend college in the fall. Sam and Deanna talked about the pros and cons of the different schools that Nate had visited. Nate was initially interested in a particular large university, but he thought it was located “in the middle of nowhere” and was not thrilled about being stuck on a campus without access to a wider community. While another school located in Boston had a fantastic business program that Nate wanted to attend, he thought there were “too many Asians” at the school. Another school in Boston was ranked highly and had a great location, but there were “too many Jewish students” at the school. Deanna said that Nate really wanted to go to a school “where most of the students look like him because he’s not used to being in the minority”. Deanna and Sam stated that Nate needed to attend school where he would feel comfortable, “you know what I mean?”
Holy f&*%, that was out loud. Outside. In public.
My husband and I were stunned. I was speechless, and being quicker on his feet than I am on mine, my husband talked about our daughter’s college. Just days before we had returned from attending her college graduation. While located in the South, her university reports that 39.5% of its students are white while the remainder of the student body is composed of a wide variety of students from other races and ethnicities. Our daughter’s friend group reflects the diversity of the school. She loved having friends from a wide array of backgrounds, leading to deep, meaningful discussions. We told Sam and Deanna that our daughter had benefited tremendously from her friendships with a diverse array of people, and that we believed that particular university was the right choice for her. Sam and Deanna nodded along, but I could feel their skepticism. We quickly and politely wrapped up our conversation and moved on our way.
As we walked away, we saw Sam and Deanna’s Asian neighbor kids outdoors playing. We hoped that the kids didn’t hear that conversation. I was second-guessing myself – should I have spoken out more forcefully, directly calling them out on their racism? Also, I was disturbed by the fact that they assumed that because we were white that we would **wink wink nudge nudge**agree that our kids should attend schools with students who look like them. My husband and I knew that this couple had been Trump supporters in both the 2016 and 2020 elections. For a couple of weeks, they had placed one of those juvenile “Let’s Go Brandon” signs in their yard, and currently they have a “thin blue line” sign. We knew that they were die-hard Republicans, but we did not have proof that they were racists. My son had said that he knew Dan and Nate were Trump supporters, lumping them in with the “football guys” who were either overt Trump supporters or “libertarians” who secretly supported Trump but wanted to pretend to straddle the fence. Now we know.
In the couple of weeks since this interaction, we actively avoid walking past their house. A handful of families that we have known for years through our kids’ school and sports had supported Trump both times around. These are all seemingly respectable white families, active in the community, active in their Catholic church. They have coached my kids. They have volunteered at the school. They keep their lawns neat and are polite when we run into each other around town. Now I question how deeply they have absorbed the more extreme, nasty side of the GOP base. The racism, the misogyny, the anti-LGBTQ sentiment, the xenophobia, the Christian nationalism – how much of that is ingrained in their belief system now? They feel empowered to say it all out loud now, and we should listen. As Maya Angelou said, when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. I believe them.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Have you ever wondered why Blacks have dark skin? Back in the days of my youth, my pastors believed it an important question to answer. Now, no one ever asked, “have you ever wondered where Whites get their light skin?” What was vitally important was sussing out a definitive answer for why some people had Black skin. The easy answers, of course, were melanin and proximity to the equator, but when you believe the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God, the right answer to this question must come from the Bible. After all, the Bible is God’s supernatural answer book. Whatever the Bible says about history, biology, and genetics is true. Now, the Bible never explicitly explains why Blacks have dark skin, but since Adam and Eve were White, well, where did Blacks come from? No amount of white-on-white breeding will produce Black children, so there must be a “Biblical” answer to why so many people have dark skin, right?
