Racism: Real or Exaggerated?

I was recently asked to fill out a law enforcement survey on hate crimes from a television broadcaster. I filled out their survey a short time after having gone through Nebraska’s mandated anti-bias and racism training that all law enforcement officers are required to take every year.

During these trainings, I was basically told that as a white law enforcement officer, I am automatically racist and in all cases biased. I hate to break it to everyone, but we are all biased and I have even been the victim of reverse racism on several occasions. Do I sit around and cry about it? No.

Now this survey comes through and it seems to be trying to make a larger issue out of hate crimes than I personally feel it needs to be. Look, I live in a small rural community. The majority of our residents have rural values, neighbors helping neighbors, judging people by the content of their character, always seeing the good in other people, etc. So, we don’t see the hate crimes that other folks see in the larger populations. I decided to make my comments on the issue nationally as I see it and I am sharing them with you.

The problem I see across the board in America today is this: We are a nation founded in Judeo Christian beliefs and we are now trying to somehow remove them from our history. In fact, we are trying to remove all of our history, the good and the bad. Is there racism, yes. Are there hate crimes, yes. Is it a rampant epidemic across America, no. And for this statement alone, many will decry that I am a racist and this statement proves it. I can say with great confidence that America, as a whole, is the most accepting country in the world. We are called a Melting Pot for a reason.

Most Americans just want to get along with their neighbors, live their lives and be left alone. The irony is that we live so comfortably now that we have to create our own problems, because we do not suffer from any real problems: hunger, lack of shelter, lack of clean water, lack of electricity, sewer, etc. But our recent history has shown that American’s thrive on apocalyptic issues. My goodness, all you have to do is watch the news and you will see a person dressed in designer clothes, $200 shoes and a $1,000 cell phone in their hand, screaming that they are oppressed. And how many times have the Global Warming Alarmist told us that we will all be dead in 10 years if we don’t change course. Give me a break. So the media, no offense to you of course, must then make their stories apocalyptic in nature in order to get viewers.

Then add to that a government, who, to stay in power, must divide Americans so that we do not come together with one voice or vote against them. So they put us into groups and pit us against each other. Democrats vs Republicans, Blacks vs Whites, LGBTQ vs Straight, Rich vs Poor, Abortion vs Christians, etc. Last year we fixated on racism and bias in policing. This year lets focus on hate crimes. I am sorry, but I am way too busy dealing with all crimes to get fixated on one facet of a much larger issue. And truth be told, if all of these groups would sit down with each other and have an honest to goodness open discussion, we would find out that we have more in common than we have different.

We have taken God out everything American and are then surprised when the devil moves in and takes over the country. The fix is a very simple one given to us in the Bible by Jesus, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Whether you are a Christian or not, if we all lived by this golden rule, think of the world we could live in.

It is a simple fix, but not one likely to happen any time soon when so many people are consumed by hate and ignorance fueled by the news media and our own government officials. It seems that the American spirit has gone from one of, “We can do anything we put our minds to” to “How have I been oppressed today.” We have gone from a nation of courageous explorers and leaders of innovation to a nation of cry-babies and victims.