Tags

, , , ,

This little excerpt from a book, a devotional even, comes from this article here by Peter Heck at Disrn.

She is writing what amounts to imprecatory psalms over white people, in an attempt to heal, an attempt to sort it all out.

I want to talk about the hazards, the dangers of the grievance industry, the toll that particular form of brainwashing takes on individuals, the victim mindset it creates.

I know this issue well when it comes to feminism. My kids don’t understand, they’re more like, “in your day when the dinosaurs roamed the earth women had no rights! How can you be against women’s rights?” Sigh. They have no idea I once slayed a wooly mammoth with my bare hands.

Feminism is not really about women’s rights just as the racial grievance industry is not really about the well being, health, and freedom of black folks. That’s a tough pill for many people to swallow, but it is the truth. These ideologies are designed to keep you in bondage, subjects of a mindset that is all about control. They play off of our natural and healthy resentments, our unhealed wounds, and our heart matters. Separate, divide, control.

There’s a “poor white man’s” grievance industry brewing up right now too ,and it’s the same darn thing. If you believe counting all the ways you are being slighted and shafted in society is the way to peace, power, healing, strength, restoration, I got a bridge to sell you. People who promote that kind of thinking have an agenda. It can be very seductive one, too. We all love some affirmation, some solidarity, to lick our wounds in fellowship. Animals by the way, lick their wounds to wash them, to kill germs, to promote healing, and that’s a good thing. The problem arises when that’s not what it’s all a about out at all, it’s about nurturing resentment, offense, unforgiveness, bitterness, and a sense of being victimized.

My eyes are wide open. I don’t need anybody to tell me the truth about the total depravity of mankind (of which women are an integral part.) My grandmother was shot. I was 14 years old living on the streets of LA. My friend’s pregnant dead body was dumped in an alley by a man who she believe loved her. I’ve seen some stuff. The world is not an easy place of cut and dry extremes, as if to say we can easily sort it all out, as if to say, good cop, bad cop, no donut for you. Relationships, circumstances, and culture are complex.

We need to be really careful with what I call our ”perception deceptions.” Everybody hates me. It will always be this way. The patriarchy is out to get me. White supremists are hiding in the parking garage. Rapists are hiding in the park garage. All men are evil and dangerous.

Question those narratives! Ask yourself ”’why”’ you believe what you do. Ask yourself who benefits from holding onto this mindset? What purpose does it serve?

”Perception deceptions” can be swept away by having a ruler, a tape measure nearby. We can ask for context, by what measure? By whose standard? Take for example the statement, ”women weren’t treated very well in Biblical times.” That is a subjective perception. Is it true? Perhaps partially, but without context we have no way of emotionally processing that information. Yes, women have encountered oppression all throughout history and yet not long ago half the population was dying of dysentery by the age of 40 and we were burning men alive at the stake. What is the context?

I love how the tales of women are so carefully preserved in the Bible and yes, that is a miracle, and yes men do have a propensity to dominate, to erase women’s voices. Sometimes it is deliberate and evil and sometimes it is just biology, design. Literally, the example of ‘voices’ is a good one, those sweet, rich tones of men singing can easily drown out many women’s softer tones. That doesn’t make it bad, its actually quite beautiful, which is why we carefully craft choirs with different tones and pitches. Don’t forget the sopranos, who can just upset my whole apple cart analogy.

My point being, the evil men’s patriarchy club of women haters did not hold committee meetings like the Taliban of today do. That is actually a rather modern perversion. We see burkas and watch the ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ and think, this is how it was for women in ancient days, thank God we’ve progressed. We often fail to realize that “Arabian Nights” and ”I Dream of Jeannie,’ is a more accurate representation of historical culture and native garb that what we see around us today.

Perception deceptions. Ironically when we perceive our ancestors solely as victims of oppression, we fail to honor them, we dismiss their humanity, we disregard their strength, and we perceive ourselves as more valuable, as more sensible, as more progressive, meaning more highly evolved. It’s unbelievably disrespectful.

Something I love about the Bible, it tells the truth of women’s lives, the diversity if our character, and our roles in the world, the good, the bad, and the ugly. We are not victims anymore than Jesus Himself was a victim, and I think this is a very important concept to grab onto. He lives in us, He is what allows and enables us to rise above the things we see out and about in the world. The woman at the well had five husband and she was a Samaritan, but Jesus doesn’t validate her victimhood status, He actually sees her and speaks the truth of who she really is. That is the kind of internal transformation, the metanoia, that came to set the captives free. When we believe that we will be made right and whole when the world around us changes, we are in captivity and bondage, and it is a psychological and emotional bondage that in many ways is far more damaging then actual physical oppression.