An Open Letter to My Black Friends About My Own Racism

At some point in my life, I drank the Kool Aide, and grew up with the belief that “there must be something wrong with black people.” When I see a black person, or a large group of black people, something in my soul whispers things about them simply because of the color of their skin.

I’ve also bought in to the popular belief that our system is on your side, and that if things aren’t working out for your people, it’s because you just can’t get your act together.

My camp has tried to call it different names – “implicit bias,” “prejudice,” etc. Best to call it what it is.

Racism.

I’m sure you’ve noticed, and been victim of it on multiple occasions.

I’ve repented before God and now I’m taking my repentance to you. I ask for your forgiveness, and I pledge to continue my journey of personal emancipation from this unholy spirit.

There’s some freedom that’s come out of this – and it’s changing my life. I realize that you and I are the same – It’s like breathing fresh air. I’m also free to reconsider typically white narratives about you so that I might have my reality reoriented to something closer to the truth.

I’ve done my homework, and it’s left me angry. Our system is skewed against you. It isn’t fair. Some of you will rise above it, and my people – white evangelicals especially – will cry out with righteous indignation, “see – the problem is with blacks, not with the system.” Continue reading An Open Letter to My Black Friends About My Own Racism

What Almost 20 Years of Marriage Finally Taught Me About the Worst Parts of Marriage

My wife is one of the best people I know. And hot.

Still, marriage is one of the hardest things I’ve ever attempted. It’s that way for everyone. I’ve never met anyone who’s been married longer than 10 years who hasn’t considered divorce at some point.

There were a few times in the early years of our life together that I thought I had married the wrong person. There were things about my wife that took me completely by surprise – things that I had a super hard time dealing with.

It’s that way for everyone. I’ve never met anyone who’s been married longer than 10 years who hasn’t run into something about their spouse that they really don’t like.

The picture of marriage that our culture paints over and over again drives me crazy. You fall in love with your soul mate and enter eternal bliss where you fall more madly in love each sparkly sun-filled morning. I’ve never met anyone who’s experienced that. I have however met a ton of newlyweds, or folks who’ve been married less than a year, who have this vision firmly cemented in their minds.

Bad Relationship?

I’m now almost 20 years into this marriage thing and finally discovered something that I wish hadn’t taken almost 20 years to discover.

What I hate most about my wife has almost nothing to do with my wife.

At multiple points in my before-married life I was mistreated by people close to me. If you’re an earthling, you’re pre-married life went the same way. It’s impossible to make it to adulthood without getting hurt – really bad, really frequently.

The majority of us don’t deal with this well, and enter into married life with a mountain of accumulated, unaddressed damage. And when someone comes along and rubs their finger in it (enter our lovely spouses), we feel pain. Continue reading What Almost 20 Years of Marriage Finally Taught Me About the Worst Parts of Marriage

Is it Assault Rifles and Mental Illness – or a Simple Retaliation Issue?

I know – the last thing we need is one more Sunday morning blogger claiming to have the answer for why the US has recently had more mass killings than any country in the developed world.

But there’s one more thing the US does better than everyone else – it’s something that isn’t getting much air time as we scratch our heads and try to figure out WTF’s happening. While I don’t think the argument I’ll be dumping in your lap this morning is a slam dunk solution to our problem, it at least deserves a seat at the table.

According to the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System, the numbers of children dying from abuse/maltreatment have been steadily increasing in the US. According to UNICEF, we’re second only to Mexico in the number of children who die each year as a direct result of maltreatment at the hands of a parent of guardian.

In a nutshell, we’re really good at child abuse.

And there’s no shortage of research linking child abuse to all manner of mental/social disorders, especially the ones that put a person at risk for buying an assault rifle and doing something bad with it.

I don’t think the problem is with our kids, I think it’s with us. Why are we so regularly beating, sexually assaulting, neglecting, and screaming at our kids?

“The challenge of ending child abuse is the challenge of breaking the link between adults’ problems and children’s pain.”

from UNICEF’s Global Child Maltreatment Report 2003

Continue reading Is it Assault Rifles and Mental Illness – or a Simple Retaliation Issue?