Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 265 ｜ Police Shootings, COVID-19 Injustice, and the Weight of the World

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Friday. I hope everyone has had a great week. Usually

00:00:15.620 we do an interview on Friday, but you guys got an interview on Monday and on Wednesday

00:00:22.100 this week. And so we are doing something a little bit different. I want to cover some

00:00:26.220 news stories that have gone on this week, at least at the beginning of the week and tell

00:00:30.580 you my thoughts on them. So it's going to be a little bit more casual, a little bit looser

00:00:35.020 than usual. We also have some awesome interviews going on next week that you guys are going

00:00:41.180 to love. I'm actually going to be on vacation. And so we pre-recorded those and they're going

00:00:46.960 to be really, really insightful conversations. And I know you guys are going to love them,

00:00:52.980 but I want to give you some news insight today since we've kind of been stepping away from

00:00:58.860 some of the contentious issues that have been going on. If you're interested in knowing my

00:01:04.900 thoughts and the analysis of the Supreme Court case that was just decided, make sure you go

00:01:09.280 listen to Wednesday's podcast. I got a ton of questions about that on Instagram, but we covered

00:01:14.360 that on Wednesday. And so please make sure that you go and you check that out if you're interested.

00:01:19.500 So first, I want to talk about this Atlanta shooting that happened. So there is a 27-year-old

00:01:25.460 named Richard Brooks, who was shot and killed by police officers in Atlanta. And this is erupting,

00:01:32.480 maybe not as intensely, but it's erupting along kind of the same lines in the same narrative as the

00:01:37.840 George Floyd shooting, of course, saying that all cops are bad, that this cop used disproportionate

00:01:44.120 force, and that this was an instance of injustice. And of course, the understood narrative is that

00:01:50.140 this was racialized injustice, that because he was a Black man killed by a white police officer,

00:01:55.500 that this was an instance of not just individual racism, but as the narrative goes, systemic racism.

00:02:02.000 Wendy's, the Wendy's where this occurred was actually lit on fire after this happened,

00:02:08.740 the day after this happened, not by a member of Black Lives Matter, by the way, but actually by

00:02:13.640 some white activist, maybe a member of Antifa, maybe not. And of course, this was in protest to

00:02:20.080 what happened to Rayshard Brooks. But we should ask ourselves if what happened in this scenario is the

00:02:25.900 same as what happened with George Floyd before we jump on board. I mean, I already saw some people,

00:02:30.940 some Christians that I follow, jumping on board and saying, you know, justice for him,

00:02:35.540 not actually knowing exactly what happened. Now, before I show you some of the video,

00:02:40.500 I will say that when I first heard about this, read about this, and saw at least one angle of the

00:02:45.480 video that I thought, this is wrong. This is wrong. So I'll tell, I'll narrate what happens before I

00:02:51.040 show you the video for those of you who are not watching on YouTube. So this guy was in the Wendy's

00:02:57.120 drive-thru line reportedly, and he was asleep because he was under the influence. So we're not talking

00:03:01.440 about in the parking lot. We're talking about actually in the Wendy's drive-thru line. So

00:03:05.220 people were having to go around him. Someone at Wendy's called the police, which is normal.

00:03:10.240 You've got a drunk guy sitting in the car and the car won't move and he's actually in the drive-thru

00:03:15.140 line. They don't know what he's going to do. And of course, if he is in a car that was just

00:03:19.420 previously moving, that means that he is probably going to be driving drunk. And that poses a risk

00:03:24.200 to everyone's life that is around him and that will be encountering him on the road. So whoever called

00:03:28.960 the police did the right thing. The police show up and you see them having a conversation that was

00:03:33.480 very cordial, that was very polite. It was obvious that he was intoxicated. He said that he had had a

00:03:39.040 few drinks. He does the breathalyzer. He's over the limit. They do the field sobriety test. He

00:03:44.280 fails the field sobriety test and they arrest him because he is drunk driving. Now, a lot of people

00:03:52.040 say, oh, well, he was parked. No, he was parked in the drive-thru line, not in a parking spot. But even

00:03:57.180 if he were parked in a parking spot and he were in his car, there would still be a reason, at least

00:04:03.720 for concern there, because you don't know when he's going to leave. Is he going to drive drunk? And

00:04:07.840 then, like we already said, is that going to threaten the life of someone else? So there's still

00:04:11.500 a dangerous threat here in someone being in their car while they are drunk. But he was in the drive-thru

00:04:16.740 line. So the police tried to arrest him. They put his hands behind his back and they go to arrest

00:04:22.040 him while he resists arrest. He tries to flail around, get down on the ground. He actually

00:04:26.520 manages to basically overpower them. And then he runs away. They try to tase him and they actually

00:04:31.800 yell first, I'm going to tase you. And so they try to tase him and he grabs the taser of one of the

00:04:37.580 officers. He turns around to run, but then he turns back around and he tries to tase one of the

00:04:44.320 officers. And that is when, sadly, very sadly, he gets shot and killed. So this is obviously not the

00:04:51.240 same situation as George Floyd, where Derek Chauvin pressed his knee into his neck until he later

00:04:58.720 died, which is pretty obvious. Like there's no second side to the story there. And we all collectively,

00:05:05.140 yeah, said that was wrong. Of course, it became contentious and splintered and divided when the

00:05:09.920 political narrative surrounding what to do and what the heart behind that crime was. That's when

00:05:15.960 things kind of blew up and we no longer agreed anymore, unfortunately. But with this case, it's

00:05:22.720 obviously different. He stole an officer's weapon. He tried to injure an officer. And now let me say

00:05:28.160 that when I first saw this video and when I first heard about it, I thought that, you know, this is, 0.93

00:05:34.440 did he really have to shoot and kill him? Like, was this really necessary? A taser isn't a deadly 0.77

00:05:40.780 weapon. But let me, let me play you the video. And then I'll tell you how my thoughts have, have,

00:05:47.060 have evolved a little bit based on what I know now.

00:05:51.780 Will you take a preliminary breath test for me? It's a yes or no.

00:05:55.520 I don't want to refuse anything. It's yes or no. It's completely up to you.

00:05:59.480 Yes, I will. Okay. Just wait here while I grab.

00:06:01.660 Thanks. Do you don't remember what kind of drinks they were?

00:06:03.440 No, sir.

00:06:04.260 All right.

00:06:04.660 I really don't, Mr. Ross.

00:06:05.700 All right. I think you've had too much to drink to be dry. Put your hands behind your back for me.

00:06:08.880 So that was just a, that was just a little bit of the video, but you saw that. I mean,

00:06:27.940 the police were very calm, tried to do the right thing. And he was very polite as well. Like he was

00:06:32.140 very calm in their conversation, but they had to put him under arrest. You can't just let a guy go

00:06:37.160 who is going to drunk, drunkenly drive and risk the lives of other people. I mean,

00:06:42.180 when he resisted arrest, they tried to overpower him physically. They tried to taste him.

00:06:46.600 It does seem like this police officer used his gun as the final solution. Now in my,

00:06:53.820 I would say probably naivete. My first reaction was, do you really have to kill a guy who has a 1.00

00:06:59.380 taser? I mean, because I want cops to use proportionate force. I do not want cops to

00:07:05.160 use disproportionate force. I am not someone who believes that cops should just, are just free to

00:07:10.120 do whatever they want to. I don't think most people believe that, but I am not automatically

00:07:14.320 someone who is always going to take the side of the police officer. I think there are some people

00:07:18.420 like that. That is not my knee jerk reaction. Actually, you know, some people think that,

00:07:23.460 oh, conservatives think one way, liberals think another way. That is not my knee jerk reaction.

00:07:27.440 My reaction is always a sadness and heartbreak over the loss of, of life. I always want to do

00:07:35.280 everything possible to preserve people's lives, even the life of someone who was doing something

00:07:40.340 wrong. So my first knee jerk reaction was that was wrong. That shouldn't have happened. He was

00:07:45.040 running away. The cop shouldn't have shot him. But as I've talked to police officers, as I've seen

00:07:50.240 more video footage and as I've learned about it, I mean, a taser is incapacitating. So if he had turned

00:07:55.680 around and he had shot these police officers with the taser and they were incapacitated and he is

00:08:00.760 running around with this taser drunk, we don't know what else he could do. And he already demonstrated

00:08:06.960 that he is willing and able to steal a police officer's weapon. So he could have just as easily

00:08:11.660 taken the police officer's gun as well. And then of course, not only their lives would have been in

00:08:16.000 danger, but the lives of other people who came in contact with, with Rayshard Brooks. So a lot of

00:08:24.180 people are saying, most police officers that we are seeing, and a lot of people even on both sides

00:08:29.260 of the issue are saying, okay, this is not the same as George Floyd. This was actually a justified

00:08:34.580 shooting. Now, do I wish in an ideal world that police officers wouldn't have to shoot to kill

00:08:40.900 in these situations? Of course I do. Like I wish that you could just shoot someone's foot. That is

00:08:45.460 what I want. My desire is always the preservation of life. Always. In every situation, I desire the

00:08:52.980 preservation of life until it is not possible. So yes, my pro-life ethic means that I want that

00:09:00.280 person's life to be preserved. Driving drunk is not a death sentence. It does not deserve capital

00:09:05.780 punishment. And of course, I don't, I don't believe that. I wish it hadn't worked out this way,

00:09:10.920 but I can say that while simultaneously saying that this was probably a justified decision by this

00:09:18.940 police officer, as you saw, they did everything they possibly could before this happened to make

00:09:24.720 sure that, okay, we're just going to arrest this guy and this is going to be a peaceful thing. But

00:09:29.720 unfortunately, it didn't end that way. But this police officer, he got, he got fired immediately.

00:09:35.680 So the mayor fired him because, you know, she's under fire with everything that's been going on,

00:09:41.040 which, okay, so if this, if this is not a case where it is justified for a police officer to use

00:09:47.560 this kind of force, then what case is actually justified? And are police officers ever able to

00:09:53.700 not just defend themselves, but again, defend the people that are going to come in contact with this

00:09:58.360 intoxicated person who is now running around with a taser? So I think that I was probably wrong in my

00:10:03.960 knee-jerk reaction. Again, my initial reaction is always going to be that that person shouldn't have

00:10:08.980 died. Like that's always going to be my first reaction. So if that is your first reaction to

00:10:13.560 that, I don't think it's a bad first reaction. I think that it's good to have that first reaction

00:10:17.700 and then to back up. But we also have to be able to back up and look objectively at the situation and

00:10:22.180 look at the facts and look at the footage and understand what was the correct decision in that

00:10:27.820 case. Unfortunately, the police and our conversations about the police have become so politicized

00:10:35.020 that we are unable to have any kind of objective dialogue about what is proportionate police force

00:10:41.940 and what is not. If that was the conversation that we were having right now, I think that would be a

00:10:45.960 good conversation. Like if we were talking about police reform, like if we were talking about more

00:10:51.340 transparency, if we were talking about getting rid of public police unions, which I have suggested

00:10:56.560 before, if we were talking about more tactical training or more de-escalation training, if those were the

00:11:03.440 conversations that we were having with the goal, with the shared goal of preserving as much life

00:11:09.100 as possible, which means, by the way, not just the life of the perpetrator or the suspect, but also

00:11:15.220 the lives of people who are affected by crime, mostly women and children in poor areas. If our goal was

00:11:20.940 all to preserve life, then we could have these kind of objective conversations about, okay, let's look

00:11:25.720 at this case by case. Let's look at the different issues. Let's look to see if this shooting was

00:11:29.420 justified and if it's not. But that is not the conversation that we're having. The

00:11:33.280 conversation that we're having is so extreme. It's one side who is saying, let's actually abolish

00:11:39.100 the police and replace them with, I saw one tweet that said, Planned Parenthood workers and social

00:11:44.680 workers. Like you think that's going to stop the rapists and the assaulters and the murderers and

00:11:51.000 the pedophiles and the child traffickers? It's not. They're not scared of Ms. Susie's social worker

00:11:57.580 or Ms. Kathy Planned Parenthood staffer. Like I can promise you that. We need the police.

00:12:07.440 Okay, so I've never done this before, but I actually recorded today's episode, most of today's

00:12:13.260 episode back on Tuesday where I had some information, but now I have more information and I just wanted

00:12:19.020 to make sure that you guys are as up to date as possible. So I'm inserting this little segment to be

00:12:24.700 able to tell you the developments that have come about with this particular case. And so this officer

00:12:30.600 that we're talking about was charged with felony murder by the district attorney here in Fulton

00:12:36.420 County, Georgia. His name is Paul Howard. So he was charged with felony murder, which means if he is

00:12:41.760 convicted on these charges, then he will not only go to jail for the rest of his life, he will also be

00:12:49.320 subject to the death penalty. So what you now know about the case and how this person unfortunately

00:12:56.740 resisted arrest, grabbed the taser, was running around and tried to actually kill these or tried

00:13:03.200 to incapacitate at least these officers with the taser. That is what led to him being shot and killed.

00:13:11.580 Uh, that apparently, uh, was the, was a kind of scenario that leads to possibly the death penalty

00:13:19.760 for a police officer. We need to ask ourselves if this is justice. As I've said on this episode,

00:13:26.380 like I am always for the preservation of life. My knee jerk reaction was that he shouldn't have

00:13:31.440 shot. However, I have talked to a lot of people, uh, since I made that reaction, I've also read a lot

00:13:38.040 and a quote really convicted me. It was a Thomas Sowell quote that said, you know, paraphrasing

00:13:43.660 shame on the people that, uh, from the comfort of their own homes and from the security of, you know,

00:13:49.340 their own bedrooms are criticizing the decisions that police officers make when their very life is

00:13:55.980 on the line. And that's not to say that we shouldn't hold police officers accountable or that

00:14:00.040 they shouldn't follow a good standard of ethics and they should, they shouldn't be impartial. Of course,

00:14:04.820 they believe all of those things are just and right and good. However, when it comes to a situation like

00:14:10.540 this, where there is clearly contention, where this person was clearly resisting arrest and he was also

00:14:15.660 armed and he was in a crowded, uh, parking lot, we really have to ask ourselves if it is justice

00:14:22.340 that this person, that this police officer in this kind of scenario is being charged with murder,

00:14:28.900 with murder. So the DA, Paul Howard, he has said that, you know, a taser isn't a deadly weapon and

00:14:35.400 that he wasn't a threat to anyone. Well, here is the same district attorney just a few weeks ago.

00:14:41.380 For appointing a taser at Mrs. Pilgrim. And, uh, as many of you all know, under Georgia law,

00:14:47.740 a taser is considered as a deadly weapon under Georgia law.

00:14:51.620 So when it came to a police officer using a taser on a civilian, it was considered a deadly weapon.

00:14:56.920 But in this case, all of the sudden, just a few weeks later, it's not a deadly weapon.

00:15:01.140 And I think I can tell you why this is happening. So first of all, the DA was bringing his charges

00:15:07.900 against this officer, um, in front of media cameras rather than in private. So that kind of

00:15:13.620 changes the performative nature of this whole thing. But also let's just like learn a little bit,

00:15:19.920 um, about him. So currently this district attorney is in a runoff election. So he is obviously,

00:15:26.740 wanting to win his runoff election, but not only that, but he has some things to

00:15:31.320 distract from. So he can win this election. There are allegations leveled against him. And this is

00:15:37.420 not the first time this has happened of stealing money from a nonprofit. So this is according to

00:15:41.700 the Atlanta journal constitution. He received an additional $25,000 in salary supplements from

00:15:46.960 the city of Atlanta that he funneled through a nonprofit. He has as CEO, the Atlanta journal

00:15:51.960 constitution and channel two action news have learned. That means Howard padded his pay with

00:15:56.660 $195,000 of the $250,000 in grant money. The city signed over to the DA's office in two checks in

00:16:04.300 2014 and 2016, the final $25,000 in payments were disclosed in a recent letter from the state ethics

00:16:10.920 commission that notified Howard, he will face two more allegations of violating state campaign finance

00:16:16.880 law. So this is a proven thing that he funneled money through the nonprofit that he is the CEO of

00:16:21.960 to be able to pay himself. So that is the current district attorney that is charging this police

00:16:28.360 officer with murder, with possible penalty, with the possible death penalty. Also, not only that, he's

00:16:34.140 got some other things to distract from. He is, this DA is facing multiple sexual harassment allegations

00:16:39.380 according to the AJC. We're talking about a dozen sexual harassment allegations over the past

00:16:46.400 couple decades or so. So this is the person who is bringing these charges. He's got a lot of reasons

00:16:53.360 to distract people from the problems that could prevent him from winning his runoff election.

00:17:00.380 Now, that doesn't mean necessarily those things in and of itself doesn't mean that this was the wrong

00:17:05.840 decision. But from what we know, it is at the very least contentious. All of the police officers that

00:17:11.360 you talk to will say, you know, this is this is about is as fair as it gets. Now, there is a rumor

00:17:19.300 and I didn't see this, but someone said that the police officer kicked him while he was down. If that

00:17:25.040 is the case, like that's a problem to me. That really disturbs me. I don't like that. There's no reason to be

00:17:29.980 that aggressive if someone is shot to the ground. And so maybe that's information that is playing to

00:17:35.980 this. But when you look at this entire scenario and look at the fact, look at the body cam footage

00:17:40.840 that shows that this guy, this police officer, these two police officers were deescalating the

00:17:46.840 situation for over 25 minutes. I mean, and this guy grabbed their taser and ran away. I don't know

00:17:54.660 what other situation it would be warranted for a police officer to use some kind of force, not for

00:18:00.100 protection for themselves, but for the crowded parking lot, for all of the people that are that are

00:18:04.580 around. So I think that we have to be really careful when we are saying, hey, we want justice.

00:18:10.020 We want justice. And we cheer at a murder charge like this. We need to ask ourselves, are we really

00:18:15.460 wanting justice or are we just looking for the harshest punishment against the person who did

00:18:20.260 something that we perceive as wrong or as we don't like? Because that's not actual justice. Again,

00:18:26.220 God's justice is proportionate. It is direct. It is truthful and it is impartial. And I'm not sure that

00:18:34.280 you could say that these charges are any of these things. And there's another part of this that I

00:18:39.220 personally find disturbing. So no matter, here's what I want to make clear, no matter what you've

00:18:44.660 done in your past, if, for example, George Floyd, it doesn't matter to me what he had done in his

00:18:49.480 past. It doesn't matter to me what his criminal record was. It was still very obvious what Derek

00:18:54.180 Chauvin, the police officer did, was wrong. So nothing that he had ever done justifies even what

00:18:59.920 he was doing right there, right then, forging a $20 bill, whatever it was. It doesn't justify what

00:19:05.020 Derek Chauvin did. So what I'm about to say about this person, this perpetrator, it doesn't justify

00:19:12.780 alone anything that happened. But I think that we should be able to have conversations about police

00:19:18.320 brutality. Let's have conversations about what was the right decision and the reforms that are being made

00:19:23.080 without elevating these people, these victims, these perpetrators to the level of martyrdom.

00:19:30.580 That also doesn't seem to be justice. That also doesn't seem to be truthful or impartial. I mean,

00:19:37.080 this person, the cops would have already run his history. They would have already known that he

00:19:42.120 has a history of violence. They would have already known that he could possibly be a threat to the

00:19:48.000 people around him. He was on parole after being in prison for a child cruelty, for beating up his

00:19:54.680 child and his wife. And so they would have already known those things. They would have already known

00:19:59.880 that he has a history of violence. And that could have played into the kind of force that they used

00:20:05.720 and the threat that they thought that he had, not just on them, but on everyone else. I think it's

00:20:12.140 also very shameful to George Floyd and his family to conflate these two situations. Like,

00:20:16.640 they're not the same situations at all. They're not the same situations. And I think it hurts the

00:20:21.280 case of people who want to sincerely talk about police reform and want to talk about police

00:20:26.360 brutality. It hurts their case when you conflate all situations and basically say all cops are bad.

00:20:31.880 They should never use any kind of force. They should never protect themselves or the people around

00:20:36.240 them at all. Again, I am always for the preservation of life as much as we possibly can be. I really am.

00:20:42.000 But we also have to be able to be fair and to be objective every time we look at these

00:20:46.760 situations. So I just wanted to make sure that we knew that, that we had that piece of information,

00:20:53.120 and just to kind of give my quick take on that.

00:20:56.580 It is not justice to take a situation like this and to apply an external narrative onto a particular

00:21:08.800 case of someone getting shot by the police and incriminating the person who shot the criminal,

00:21:14.600 who shot the perpetrator, based on a narrative rather than based on the facts of the case. That

00:21:19.540 is not justice. That is not fair. It's also not justice to say that we are going to abolish the

00:21:24.580 police because some bad apples exist. And some bad apples do exist. Maybe whole police departments

00:21:30.480 are bad. And again, I think that we can talk about those reformed in a very serious way. I'm

00:21:35.120 committed to that. Like if it is about upholding personal liberty, if it is about preserving life,

00:21:41.160 I am down for those conversations. Let's have those conversations. I want to reach across the

00:21:45.640 aisle to Democrats, to liberals to talk about, OK, what's the best way that we can reform these

00:21:50.640 communities, that we can reform the police department to preserve as many lives as possible.

00:21:55.480 What I am not going to get on board with is abolishing the police altogether because that is

00:21:59.960 absolute lunacy. Again, the people who are affected by abolishing the police are poor women and poor

00:22:06.720 children who, by the way, according to studies, actually trust the police, actually like the police

00:22:11.580 and feel safer when police are around. The only people who don't like the police are these,

00:22:18.460 or who don't like the police as a whole and who judge police completely, not just based on their

00:22:23.520 own interactions, but just based on the narrative, are far left activists and criminals. Those are

00:22:28.720 the only people that want to abolish the police. And apparently one of them wrote for the New York

00:22:33.560 Times, New York Times op-ed said, yes, we have to abolish the police. Those these activists who don't

00:22:38.840 even live in some of these communities are not affected by the crime rates that will inevitably

00:22:44.140 skyrocket when you abolish the police. The poor women, the poor children, the disabled, the elderly,

00:22:51.020 who all rely on the police to be able to protect themselves. Just police presence, not even talking

00:22:57.900 about just calling the police. Police presence actually minimizes the chances of crime. All of those

00:23:04.400 people who are vulnerable to criminals and to the acts that they perpetrate, they are the ones that are

00:23:12.060 going to be disproportionately affected by this, quote, well-meaning policy of abolishing the police.

00:23:18.700 You and I, you and I, women who live in suburbia, who are armed, like we're not going to be the ones

00:23:25.580 who are most affected by this. Like if we have to, like, you know, people are going to hire private

00:23:30.200 security. All these celebrities talking about abolishing the police, all these journalists,

00:23:33.940 all these politicians talking about abolishing the police. Yeah, you have private security.

00:23:37.240 Like you have armed security. You have armed guards. You're probably armed yourself. You live in nice

00:23:43.360 neighborhoods. Why don't you go live in some of these low-income neighborhoods that rely on police 1.00

00:23:49.020 presence for the preservation of their own lives? And tell me, tell me that you think the police should

00:23:54.560 be abolished. What are you going to do? What are you going to do if you are a child who is, maybe you're

00:24:00.480 home alone, maybe you're 12 years old and you're waiting for your mom to get home from work. Someone breaks

00:24:04.260 into your house, tries to overpower you, tries to rape you, tries to rob you, tries to assault you. 0.96

00:24:09.140 What are you going to do? You're going to call Planned Parenthood, tell them to, hey, I need a late 1.00

00:24:14.300 stage abortion on this robber who is in my house. That's probably not going to work. Probably not

00:24:19.900 going to work. So again, the people who are disproportionately affected by so-called well-meaning

00:24:26.340 liberal policies, all liberal policies, not just this ludicrous idea of abolishing the police,

00:24:31.660 are always the poor minority communities. You need to read the book, Please Stop Helping Us by 1.00

00:24:37.140 Jason Reilly, as well as a lot of books by Thomas Sowell that talk about how liberal policies in the

00:24:44.140 name of helping minority communities always hurt minority communities. They hurt these minority 1.00

00:24:49.500 communities. And I saw an interesting poll the other day that was talking about people's opinions about

00:24:55.160 race relations. And nationally, 56% of people, I think it was according to this Yahoo YouGov poll,

00:25:02.940 said that race relations in America, or maybe 60% are really bad. They're really bad in America. Only 0.77

00:25:10.720 like 20% said that they're really good. And some other people said they don't know. But if you asked

00:25:16.060 people what they think about race relations in their own communities, those numbers switched. So the vast

00:25:22.160 majority of people think that the race relations in their own communities are good. And very few

00:25:27.040 people think that they're bad. So that just shows us that our vision of what's going on between the

00:25:34.240 policing communities, between races, is warped by national news, by national stories, and by national

00:25:41.940 narratives. When if we really just look at how our neighbors interact with each other, how our community

00:25:46.940 members interact with each other, that actually, the healthy relations that you probably have in

00:25:53.100 your own community between the races, is more indicative of what America looks like as a whole

00:25:59.600 than what the media is telling you when they shine light on one specific situation that is not

00:26:04.420 statistically representative of what's going on. And I think we just have to be aware of that. There's

00:26:09.680 something that I've been thinking about in all of this. And I know we're just so weary. We're just so

00:26:14.620 tired of everything that is going on. And I know, honestly, people in the Black community have got

00:26:21.340 to be way more weary and way more tired and way more exhausted because you've got a lot of people

00:26:27.100 that are vying for your care, or vying for your support of a narrative, that are vying for your

00:26:33.440 words, that are vying for your conversations, that want you to educate them, that want you to teach them,

00:26:37.960 that want you to be on their social media page so they can say,

00:26:42.880 oh, look, I'm having this conversation. Look how listening and woke and silent I am. That's

00:26:47.940 got to be really burdensome and really exhausting for you. And I think that something that I've

00:26:53.260 realized in all of this, and I think I saw someone else say this the other day, and I've heard John

00:26:57.360 MacArthur say it, that the news, of course, wears us out. But why does it wear us out? Not just because

00:27:03.200 especially the leftist media is constantly pitting race against race and gender against gender and

00:27:07.940 class against class. This kind of cultural Marxism has just infected the minds of the media and

00:27:13.320 particularly people on the left. And that in and of itself is exhausting because you look in your

00:27:17.740 own heart and you're like, hang on, you're saying that all these people are racist, that all these

00:27:21.140 people are classist. I don't feel that way. The people around me don't feel that way. I hang out

00:27:25.800 with the people a bunch of different races. I hang out with the people a bunch of different

00:27:28.420 socioeconomic classes. I don't see that around me. But oh, that must be true somewhere out there.

00:27:32.720 And I think that gets exhausting because one, we're trying to meet standards that are really

00:27:38.800 just kind of like imaginary. We're trying to fight enemies that in some ways are imaginary. But also,

00:27:44.940 I don't think human beings were made to care about every single issue going on around the world at all

00:27:52.520 times. And so we're very burdened by every single sad story that we see, which we should be. There's

00:27:57.960 nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with caring about things that are going on outside

00:28:01.740 of our little sphere. I think that's actually very good. But constantly, all the time to be weighed

00:28:08.400 with all of the world's problems and being tasked to fix all the world's problems and to post the

00:28:13.960 right things and to say the right things about all the world's problems. I don't think God made us that

00:28:17.940 way. I think that human beings are very exhausted trying to be omnipresent and trying to be omnipotent

00:28:24.900 and trying to be omniscient. We're not. And social media and the national media have made us think

00:28:30.280 that we are and that we have to be in order to really care, in order to be really aware and to

00:28:36.900 be really knowledgeable. God didn't make us to be omni-anything. We are completely finite. What we can

00:28:44.220 know and what we can care about is limited. These things are limited and they should be. Again, I think

00:28:50.740 that we should expand our knowledge, expand our awareness, that we should know problems around the

00:28:57.100 world and around the country. People who look differently than us and sound differently than us.

00:29:00.520 That's all true. But at the end of the day, we cannot carry the world's burdens. Jesus is already

00:29:04.840 doing that. He's carrying the Christian's burden. He is caring for our anxieties. And so we cannot be 0.98

00:29:13.880 the world's savior. All we can do, as I've said so many times, and I just want to repeat this because

00:29:19.840 I think so many of us are exhausted and so many of us are stretched thin, trying to care about

00:29:25.280 everything and do everything. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength.

00:29:30.780 Love your neighbor as yourself. And if that still seems too big for you right now, which it's not

00:29:36.120 because that's what Jesus tells us to do, then let's make it smaller. Like, let's make it even

00:29:40.500 smaller than that. What can you do right now in your community? Because God has placed you on one plot

00:29:46.980 of earth. Like, there's a very small sphere on which God has placed you in the large, large, large span

00:29:53.900 of eternity, in the eternal span of eternity. Like, he has placed you on a very small spot,

00:29:58.980 like a limited period of time and a limited space on the earth. And you're going to act,

00:30:04.760 interact with a limited number of people. What can you do today, right now, to make that tiny plot

00:30:11.780 of eternity better? You are not responsible for the problems of the entire world. You are not

00:30:16.340 responsible to react to every news story. You are not responsible for every instance of injustice

00:30:21.840 because you cannot. You cannot deliver the solutions for every instance of injustice. And God

00:30:26.520 doesn't call you to do that. God doesn't call you to do that. What can you do on your tiny plot of

00:30:31.640 eternity that God has graciously given you? He has given you it to steward, to do something with. How

00:30:36.860 can you beautify and cultivate the space and the time that is around you? So again, even smaller, let's make

00:30:44.240 it even more microscopic and digestible. Like, you might not be able to reform the police or to, you

00:30:52.500 know, determine elections or to in sex trafficking all by yourself. But what can you do in your

00:30:59.620 community to make things better? So you can love and care for your family. Like, you can be a good

00:31:06.240 mom. You can be a good mom. Okay? So that means you can equip your kids to know their Bibles and to love

00:31:13.160 other people and to love God and to know who made them. You can catechize your children. I think that's

00:31:19.120 the right word. So you can have them memorize, for example, the Westminster Catechism. Like, what are you

00:31:24.100 doing on a daily basis to teach your kids the Word of God, to pray for them, to love them? You can be a

00:31:30.220 really good mom. You can be really good at cleaning the dishes. You can be really good at fixing up your

00:31:37.020 home. You can be really good at serving and respecting and loving your husband. You can be really

00:31:41.780 diligent about reading your Bible. You can be really good about helping the vulnerable in your

00:31:45.900 area. You can bring a meal to your neighbor or a meal to the poor community, meals to the poor

00:31:52.700 community. You can give to your church. You can help your church. You can volunteer in your church.

00:31:57.880 You can share the gospel with a lady at the checkout line. You can pay for the groceries of the person

00:32:02.680 behind you. Like, these are all steps of obedience that will never be in the news. They will never be

00:32:08.880 prescribed to you by activists. Like, they will never be the standard of wokeness. But these are

00:32:14.720 the small things that God has called you and I to do to make the tiny plot of eternity that He has

00:32:21.900 given us better. And that is all you are called to do. That is all you are called to do, okay? So stop

00:32:27.640 carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. You don't have the strength to do that. So I know that

00:32:34.440 we've kind of gone off on a tangent here, but that's just because, like, when I read a terrible,

00:32:39.600 sad story like this, like another police shooting and another burning down of a restaurant that,

00:32:44.000 by the way, I guarantee you that minorities also worked at that Wendy's who now don't have a place 0.96

00:32:49.420 to go to to work on Monday, by the way. Like, they don't have a way to provide for their children

00:32:54.400 anymore because they don't have a place to go to work because these people who burned down these

00:32:58.840 doors don't have any idea of what justice actually looks like. But anyway,

00:33:02.160 so we see all of this and it's chaos and it's hard and we're having more conversations and we're just

00:33:07.440 exhausted by it all and we're scared about the election and we're worried about, you know,

00:33:11.780 Supreme Court cases and decisions and religious liberty and all of that. All you can do is be

00:33:16.880 obedient. Yes, of course, I believe in political involvement. I believe that you should vote. I

00:33:20.760 believe that you should care about candidates. I believe that you should see what's going on in

00:33:24.200 the public schools in your area, see what's going on. You know, what are the HOA policies,

00:33:28.680 whatever it is. Like, yes, you should care about the things that are going on. But I think we should

00:33:32.760 try to, I think we should, as much as we should care about what's going on nationally, because yes,

00:33:38.560 it affects us and it affects the future of our country. And I want you to keep listening to this

00:33:42.300 podcast because I'm going to try to, you know, I'm going to try to inform you on those things.

00:33:47.180 We also need to localize our care and localize our attention. First to God, our relationship with

00:33:53.380 Him, then to our family, then to our friends, then to our church, then to our community, and then to

00:34:00.300 our state, and then to our country, okay? That's really the order that we, that our care should be

00:34:08.100 about, if that makes sense. Because beyond that, like, it's very hard. It's very hard for finite human

00:34:16.000 beings to carry the weight and carry the cares of things beyond those fears. And yes, and by church,

00:34:23.940 like, I mean the, even like the universal church. Like, we should care about what's going on in the

00:34:28.600 universal church, even before we care about what's going on in politics, in our own lives. And so I

00:34:35.640 just want to encourage you to maybe minimize, actually, minimize and focus the things that you

00:34:41.680 care about. And remember that the standards of the world are ever-changing. The standards of so-called

00:34:47.180 righteousness that the woke give you are ever-elusive, but God's standard does not change. 0.55

00:34:52.380 Love God. Love your neighbor. Be obedient in the things right now that are right in front of you.

00:34:58.260 No act of kindness is too small. No attempt to share the gospel is going to go wasted. The Word of God does

00:35:04.780 not return void. It is a lot easier to be obedient than we think. Loving and respecting your husband

00:35:10.880 is a part of being obedient to God and glorifying Him. Loving and serving your children and teaching

00:35:16.240 them, raising them in the admonition of the Lord is a way to be obedient and glorify God. Going to

00:35:21.140 church, reading your Bible, tithing, all of these things, being generous are ways to glorify God. So

00:35:26.960 if you're overwhelmed by the weight of the world, remember what the Lord your God requires of you,

00:35:31.320 okay? It's much smaller, but also much more impactful than I think what, you know, activists or what

00:35:37.840 the news prescribes. Again, there are ways to fight against injustice. One way to serve these minority

00:35:45.580 communities is volunteering at a pregnancy center, for example. Like, they don't have to be these big

00:35:50.440 revolutions that you do. I don't think that God is requiring that of you necessarily. He is asking

00:35:57.400 you to be obedient in the here and the now with what is right in front of you. Like, I remember I was

00:36:02.580 saying this. So for the people who memorized Romans 8 with me, we did like a Zoom or actually wasn't a

00:36:07.000 Zoom call. It was another platform because I'm out on Zoom. But we were talking about, it was a Q&A

00:36:14.220 and they asked me, I don't even remember what the question was, but I was talking about, you know,

00:36:20.420 the importance of obedience and helping and things like that and how it reminds me of when I, so I took

00:36:26.780 a break basically from working out when I was pregnant, which I don't recommend you doing, but I did.

00:36:31.060 And then I didn't really work out that much after I had the baby either. It just, it was difficult,

00:36:36.780 busy and all of that stuff. But then a few months ago, I was like, you know what? I think the reason

00:36:41.620 why I'm not working out is because I am in my head, I am thinking, oh, well, I need to work out for an

00:36:47.600 hour, like five days a week in order to really be serious about this. So I need to ride, you know,

00:36:52.540 my bike for 45 minutes and then I need to do weights for 30 minutes and then I need to go on a walk and

00:36:58.760 eat healthy and all this stuff. And so I just wouldn't work out because every time that I was

00:37:03.480 thinking about working out, I was like, well, I don't have time to do all that. And I'm intimidated.

00:37:06.580 Like, I don't want to do it. I don't know how it's going to, like, I'm not in shape anymore.

00:37:10.300 I didn't start working out until I realized that, hey, Allie, it's okay if you only work out 10 minutes,

00:37:17.260 three times a week, that's more than zero minutes, zero times a week. And so I had to realize that,

00:37:22.720 okay, I don't have to do these big grand things in order to be more in shape than I am right now.

00:37:28.640 I need to just start with the small things. So I started working out 20 minutes, like

00:37:31.840 two to three times a week, which isn't great, but it's better than not doing anything. And it's the

00:37:37.160 same in all kinds of acts of discipline and all kinds of acts of obedience. Do what you can right

00:37:42.700 now. I think being intimidated by starting these like revolutions, which maybe you will one day, or

00:37:48.200 you know, you think I've got to run for office, or I've got to save all the children from sex 1.00

00:37:52.880 trafficking, or I've got to care about every instance of injustice that has ever happened

00:37:57.560 and post about it and talk about it. Like you're not able to do that. Again, you're finite and you're

00:38:03.080 not responsible to do that. You're not obligated to do that. Work, work on doing the things that are

00:38:09.140 right in front of you, the instances of injustice that are right in front of you, the problems that

00:38:12.560 are right in front of you, the needs that are right in front of you, like work on caring about those.

00:38:17.600 And that was not what I planned to talk about today. We just kind of got on a tangent. I was

00:38:23.680 actually going to talk about, well, we talked a little bit about abolishing the police. Okay, there's

00:38:28.360 I'll talk about just like a one other thing that doesn't really have to do what we were just talking

00:38:32.880 about. But you never know, I can maybe try to tie it in creatively. So on my notes, I have hypocrisy,

00:38:38.940 the protest, but you can't even bury your child. And this is a dichotomy that I've seen going around on

00:38:45.480 social media lately. Just so tragic. There is a young woman and her name is Autumn and

00:38:52.280 that her tweet kind of went viral. And tragically, she lost her mom last week. And she posted about

00:38:58.820 that. She said, you know, I couldn't even say goodbye to my mom as she was dying. And the tweet

00:39:02.580 that she was sharing, she wasn't making a political statement about the protests at all. She was just

00:39:06.420 pointing out that there were protests in DC, thousands and thousands and thousands of protesters

00:39:13.300 slammed body to body for Trans Lives Matter, a Trans Lives Matter protest. And people aren't people 0.99

00:39:22.640 like her weren't even allowed to say goodbye to their mother as she was dying. And then all of these

00:39:29.600 other messages were coming up of people saying the same thing because of coronavirus restrictions.

00:39:33.800 People weren't able to say goodbye to their loved ones as they were dying. There had to be a Zoom

00:39:38.740 call for their relative, for their child, for their parent, for their spouse that was in the hospital

00:39:46.400 to say some kind of goodbye because of coronavirus restrictions. You weren't allowed to have memorial

00:39:52.220 services for World War II veterans. You weren't allowed to have funerals with more than six people

00:39:58.500 standing together as you put your child into the ground who died of cancer. Like you weren't allowed

00:40:04.400 to have the cancer treatments that you needed. And so your loved one died because of coronavirus

00:40:08.100 restrictions. Those same politicians that put those draconian lockdown policies in place in the name of

00:40:14.720 saving lives are now applauding these protesters and these rioters that are slammed body to body without

00:40:21.280 any thought to hygiene or coronavirus whatsoever. I mean, this is insane hypocrisy. Insane at the cost 0.96

00:40:31.780 of people's family relationships, at the cost of people's very lives. I mean, it just goes to show

00:40:41.480 that these lockdown policies from a lot, maybe not all, but a lot of these politicians was a farce.

00:40:46.880 It was a farce to hurt the economy, to hurt Donald Trump. It was a farce to, um, to save face for them

00:40:54.260 because they knew if they didn't take these measures that maybe they wouldn't get reelected

00:40:57.960 or people wouldn't trust them. They wanted to ruin your livelihood. Okay. Like they wanted to hurt you.

00:41:03.760 They wanted to hurt your life. Like that much is clear because if they didn't, they wouldn't have

00:41:07.520 made fun of the lockdown protesters. Like they wouldn't have called them racists. They wouldn't have said

00:41:13.360 that you don't care about grandma just because you care about people losing their jobs and losing

00:41:18.240 their livelihoods, but they showed that they hated you. They hate working class Americans. They hate 0.83

00:41:23.320 the middle of the country. Like they hate everyone that doesn't advance their ideological agenda. And

00:41:30.220 they showed that by ruining the lives of tens of millions of Americans through these lockdown policies

00:41:35.020 that we're now seeing were apparently just arbitrary because they don't apply to all of the people

00:41:40.400 that are marching thousands upon thousands for quote black trans lives. They hate you. I want 1.00

00:41:46.560 you to realize that these politicians, these metropolitan people in the media, they hate you

00:41:51.720 and they hate your way of life. They hate Donald Trump so much that they are willing to ruin your life

00:41:56.860 to make sure the economy tanks. So he doesn't get reelected. And it's just sad. It's just sad.

00:42:01.720 There was a friend. I won't say his name, even though you guys probably know him. Um, but he,

00:42:07.420 it was a private message. So I won't repeat his name. He said, uh, God's vengeance will be great.

00:42:11.800 Yes, it will. Yes, it will. And for those of you, by the way, who are struggling, who maybe you lost

00:42:17.380 someone, you lost a friend, you weren't able to say goodbye. You weren't able to have a funeral. You

00:42:21.100 weren't able to have a memorial service. You were able to get cancer treatments for someone that you

00:42:24.980 loved. I talked to a mom whose child was in hospice care. He had a terminal illness and he already

00:42:31.820 passed. But when she was talking to me, he was on his, in his last days and she wanted nothing more

00:42:37.060 than for family to just see him for friends to be able to come over. And she was scared. She didn't

00:42:42.460 know what to do. And people were scared because of the hysteria that was, uh, drummed up about all

00:42:48.820 of this. I just want you to know that if you were in a similar position or, you know, someone who is

00:42:53.000 a similar position, even though these politicians, these people in the media do not give one flying

00:42:58.360 flip about you and your dying child or your dying parent or your dying spouse or your wife who

00:43:04.500 couldn't get her breast cancer treatments, even though they don't care one lick about you, God does. 1.00

00:43:09.400 He does. And he sees your broken heart and he sees your tears and he knows the pain that you feel

00:43:16.460 and he cares. And I promise you that his vengeance will be great. That God is a God of justice. That no

00:43:23.700 act of injustice, no, no matter what it is, uh, will go unanswered, will go unmet with his wrath. I promise

00:43:34.240 you that. So have hope, maybe not in this life, but know that one day Jesus is coming back. He is going

00:43:40.420 to dry every tear that there will only be rejoicing. There will only be health. There will only be healing.

00:43:46.040 There will only be hope. There will only be joy and all injustice and all evil and all hypocrisy and

00:43:53.740 all deceit will come to an end and Jesus will reign forever. So again, as we look around and we feel

00:44:01.780 like we have to carry the burdens of the world and we see so much injustice on both sides of the aisle

00:44:06.560 from all kinds of politicians, I won't even get into my disappointment with the Republican Party

00:44:10.760 right now because we don't have time, but I will in the future. Um, as we look around and we just

00:44:16.000 feel overwhelmed by all of that, realize that if you are a Christian, you worship the almighty burden 1.00

00:44:22.140 bearer. Okay. How gracious is God that he calls himself the bearer of our burdens and that he will

00:44:27.660 reign victoriously. Okay. And we don't have to worry. We don't have to worry. Okay. That's all I have

00:44:34.860 for today. There are, there are a lot more things. Oh, let me, let me issue one correction. Cause I've

00:44:39.000 had someone that has been pestering me about this. So I said a couple of weeks ago, Derek Tovin has

00:44:43.680 been convicted of a third degree murder and he hasn't, he has been charged convicted. He hasn't

00:44:50.320 gone to trial yet. So he hasn't been convicted. He has been charged. I just wanted to make that

00:44:54.700 correction because I said that I would on my podcast and I strive to answer you, uh, y'all's

00:45:00.560 feedback. So if you can please leave me a five-star review, if you love this podcast, that would mean a

00:45:05.340 whole lot to me. I love you guys so much. I will be back here on Monday.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - June 19, 2020

Ep 265 ｜ Police Shootings, COVID-19 Injustice, and the Weight of the World

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