Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 617 ｜ White Supremacy & the Danger of Selective Outrage

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Monday. Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. This

00:00:04.900 episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers, American meat delivered right

00:00:09.100 to your front door. Go to goodranchers.com slash Allie. That's goodranchers.com slash Allie.

00:00:23.840 All right, guys. So if you're watching this on YouTube, you can probably tell that I am coming

00:00:28.060 to you from my home. And if you are listening to this on audio, as most of you do, it probably

00:00:34.900 sounds a little bit different. And that is because I've got my little home set up my home

00:00:42.380 microphone. So thanks for bearing with me, just a different scheduling things going on

00:00:49.040 in the Stuckey household. And we had to kind of accommodate all of that. And so I still

00:00:54.880 wanted to make sure, though, that I got this episode out because we have so many important

00:00:59.360 things to talk about today. It's really one important thing, but there are so many different

00:01:03.380 aspects of it. As you probably predicted, we are going to talk about the Buffalo shooting

00:01:08.960 and the reactions to that and how to respond to that and how to think through that. These

00:01:14.480 are always very difficult episodes to do because we are dealing with such a sensitive issue.

00:01:22.060 And because unfortunately, there are such polarizing and political reactions through it that we

00:01:28.060 have to balance remembering that this is a human tragedy with a human cost. These are image

00:01:34.720 bearers of God. There are people over the weekend who heard the worst news that they could ever

00:01:41.140 imagine. Their worst nightmares came true. And yet we do have an obligation, especially in

00:01:46.560 the job that I'm in to navigate through the politics of it and to talk about some of the

00:01:53.500 background and some of the context and possible solutions. And so there's practical matters

00:01:59.220 to dig through. There are political issues to talk about. And then first and foremost, there

00:02:05.420 is a there's a there's a personal there's a deeply personal, primarily personal core aspect to

00:02:13.060 all of this. And then, of course, there is the much bigger and much more important and supreme

00:02:18.980 aspect to that. And that is the theological implications, the spiritual issues that I think

00:02:24.140 this speaks to. So I'm going to do my best as humbly as I can, as thoroughly as I can, as truthfully,

00:02:32.220 as mercifully as I possibly can to try to tie together all of those aspects in a way that I hope

00:02:40.720 brings honor to the victims and comfort to the families and to everyone who is mourning this and

00:02:48.500 also, hopefully, glory to God and his gospel. That's what that's really what all Christians are

00:02:55.860 trying to do as we respond to terrible situations like this. So first, just let me tell you what

00:03:01.620 happened over the weekend, and then we'll talk a little bit more about the context. So according to

00:03:08.620 AP News, there was a supermarket shooting in Buffalo, New York over the weekend. They start

00:03:15.300 out the article like this, a white 18 year old wearing a military military gear and live streaming

00:03:20.880 with a helmet camera opened fire Saturday afternoon at Topps Friendly Market. That's a supermarket in a

00:03:26.340 predominantly black neighborhood of Buffalo, New York. So he live streamed the shooting, which is just

00:03:32.200 sickening. It just gives me physical pain to think about someone trying to gain affirmation and attention,

00:03:39.960 trying to become some sort of hero through such a devastating and wicked act. So he live streamed

00:03:47.360 this on Twitch for several minutes before the platform took it down. That is a pattern that we

00:03:52.720 seem to see in some of these live shooting scenarios. He began shooting in the parking lot before moving

00:03:59.480 inside. There was a security guard, a very courageous security guard, thank God for his courage, that fired

00:04:05.220 multiple shots. His name was Aaron Salter. He fired multiple shots, but none of them penetrated the body

00:04:11.780 armor of the shooter. And the shooter ended up killing Salter. And then he walked around the store shooting

00:04:19.900 shoppers. He put his rifle to his neck when confronted by the police, but then he ended up surrendering after

00:04:27.760 being coaxed by the cops to do so. The rifle reportedly was purchased legally, but the magazines

00:04:34.420 were illegally purchased, apparently in New York. And I won't say the perpetrator's name. And, you know,

00:04:41.920 I go back and forth on this. There have been previous mass shootings and mass killings where I have

00:04:46.820 talked about the name of the shooter in this particular case, as in some other similar cases.

00:04:53.440 This person seems to want fame. He seems to want to go down in history as some kind of

00:04:59.540 perverse hero. And so I don't want to, I don't want to add to that. I don't want to add to any

00:05:08.700 fantasy that he or others like him may have, that he is going to become a hero or that his name at least

00:05:16.460 is going to gain some kind of notoriety. I think even in a lot of cases, they're okay with becoming

00:05:22.260 infamous. They see that as a good thing. So I don't want to add to that. I know if you listen

00:05:26.700 to past episodes, sometimes I have said the name of mass shooters, maybe without thinking,

00:05:31.960 and maybe I shouldn't have. And, and sometimes I don't, in this case, after thinking about it,

00:05:36.420 I just don't want to, I'm sure that you can look it up. If that's something that you want to do,

00:05:39.600 I just don't want to give voice, uh, to any kind of, you know, fantasy or desire that he may have

00:05:45.720 to be famous. So, uh, this is, this is a description again, according to the associated press,

00:05:51.040 a law enforcement official told the associated press on Sunday, um, that the shooter had

00:05:55.620 threatened to carry out a shooting last year at a Susquehanna Susquehanna. I think that's how

00:06:01.200 maybe you pronounce it Valley high school around the time of graduation. He was 17 years old at the

00:06:06.180 time and was sent for mental health treatment. So there were 10 killed in the shooting. There

00:06:10.820 were three injured, 11 were black, two were white, and that is pertinent. As we're going to talk about,

00:06:16.600 there is a pretty clear, uh, motivation, at least it seems so of this shooter. And so it actually

00:06:23.760 matters to talk about the races of the victims. So 11 black victims, two white victims, and we'll

00:06:30.200 just, we'll go through the names of these victims. Um, at least some of them, the ones that we have,

00:06:35.500 there was Aaron Salter. We've already referenced him. He was the security guard. Apparently,

00:06:39.140 according to the mayor, he was really beloved by this community. He was a retired Buffalo police

00:06:44.700 department officer and member of, uh, he was a, you know, a renowned or an esteemed member of the

00:06:50.700 community. He cared about the community. He looked after the store, local resident Yvette Mack said,

00:06:56.120 he's a true hero. There could have been more victims if not for his actions. Buffalo police

00:07:01.180 commissioner, Joseph grandma Glea said, that's true. Even though the bullets that the security guard

00:07:08.240 shot didn't ultimately penetrate the body armor that the shooter was wearing. He obviously did

00:07:14.560 deter him. He did slow him down and he sacrificed this police officer sacrificed himself for the

00:07:21.180 safety of the store. That is a kind of courage, a kind of bravery that I think most of us just

00:07:29.560 couldn't muster. Even in these kinds of situations, we are so naturally self seeking. We are so naturally

00:07:36.380 interested in our own protection that I think most of us just would not have that instinct. And so praise

00:07:43.260 God for this police officer, praise God for his heroism. I hope that his name is plastered

00:07:50.920 everywhere. I hope that he goes down as the hero that he is and not this cowardly shooter. And then

00:07:56.320 there was Ruth Whitfield. She was an 86 year old mother of retired Buffalo fire commissioner. She just

00:08:02.680 visited her husband at the nursing home. She did that daily, had stopped for some groceries. Um, uh,

00:08:09.320 her son said that she was a mother to the motherless. So just a very kind and compassionate

00:08:14.300 giving person. There was Roberta Drury, 32 years old, recently returned home to live with her mother.

00:08:20.020 Her mother saw her daughter die on the video that circulated after the shooting. Can you even

00:08:24.200 imagine? There was a woman named Catherine Massey. There is a man named Haywood Patterson. He was loading

00:08:29.940 an elderly woman's groceries into his car and driving her home. He was a deacon at his church. There was an

00:08:36.840 unnamed man who is picking up a birthday cake to surprise his grandson. And then, uh, one of the

00:08:42.820 injured people was Zare Goodman, 20 year old shot in the neck. Thank God he is recovering. So we're

00:08:48.720 going to talk a little bit more about the human impact of this, the sacrifice of this in just one

00:08:53.380 second. Let me pause. So this shooter allegedly wrote this manifesto. It was a Google doc that was

00:09:02.200 circulating. Of course it violated Google's terms of service and it also violated Twitter's terms of

00:09:08.200 service to post the link to it. So you can't access it anymore. Even some people tried to like

00:09:15.000 get a duplicate of it and create another Google doc. It's just not happening. Some people though

00:09:20.780 were able to get screenshots of the manifesto. And I, I will say that this has not been confirmed.

00:09:27.020 Uh, it has not been confirmed that this is his manifesto. It's kind of a gas. I think journalists

00:09:33.880 have probably done some digging. And so they think that it is his, it would make sense based on what

00:09:39.400 the shooter was saying on Twitch and some of the stuff that we saw, um, like he had a name carved into

00:09:47.920 the gun that he was using that has some correlation to what is being seen in the manifesto. But I do think

00:09:55.900 it's important to say that it hasn't been confirmed. So the things that he talked about that he

00:10:01.580 allegedly, this shooter allegedly talks about in the manifesto, um, he talks about like white genocide.

00:10:09.540 He refers to the Waukesha Christmas parade where a black murderer, he takes his SUV and he rams it.

00:10:20.140 He rammed it through the Christmas parade. That was in November. Of course, we've talked about that

00:10:24.520 before he killed six people, including an eight year old boy. And the name that was on the rifle on the

00:10:33.560 gun of this Buffalo shooter was actually a name of the victim of an elderly lady that was killed by

00:10:41.420 the killer in Waukesha. And so this guy, apparently, according to his manifesto thought that white people

00:10:49.840 were being killed, he thinks that white people are being replaced by non white people. And he talked about that he

00:10:59.740 is a white supremacist, he actually owns that label, and that he is racist, he said, because he believes that

00:11:08.000 there are inherent differences in capabilities of the races. He said that he hates Jewish people that he's okay with

00:11:15.120 Jewish people that are in their own place, but that he personally doesn't like Jewish people, he referred

00:11:20.420 to Jewish people as demons. Um, of course, there are lots of people, we'll get to this a little bit

00:11:27.400 more in a second. There are lots of people online immediately left wing activists on Twitter saying

00:11:33.180 that this guy is just a Republican. He's just repeating Republican talking points. So sick. And that this is

00:11:40.380 Tucker Carlson's fault, because Tucker Carlson talks about demographic changes in the United States. It's a

00:11:47.020 crazy and really disgusting allegation. Tucker Carlson talks a lot about illegal immigration, and how the

00:11:55.420 Democrat Party wants to replace the current voter base with immigrants that will vote the same way that

00:12:03.860 they want to vote. And so people are saying that this manifesto is just like what Tucker Carlson says, which

00:12:09.600 actually isn't, isn't true. And again, is a disgusting allegation, a disgusting allegation. And we'll get to

00:12:16.120 more of why it is so hypocritical in just one second. So there are some questions that I guess, I don't

00:12:22.940 know, this shooter wrote for himself in this manifesto and then answered them. So here are a few of the

00:12:29.060 questions and a few of his answers. One of the questions is, are you a Christian? He said, no, I do not ask God

00:12:35.560 for salvation by faith, nor do I confess my sins to him. I personally believe there is no afterlife. I do,

00:12:41.980 however, believe in and practice many Christian values. Okay. He says the question, are you a fascist?

00:12:49.020 He said, yes, fascism is the only, is one of the only political ideologies that will unite whites

00:12:55.020 against the replacers. Since that is what I seek, calling me a fascist would be accurate. He says, yes,

00:13:01.300 he is a white supremacist. He said, yes, he's a racist. He says, yes, he's an anti-Semite.

00:13:06.840 He said that he doesn't have any, he says, do you have any ties to other partisans, freedom fighters,

00:13:14.320 ethno soldiers? And he lists some people, including Dylan Roof, who of course is the murderer,

00:13:21.100 the mass shooter that shot up a Charleston church, a traditionally black Charleston church a few years ago.

00:13:27.180 So, and then one question, he said, children are always innocent. Do you think that you are a

00:13:32.180 monster for killing innocent? And he said, children of replacers do not stay children. Any invader you

00:13:40.060 kill of any age is one less enemy. Your children will have to face just awful. It's just sick. I just

00:13:45.720 have a hard time even reading this because this ideology and the thinking of this person is so

00:13:52.360 profoundly evil and destructive. And his mind has just been warped by this specific kind of racially

00:14:04.820 targeted hatred. And a lot of times I think it's easy for us to say when someone does something like

00:14:10.300 this, well, that person was unwell. That person was mentally ill. They were unstable. But I think we

00:14:15.340 just have to grapple with the reality that yes, that is the case. Sometimes it certainly is. I mean,

00:14:21.840 it's hard to understand how someone who thinks coherent thoughts and who is stable would do

00:14:26.160 something like this, but we have to grapple with the reality of evil. We have to grapple with the

00:14:30.340 reality of Romans one, um, that people's mind is diluted by sin. Ephesians two, that all the sons of

00:14:40.120 disobedience are in submission to the prince of the power of the air, the father of lies. We have to

00:14:47.260 realize that sin is the heart of this, that some people, well, a lot of people are truly just evil

00:14:53.600 to the core that we can't really just give someone a pass, especially based on some kind of political

00:14:59.100 agenda of mental illness. Maybe that's part of it, but really sin is at the core of this evil is at the

00:15:05.480 core of this. So maybe we should just accept the fact that much scarier fact that maybe he wasn't

00:15:10.560 necessarily mentally ill, but that he really did just have an evil mind and wicked motivations.

00:15:16.940 He talks more in his manifesto, again, the alleged manifesto about black Americans and

00:15:24.400 how he thinks they are innately inferior Jewish Americans. He says that Jews are the biggest

00:15:32.120 problem the Western world has ever had. Section three of the manifesto talks about the problems

00:15:36.960 with East Asian. Section four pertains to Arabs and modern Turks and the problems with them and

00:15:45.020 how Western civilization needs to be preserved. It needs to be saved from them. He says this to

00:15:50.260 conservatives. Conservatism is dead. Thank God. He says to leftists, leftism results in a degenerate,

00:15:56.020 hateful society. He says to non-whites on white lands, leave while you still can. As long as the white

00:16:01.060 man lives, you will never be safer. Just again, just like gut wrenching almost physically.

00:16:06.960 Heartbreaking. And he also talked about when he was trying to describe his own political views,

00:16:15.160 he said that he does ascribe to left-wing authoritarianism, but also called himself

00:16:21.780 a fascist, also called himself an eco-fascist white supremacist. And so he's a little bit all over the

00:16:29.960 place. You know, sometimes in these manifestos, it does seem like the desire, which I wouldn't be

00:16:36.360 surprised if that is the motivation here and the motivation of some of these other mass shooters

00:16:40.540 that create these kind of manifestos. If they say a bunch of different things simply to divide,

00:16:46.820 they kind of just throw things against the wall that they know is going to incite the right,

00:16:51.440 incite the left, so that we will talk about it, so that we will be divided. And so we will

00:17:00.240 argue with one another, and they probably believe this is going to precipitate the destruction of

00:17:09.640 society even further, which it seems like there is this kind of anarchistic streak in these kinds

00:17:15.360 of hateful mass shooters that want to precipitate anarchy and the destruction of society.

00:17:21.480 All right, so it should go without saying, but just to make it perfectly clear, white supremacy

00:17:31.420 is a pernicious and insidious and disgusting and anti-God, anti-Christ ideology that will always

00:17:46.340 bring with it bitterness, division, destruction, and the kind of murderous rage that we see in the

00:17:59.660 Buffalo shooting. I don't know primarily where this stuff is bubbling up, where it's building. There seems

00:18:07.880 to be, when it comes to a white supremacist motivation for these shootings, it seems to be

00:18:14.240 young white males who are disaffected. They feel like they're different. They feel like they're

00:18:23.040 misunderstood. They feel like they need someone or a group of people who can really empathize with the

00:18:32.100 concerns that they have. This particular guy said that he used to be a communist. So he's been in

00:18:37.600 extremist ideology for a while. He said he was a communist when he was 12. And so he's kind of,

00:18:43.060 I guess, been in the world of extreme political ideology for a while. And they are looking for

00:18:50.260 people who can, I guess, kind of share their fears. And they seem to egg one another on,

00:18:57.240 and they seem to foment hate among one another. And they justify violence by basically casting

00:19:04.960 themselves these kind of misunderstood vigilantes. And white supremacy seems to be

00:19:12.520 a common thread and a motivation in some of these dark web online worlds that are attracting

00:19:21.960 these young men who, for whatever reason, already felt isolated, already felt lonely, already felt

00:19:30.140 purposeless, already felt dejected and rejected in some way. And instead of doing what a lot of people

00:19:37.240 do when you feel that way, they kind of find themselves attracted to a radicalism that promises

00:19:45.260 some camaraderie and maybe even heroism and fame and purpose, which is exactly what these,

00:19:53.140 it's exactly what these young men are looking for. That seems to at least be true in this strain,

00:20:00.380 and this particular ideology and these motivations for mass shootings. It seems also like there's a

00:20:07.160 trend of the FBI and law enforcement knowing of these people, and like knowing of the threats,

00:20:12.940 knowing that these people have the capacity and maybe even desire to do this. The problem is,

00:20:19.540 and like, it's easy to blame the FBI and law enforcement for not doing anything, which I think

00:20:24.320 in some cases is totally legitimate. But also the question is, what can you do? Like there is free

00:20:30.800 speech, you can't necessarily arrest someone for what you think they're going to do. And so that's

00:20:37.100 a problem with all of this as well. I think these, just the ability and access to the groups that are

00:20:45.400 kind of radicalizing these young men is a problem. And I don't know the exact solution to it. I don't know

00:20:51.220 the exact solution to buying these illegal magazines and someone with this kind of history being able

00:20:59.080 to buy an AR-15. Like you guys know, I am pro Second Amendment because I care about innocent life.

00:21:06.280 I want people to be able to defend themselves. In fact, in this manifesto, one of the things that

00:21:10.860 the shooter said was that he chose this area of Buffalo, New York, not just because it's predominantly

00:21:17.160 black. That was one reason explicitly why he chose it, according to this manifesto, but also

00:21:21.800 because they have such strict gun laws. He said in his manifesto that he didn't want to be apprehended.

00:21:28.040 He didn't want to be stopped by someone who had a gun. And so he chose an area where he knew

00:21:33.280 people were probably not going to be able to defend themselves with guns. So obviously, in my view,

00:21:39.360 the solution would not be to make everywhere like that particular area where citizens are unable

00:21:46.220 to defend themselves and to defend the innocent people around them. However, like I'm willing to

00:21:52.480 come to the table and I'm sure other conservatives are too. Aren't you so tired of hearing of these?

00:21:58.740 Like, aren't you so tired of hearing these stories? And I understand like legislation is not going to

00:22:04.220 change someone's heart. And I don't want any restrictions that is going to inhibit a law abiding

00:22:10.500 gun owner from being able to protect himself and to protect his family.

00:22:14.440 But gosh, if there are solutions to this issue that allow people to exercise, law abiding people

00:22:22.180 to exercise their Second Amendment rights and also make it more difficult for someone with this history

00:22:28.340 to get a gun, I'm for it. Like, I'm willing to hear it. I don't think that we should immediately

00:22:33.760 as conservatives, whenever we hear any solution or any proposed legislation that has to do with guns,

00:22:39.880 immediately say, no, no, no. I'm just not sure that that's the best approach. I want solutions.

00:22:45.560 I want to save lives. I'm willing to come to the table and say, how can we balance protecting people's

00:22:50.620 Second Amendment rights and also do something, anything that could potentially save people's

00:22:56.940 lives so that someone like this is not able to at least legally access a gun? Really, it seems like

00:23:03.820 he shouldn't have been able to with the particular past that he has had and the threats that he made

00:23:08.420 towards a high school. And so there has to be something there. Right. And I'm just I'm willing

00:23:13.660 to come to the table and talk about this. I think the problem is when it comes to these issues

00:23:18.980 that we so quickly move past this particular case, we move past the tragedy, the crime that we're

00:23:27.140 talking about and we make it into something bigger and we ascribe blame to one side, the people that

00:23:37.880 we don't like. And we try to make it an issue that further advances an agenda. And that is what you

00:23:46.080 saw in the responses. So immediately, immediately, we've already moved past the victims. You've already

00:23:51.020 moved past the tragedy at hand and left wing activists have turned it into something that it's

00:23:57.820 not by saying things that just aren't true. And here's why I think it's important to talk about

00:24:04.420 this, because I know the reaction that I'm going to get, because I'm going to talk about I'm going to

00:24:08.140 talk about kind of what people have been saying. The reason why it's important is one, because the truth

00:24:15.080 matters. And two, also, because when we show selective outrage, and when we say that one particular crime

00:24:29.340 is indicative of like one huge, large, pervasive primary problem, when that's not true, when we

00:24:37.420 don't show equal compassion and equal sadness to other similar crimes with different but equal

00:24:45.060 heinous motivations that have happened, then we contribute to the cycles of chaos. So let me

00:24:51.300 just be really explicit in what I'm saying. When you respond to something like this, and you say,

00:24:58.920 see, white supremacy is the main problem. See, this is mainstream Republican talking points. See,

00:25:04.400 this is Tucker Carlson's fault. See, this is conservative's fault. See, this is conservative

00:25:08.600 Christian's fault. See, we have to have anti-racism training. See, we need critical race theory. These are

00:25:13.840 all reactions that I saw from blue check marks on Twitter. See, we need to, you know, racism is the

00:25:20.760 biggest threat to national security today. When you say all of that, then you're going to put everyone

00:25:26.260 else on the defense, rather than us coming together and saying, what caused this? Here's the evil in this

00:25:32.340 scenario. Here are the victims in this scenario. Here are the motivations that we saw. How can we fix this

00:25:38.260 problem? How can we honor these victims? Then you have turned this in to a political battle, and you

00:25:45.640 start saying things that simply aren't true, that simply aren't true, and then you end up in this kind

00:25:54.480 of political partisan fight. So here's a little bit of what I'm talking about. Glennon Doyle says,

00:25:59.280 this is a very important time for white evangelical people to repent of the racist, misogynist, gun

00:26:03.800 building, militant Jesus they created in their own image to cover all of their power-driven sins.

00:26:10.160 That is freaking disgusting, Glennon Doyle, and so not surprising. It's so not surprising coming from

00:26:16.620 someone like Glennon Doyle. You found a way, even though this person is not a Christian, even though

00:26:22.420 this person, as far as we know, doesn't go to church, doesn't serve Jesus, she found a way to make

00:26:28.880 this about her primary enemy, which, by the way, isn't actually this white supremacist shooter,

00:26:33.280 but is white evangelicals. So she is going to find every story of wickedness and somehow try to tie it

00:26:39.380 into the people that she doesn't like. Yeah, that's what happens when you don't actually care about the

00:26:45.520 tragedy. You don't actually care about the victims. Your ideology is guiding you and blinding you so much

00:26:50.820 that you can't actually see what is real here. Of course, she's not the only one.

00:26:55.020 Michael Harriot said the reason this matters is because every time there is a racist terrorist that attacks

00:27:02.860 people, we pretend is an outlier and not something that is constantly repeating itself. He includes Kyle

00:27:08.440 Rittenhouse and the MAGA mob in that. Kyle Rittenhouse didn't murder anyone. It was self-defense to lump him

00:27:15.740 in with this guy and Dylann Roof, again, is just anti-factual. And then Naveed Jamali says we are witnessing the

00:27:22.900 Kyle Rittenhouse effect. Again, Kyle Rittenhouse was attacked by two white guys at a riot in Kenosha

00:27:31.660 where people were burning down buildings of innocent people. John Pavlovitz says one of our political

00:27:39.660 parties has shown more respect to Kyle Rittenhouse than President Biden. That's what they really think

00:27:45.700 about the tragedy today in Buffalo. What? Reverend Dr. Jackie Lewis says, 18 years old and writing about

00:27:52.480 white genocide before he went out to massacre black folks buying groceries. But tell me again how we

00:27:57.620 don't need anti-racism education in schools. Anti-racism education as it is today creates bitterness and

00:28:04.180 resentment and division and self-hatred and hatred of other people. It doesn't actually create any kind of

00:28:11.020 lack of bias. It doesn't actually reduce any feelings of racism. All it does is tell people

00:28:18.020 you are innately oppressed or innately oppressors. It doesn't offer any kind of solution to reconciliation

00:28:23.020 and unity whatsoever. Dr. Eric Mason, popular and evangelical circle says, when will this end?

00:28:29.820 Him being 18 lets us know that racism hasn't ended. It's made its way into the next generation.

00:28:35.100 People activate this racism. So here's the deal here. It is totally fine for us to talk about white

00:28:45.300 supremacy and to talk about its wickedness and to talk about the problems here. Like we should. This

00:28:50.320 is an example where this is a clear motivation. It's clear what was going on. Now, in most cases where

00:28:57.360 it's a white perpetrator and non-white victims, it's just assumed that it's white supremacy and racism,

00:29:03.700 which I always think is wrong. That's judging something that you just don't know enough about.

00:29:10.180 But in this case, we do know it. So I'm fine talking, you know, calling this guy a racist.

00:29:15.300 He allegedly called himself a racist. I'm fine calling him a white supremacist and saying that

00:29:18.920 this is white supremacy, saying that this is a problem, investigating into this issue and how this

00:29:23.380 ideology is spreading. I am fine with Christians. Christians should be saying this is an anti-God,

00:29:28.920 unbiblical, wicked, wicked ideology that will always lead to destruction. I think that's right

00:29:34.040 in this scenario. However, when you only highlight tragedies that have this kind of narrative,

00:29:40.940 this kind of storyline, this kind of perpetrator and victim, and you've ignored the very recent

00:29:47.560 and publicized mass shootings where the races are reversed, when you ignore Sacramento, when you ignore

00:29:54.600 Waukesha, when you ignore a recent shooting in Houston, and these aren't necessarily races reversed,

00:30:01.020 but these are non-white perpetrators, when you ignored the supermarket mass killing that happened

00:30:05.720 in Colorado a few months ago, only when the guy ended up being Muslim, when you ignore the terrorist

00:30:12.880 attack on the Capitol that killed a police officer in April of 2021, when you ignore the Brooklyn

00:30:20.020 subway shooter. And look, the Brooklyn subway shooter and the Waukesha terrorist and the Capitol

00:30:28.120 terrorist, they all had publicly espoused black nationalist, black supremacist, black supremacist

00:30:36.220 views. So racial hatred was a driving factor, probably behind these mass killings and the very

00:30:44.700 same people saying, oh, it's always a white guy. It's always white supremacy. This is always the

00:30:50.000 script. This is the number one problem. They didn't talk about those killings because it didn't fit

00:30:54.500 their narrative. And I'm not trying to do what about because I'm not trying to diminish the seriousness,

00:31:01.520 the severity of what happened in Buffalo. That's not what I'm trying to do. That's what a what about

00:31:06.240 fallacy is when you're trying to look over here and say, well, this isn't that bad. Let me distract

00:31:10.680 and diminish so you can look over here. That's not what I'm doing. I'm pointing out hypocrisy and that

00:31:15.940 selective outrage and just blatant lies. The idea that white supremacist terrorists is the number

00:31:23.260 one taker of lives in this country or is the biggest threat to black America. That's simply

00:31:27.600 factually, numerically inaccurate. And that should be good news, right? Like if you're not a partisan

00:31:33.080 hack, if you're not someone that's just trying to stoke racial division and further hate, like that

00:31:38.720 should be good news, right? That the numbers don't show that. But unfortunately, because people are

00:31:44.920 more addicted to an agenda, they just want you to think one way and see things one way,

00:31:49.900 they will blatantly lie to you and say that the biggest threat to black Americans are white

00:31:54.740 supremacist terrorists. I'm not saying that's not a threat. I'm not saying that we shouldn't take care

00:31:58.920 of that and highlight that and talk about that. I'm not saying that we shouldn't look at that at all.

00:32:03.560 But don't lie. Don't only highlight the cases where there's a white perpetrator. If you say that what

00:32:10.280 you really care about is justice, if you really care about fairness, if you really care about the

00:32:16.240 victims, if you're really trying to be compassionate. And yes, I had a back and forth with Beth more about

00:32:20.560 this because she encouraged people to take off their political lenses, to stop being partisan,

00:32:25.640 to tell the truth to yourself, to tell the truth to your neighbor. I agree with that. We should be

00:32:31.420 talking about this. But look, when you choose to only highlight one kind of crime and not other kinds

00:32:37.940 of crime because of the races involved, that is partiality. That's politics. That's not justice.

00:32:43.620 I'm not saying that Beth Moore doesn't care about all kinds of murder. I'm sure she does care about

00:32:47.480 all kinds of murder. But and I'm not asking people to comment on every single story and every single

00:32:52.780 tragedy, because I don't think that's a fair expectation. We don't have the capacity to do that.

00:32:56.500 We're not called to do that. But we're talking about very recent and infamous and publicized mass

00:33:01.780 shootings recently where there was a clear racial superiority motivation in Waukesha and in Brooklyn.

00:33:07.940 where these same people said absolutely nothing. You're only capitalizing on a certain kind of

00:33:14.200 murder because you want the attention and the agenda that comes with that. That is what divides us.

00:33:18.740 When we are when we choose our selective, when we select our outrage based on race,

00:33:25.720 we are actually contributing to racial division like we are actually contributing to hate like we are

00:33:32.180 actually contributing to the vitriol that helps cause and foment a lot of the problems that we're talking

00:33:39.240 about. So, again, this is not about saying that we should not be talking about the white supremacy that was

00:33:45.780 clearly at play here or that we shouldn't be focusing on the Buffalo shooter. But we should not allow our

00:33:53.780 compassion, our outrage, our desire for justice to be swayed by the races of the people involved or what

00:34:02.020 the mainstream media say. And the mainstream media, of course, they play into this. Of course, they play

00:34:07.060 into this because there was a there was a mass shooting yesterday in California and a guy walked in.

00:34:15.760 He shot up the church and I don't think anyone died. This was in Laguna Woods, California. And this

00:34:23.500 apparently was an Asian man in his 60s. Did this get as much coverage? Did we hear about the problems

00:34:32.320 with this, about the potential racial dynamics, the underlying issues that this is a problem of the

00:34:37.740 Republican Party or any party? No, of course we didn't. The same thing. There was a shooting in D.C.

00:34:42.840 a couple of weeks ago, a mass shooting. And the guy had created like a Wikipedia for himself, a Wikipedia

00:34:49.340 page for himself. He was clearly trying to be some kind of perverse vigilante. And he was not white. He

00:34:56.260 was Asian. Of course, as I said, there was the Brooklyn subway shooter that happened in April. There was

00:35:02.400 Waukesha. There have been several mass shootings recently, Houston, Sacramento, where the perpetrators have

00:35:08.740 been non-white. And if we care about all victims, which I think we should, then we should at least

00:35:13.660 try to be even handed in showing our outrage and compassion. Again, that doesn't mean you have to

00:35:18.980 talk about every single issue to be counted as compassionate or fair. But if you are someone who

00:35:23.460 is active on social media and you actively talk about justice and you actively talk about the sin

00:35:29.180 and the evil and the wickedness that's in the world, if you're actively tweeting out headlines,

00:35:32.920 it's going to show when you only care about those headlines when the perpetrator is white.

00:35:40.040 Again, that's not justice. That's just a form of partiality. All right. The reality is, is that the

00:35:46.640 numbers just don't prove that. That very biased and partial and incomplete perspective on what the

00:35:59.440 dangers are when it comes to the ideology pushing mass shootings. So here's the reality. And I just

00:36:07.960 want to cover this quickly. I just think that we need to know the truth about this. The fact of the

00:36:13.020 matter is, if you look at the database of mass shooters on Mother Jones, which is a very left-wing

00:36:19.320 outlet, they have a database of 121 mass shooters from 1982 to 2021. If you look at the percentage of

00:36:27.360 mass shooters that each race accounts for and the percentage of their population, you will see

00:36:32.600 that all races are really proportionate to their percentage of the population. So whites, 54.5%

00:36:43.740 of mass shooters. They're 62.6% of the population. Native American, 2.5% of mass shooters, 1% of the

00:36:52.860 population. Hispanic, 8.3% of mass shooters, 12.5% of the population. Black Americans, 17.4% of mass

00:37:02.840 shooters, 12.3% of the population. So a little disproportionate there. And Asian mass shooters,

00:37:09.280 6.6% of mass shooters, 3.6% of the population. Of course, this also depends on the definition of

00:37:16.500 mass shooters. Mother Jones defines it as a single attack in a public space in which four or more

00:37:22.460 victims were killed. If you lowered that, if you lowered that number to three or more, those numbers

00:37:28.320 would change because that would include a lot of gang violence that we see across the country.

00:37:34.140 So all of this is important context. That's not diminishing from what happened here. But I think

00:37:40.640 it's important for us to know the truth. It's important for us to know the facts. Like when you

00:37:44.540 are seeing the people that you are seeing highlight this and say this speaks to our number one problem in

00:37:49.720 the United States. This is the biggest threat that we face. Not only numerically is that not true. I

00:37:56.040 mean, this is not what is primarily not even close victimizing Black Americans. It's not even close to

00:38:04.140 the number one threat to the life of Black Americans. We can acknowledge that and know that while still

00:38:10.020 having so much compassion for how our Black friends must feel right now. I mean, no matter what the

00:38:16.700 numbers are, like you can imagine the fear and the pain of seeing something like this play out on the

00:38:22.700 news and fearing for your life and for the life of your kids. So I think that we absolutely can have

00:38:27.280 compassion and acknowledge that while also saying that the misleading and partial headlines and tweets

00:38:33.900 that we are seeing trying to blame the whole of the Republican Party, trying to blame Christians,

00:38:38.920 trying to blame all white people or all non-progressive people, that that's hypocritical

00:38:45.020 in light of other recent mass shootings and the lack of outrage about the recent mass shootings with

00:38:51.720 different kinds of animosity and different kinds of motivations. Like we'll remember the baseball

00:39:00.560 field shooter from a few years ago that shot up a baseball field, almost killing Republican

00:39:05.420 legislators. He literally said that the reason for doing so was because they were taking away

00:39:11.520 health care. I mean, he repeated left wing talking points. And yet I didn't think it was right to

00:39:16.580 blame Bernie Sanders for that or blame CNN for that. I mean, the some of the people, the Waukesha

00:39:23.120 killer and the Brooklyn shooter repeated things that we have heard on left wing outlets like MSNBC.

00:39:29.120 We have heard repeated by a lot of these left wing race activists. And yet I don't think it's fair

00:39:35.140 to say that the violence is their fault. Look, we are contributing to the chaos. We are contributing

00:39:42.440 to injustice. We are contributing to hate and division and just political madness when we are so

00:39:49.060 selective with our outrage based on the race of the people involved. Again, that is not justice. And you're

00:39:55.940 not helping your black friends by pushing that particular narrative. That is simply untrue. It is not

00:40:03.200 backed up by the numbers. Look, we could get into if we had time, which we don't. This is a quicker

00:40:07.380 episode. I've got to I've got to wrap up. We could get into the numbers if you wanted to. We could get

00:40:12.080 into the races of the perpetrators and the victims and what violent crime and what murder and homicide

00:40:18.140 those statistics look like in the United States. If we really cared, like if you really cared about what

00:40:23.720 is actually victimizing people, what the threats are, like what the main sources of violence are, if we

00:40:28.300 really wanted to protect black lives, if we really wanted to protect all lives, we could get into

00:40:32.780 those statistics. But unfortunately, you have people who are more interested in pushing a

00:40:36.720 particular narrative based on race, shaming people that they already didn't like based on no proof of

00:40:43.700 any causal or even any correlating relationship like between Republicans and this mass shooter.

00:40:52.380 None of that is helpful. None of that is helpful. What we as Christians have to do is we have to we all

00:40:59.200 have our biases. OK, we all have our perspectives. We all have a particular angle that we're coming

00:41:03.280 from. And that's fine. I know I do. I certainly do. I have a particular opinion and a particular

00:41:08.940 perspective that I'm honest with you guys about. But we have to try to be even handed. We have to try

00:41:13.880 to be fair. We have to try to focus on the victims in all of these cases. Shouldn't we as Christians

00:41:19.020 have equal hatred of any kind of ideology that spews racial superiority? Like, shouldn't we have equal

00:41:26.620 outrage about that? Do you think God cares about murders that are motivated by white supremacy more

00:41:33.800 than he cares about different kinds of murders with different kinds of motivations? Now, I don't think

00:41:39.280 so. It seems to me like he cares when image bearers are murdered. He cares about the hate that is in our

00:41:45.800 hearts. It seems to me like he would have equal compassion and equal outrage about those things. And I

00:41:51.840 think that we should try as hard as we can to ensure that our outrage is impartial, that our compassion

00:41:58.760 is impartial, that we're not only highlighting particular crimes because the race fits some kind

00:42:04.900 of convoluted, fear-mongering narrative that we have. May God grant us the grace to be wise and to

00:42:11.060 be prudent and to be fair and as truthful as we possibly can in those things. Let me just finish by

00:42:17.820 saying that there's a lot of evil. There's a lot of wickedness out in the world today. Psalm 37,

00:42:24.480 though, comforts me. It reminds me that one day evil, that wickedness will be no more, that we are

00:42:30.120 not supposed to waste our time fretting about that, that God has every hair on our head numbered,

00:42:37.340 that we are called to trust and obey. One of my favorite hymns, if not my favorite hymn is,

00:42:42.280 this is my father's world. Let me never forget that though the wrong seems off so strong, God is

00:42:48.480 the ruler yet. So in all of this, I remember that we serve a sovereign God who is full of grace,

00:42:55.740 full of truth, who is in control of all of it, who will enact perfect justice and righteousness.

00:43:01.980 Let us do the best that we can to show compassion and love and to tell the whole truth and to pursue

00:43:07.620 actual truth filled impartial justice every chance that we get. All right. I know that was just a

00:43:13.440 quick overview. I could have talked for an hour more. Um, I hope that kind of shed light a little

00:43:17.680 bit on what's going on and what my response is to it. We'll talk more about this. Um, the rest of the

00:43:23.500 week, we've got a lot of good episodes coming up. I'll be back in the studio, so it'll look and sound

00:43:27.000 better tomorrow. Thanks for bearing with me today and I will see you guys back here then.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - May 16, 2022

Ep 617 ｜ White Supremacy & the Danger of Selective Outrage

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