Triggered

A demand is an insistent and peremptory request, made as if by right. Below is a screenshot of the Black Lives Matter movement website:

Don’t stop reading. I ask you to just listen with an open mind. I know this is a touchy, uncomfortable subject for many, but please bear with me.

What does acknowledgement and accountability look like? Has pain and injustice touched each and every black life? Is payback what we are looking for? Is it ever going to be enough? Does this new war on law enforcement fix this? Does the blaming of all white people fix this? Does the canceling of a culture help anyone?

Privilege or the theorists who think it is the root of all of our issues completely miss the point. They are doing exactly to those they view as “privileged”, that they are shouting for those “privileged” not to do!

Privilege is now tied to a skin color. However, it is really, I argue, about social class. The attacks on class are meant to divide. To take from the “haves” and give to the “have nots”. There is resentment attached to this distribution. It is applied to both sides.

Here are some prime examples of privilege I have witnessed personally:

• Wearing $200 sneakers when you have never had a job
• Wearing $300 Beats headphones while living on public assistance
• Having a Smartphone with a data plan which you receive no bill for
• Living in public subsidized housing where you do not have a water bill, where rising property taxes and rents and energy costs have absolutely no effect on the amount of food you can put on your table.
• The ability to go march against, and protest against anything that triggers you, without worrying about calling out of work and the consequences that such behavior brings.
• Having as many children as you want, regardless of your employment status, and be able to send them off to daycare or school you do not pay for.
• Sending your kids to school early for the before school programs and breakfast, keeping them there in the after school program, all at no cost to you.

I know some people are triggered by this. The hate mail is already being written. The anger is brewing. I ask that you take a deep breath and clear your mind. I am not talking about any group of one skin color. The above list applies to all skin colors. It is a class of people that have allowed the government to rule their lives. This dependence has created RESENTMENT, and this RESENTMENT is directed at the wrong people. The triggered class comes from a group of people who lack self-sufficiency and carry the burden of guilt, stress and an inability to know how to achieve independence from this prison of resentment. When a person, or people are given everything, without working for it, there is no sense of pride. These lessons come from family. They are taught in the home. The lack of lessons are also at issue. A culture of dependency is created. It is not on purpose, just human nature and survival.

I argue that when you are accustomed to the above privileges, equality feels like oppression. It is never enough. It is a debt that cannot be repaid. Pride cannot be transferred from person to person. Changes in authority, rules and opportunities will never be enough. Oppression will still seep into the community because oppression becomes a feeling, not a reality. Oppression is a buzzword. The real oppression is dependency and no self-pride.

Poverty, I will argue is not an accident. It is like slavery and oppression. It is man-made and can be removed by the actions of human beings. The systems designed to help people do not actually help. They keep people alive, they do not give them a life. They are not systems designed to really help anyone. They are to just allow existence. I honestly think that those we have given power to know this. Many of them have been in politics, on both sides, for a very long time.

I would suggest that if Black Lives Matter, to Black Lives Matter, they should put their money where their mouths are. They should take the many, many millions of dollars that they have raised in the past few weeks and donate it back to these communities they claim to care about. Stop funding those dollars to political campaigns and candidates who have had long enough to help everyone, yet fail to really do so. Physically rebuild those communities that have been broken for so long. Take that money and eliminate the politics from the equation. Stop funding riots and foster real, concrete change.

Here is the list of seven social sins given by Mahatma Ghandi: politics without principles, wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, and worship without sacrifice.

The non-accident of poverty has been designed to be the new form of imprisonment on a class of people that are being manipulated for politics and wealth. Not a color of people! A class. Ultimately wealth without work and politics without principles undermines the ability of this class of people dependent on the government to not just live, but to have a life.

Social programs that are designed to help a class of individuals is systemically motivating for dependency. These social programs do not offer a real way out. They are not temporary fixes. They are substitutes for work, pride and family.

There is a narrative that systematic racism is the primary obstacle to people of color. This is the assumption that bias holds an entire color of people back. This is an impression given to the world through the media from those who are elevated to positions of power. These are people sometimes of the same skin color, but of a different social class.

I will argue that systematic racism is not our actual problem. The concept or structure of the family is the factor that permeates the narrative and has the most impact on behavioral patterns that influence across colors and social class. Family is where everything is and should be influenced in development and when it it lacking structure, stressors cannot help but impact. I will argue that this is where the culture of America took their turn. This is where our biggest impact has been felt. The destruction of the family has created a class of society, regardless of color, that has been subject to dependency and resentment.

What I argue should be demanded of Black Lives Matter, is a take-back of family in cultures that lack it. According to the U.S. Census Bureau in 2018:

It found that a majority of the 73.7 million American children under age 18 live in families with two parents (69 percent)—a decrease from 88 percent in 1960. Of those 50.7 million children living in families with two parents, 47.7 million live with two married parents and 3 million live with two unmarried parents.

Broken down by race, however, the statistics show stark differences.  The percentage of White children under 18 who live with both parents almost doubles that of Black children, according to the data. While 74.3 percent of all White children below the age of 18 live with both parents, only 38.7 percent of African-American minors can say the same.

So here is what I am suggesting: family becomes our main focus. We turn towards making it our priority. Stop arguing with each other about our differences, for they will always remain. Find out what makes us similar. Shout it from the rooftops. Encourage, talk about and foster healthy relationships. Dig in and do hard work with regards to marriage and family. I will not argue about black lives matter. Yes they do. All lives matter. Yep I said it! Life matters. Period. Not living, but a life.

Stop making excuses or trying to fit immoral behavior into the folds of our culture. The reason why there is strife, anger and resentment is because it has no place. We are a country founded on moral principles. These have not gone away. I will argue that those who want to excuse bad behavior have tried to chip away at this foundation, but these are only reminders that we need to spread morality to our neighbors.

We need to live by example, hold God in our hearts and refuse to be triggered by immorality and those who steer us towards this path. We need to drop the guilt trips and blame and really talk to each other. Get to know people individually. Drop the triggered attitude laced with anger and resentment. I would guarantee that we would find a greater love than hate.

Good versus evil will always be our problem. Find good and God will be there, I guarantee. Demands will never get us where we need to be together. A war on law enforcement will never get us to where we need to be either. A heart filled with good, has no actual room for anger and resentment. A heart filled with good cannot be triggered in the least.