NAKED CAME I

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there.” Job 1:21 (NKJV) 

I am a white male by birth.  Stop reading here if this has no meaning or is not relevant to you.  Keep reading if you are interested in my perspective.  I hope you will.

I did not choose my mother or father.  I did not choose my race.  I did not choose my gender, my country, my history, the economic status of my parents, my DNA, my relatives, my rearing, or my innate abilities.  I adamantly and unequivocally disavow any responsibility for my inherited status in life.

So it is with you.  Whether you are black, brown, red, yellow or any other skin pigmentation or combination thereof, you can say precisely the same thing.  It is an incontrovertible fact.  You are one hundred percent free from any responsibility for the terms, conditions, or characteristics of your conception.  You and I both know that this is true, but we also know that this isn’t how the world works.  Some people say that my whiteness is a problem.  Other people say that your different toned skin is the problem.  Neither statement is logically or empirically true, but both statements are sociologically and politically true.  Thus, we have a quandary. 

Let me put this dilemma in a hypothetical context.  Suppose I am accused of a racist act and put on trial.  Everyone agrees that I did not personally commit the crime.  I was not at the scene of the crime, nor was I associated with anyone else who was charged.  The prosecutor charges me anyway.  His evidence is that I belong to a group that is known for racism.  He proves that the race to which I belong has committed many heinous racist acts against people of color.  The jury agrees with the prosecutor and the judge sentences me to years in prison.

Was justice done?  Some people say yes, even though I was not personally guilty.  Since my race was guilty, they believe that the aggrieved race must be avenged, and unfortunately for me, I must bear the punishment for sins I didn’t commit.  Personal guilt is not the issue.  My race is the issue.  Remember, we discussed earlier that I had no control over the circumstances of my birth.  Had I known that I would be blamed for my forebears’ sins, I would have entered the world through another set of parents.  If you think that is an absurd thought, then you are beginning to get my point.  There was a gross miscarriage of justice.  Guilt by association, a legally viable term, may be justified if the association in question was the result of conscious choice.  If I chose to drive the getaway car, for example, then I am as guilty as those who robbed the jewelry story and shot the owner.  That is a matter of personal responsibility and it bears a penalty of personal consequence. 

If you are an African-American male, you most likely can identify with the scenario I just described.  Many of you who answer to this description have been stopped, frisked, questioned, cuffed, and often stuffed into a cruiser and taken downtown.  You committed no crime nor were you associated with any crime that just went down.  The police accosted you because you were a member of a black race.  They made assumptions about you based on their biases, suspicions, and beliefs alone.  Patently preposterous.  The only difference—and it is huge—between the two accounts is that mine is hypothetical but yours is real.  Other than that, the legal ramifications match point for point. 

This brings us to the broad concept of sociology and social justice.  It represents a radical reversal of traditional justice, delivering a shock to the Judeo/Christian ethical system, and administers a brand of justice by a calculus, as it were, from another planet.  Personal responsibility has no standing and is given no consideration in this conceptual framework.  Group behavior, class privilege, systemic racism, stereotyping, racial profiling, and other similar terms, credible in specifically designed constructs but foreign to individual cases, set the protocols for justice.   Thomas Sowell poses this question: “Have we reached the ultimate stage of absurdity where some people are held responsible for things that happened before they were born, while other people are not held responsible for what they themselves are doing today?”

The answer to Mr. Sowell’s question is yes, we have.  This new, convoluted system is called social justice.  Its proponents would never couch the concept in such crass and ludicrous terms as I have suggested. They speak of lofty goals like egalitarianism, income inequality, and equal distribution of wealth. In fact, most social justice manifestoes incorporate the concept articulated by the United Nations.   “Social justice may be broadly understood as the fair and compassionate distribution of the fruits of economic growth.”  Economic equality seems to provide the genesis for the entire field.  Mysteriously, however, everything else finds its way into the mix.  Policing, low income housing, voter registration, LGBTQ issues, health insurance, access to public services, correctional institutions, the judicial system—you name it—all become planks of the same platform. 

Now, to the disturbing conclusion of this development.  With the rapid demise of individualism and the meteoric rise of socialism, we are on the cusp of losing the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, private ownership, and our economic system of capitalism.  Rugged individualism, personal resourcefulness, and self-determination will become passé.  Whether you and I have white or black skin, European or African heritage, our treatment as individuals in the new world order will no longer factor into our worth.  Our significance will only matter as our usefulness to society manifests itself. 

This new philosophy makes perfect sense to social justice warriors.  Defenders of the status quo, however, see it as the ultimate emasculation of personal growth and meaning.  You can dream, but not about personal success.  You can plan, but only about advancing the plight of society.  You can create, invent, generate, produce, and develop, but it must not be seen as personal aggrandizement.  Entrepreneurialism will reach a dead end.  The army slogan “be the best you can be” will evolve into “be the best everyone else wants you to be.” 

Finally, for the ultimate insight, guess who the new capitalists, the new dreamers, the new entrepreneurs will be?  The people who run the system.  After all, you don’t need to own it if you can control it. 

You and I entered this world naked.  We will leave the same way.  Did we make full use of the giftings we had?  That cannot happen if someone else lives vicariously through us.  We cannot impose our own dreams on each other.  You and I must have the freedom to live our own lives, dream our own dreams, and achieve our own destinies.  You must have the freedom to do that, and so must I.