Christian Writer: America Isn’t Racist Because George Floyd Was a Criminal

Is racism real? Yes.

Has racism existed throughout our country’s history? Yes. Any account of our history is incomplete without acknowledging how it was shaped by slavery, the fight for civil rights, redlining, etc.

But writing for Charisma magazine, Tiffany Benson says that America is not an inherently racist country — or one that even has a racism problem.

How does she do it? By taking examples of systemic racism and saying it’s not racist. That’s it. Here she is talking about the one-year anniversary of the murder of George Floyd:

One year has passed since the unfortunate and tragic event that threw our country into turmoil. We won’t forget that Floyd was someone’s son, father and friend. However, it is wrong for the mainstream media and Democratic Party to continue pushing a narrative that characterizes Floyd as a law-abiding citizen and martyr. After being convicted and serving time for numerous crimes, it was the purported passing of a counterfeit $20 bill that ultimately cost Floyd his life.

That counterfeit bill is not what “cost Floyd his life.” No one is supposed to receive the death penalty for that. Officer Derek Chauvin unlawfully acted as judge, jury, and executioner, and that’s why Floyd was killed.

But because Chauvin didn’t explicitly say he went after Floyd because of his skin color, Benson thinks racism can’t possibly be a motive. As if anyone who’s not wearing a white hood is incapable of perpetuating racial bias.

To this day, we still do not have tangible proof, beyond doubt that Floyd was targeted and killed because of his skin color. Yet, race riots, political talks on “white privilege” and legislation against white supremacy were all born out of the altercation. We can disagree on whether Officer Derek Chauvin handled the situation appropriately, but we cannot succumb to the lie that America is a systemically racist country. If we fail to successfully push back against false narratives, the movement of a counterfeit “racism awareness group” will cost us our nation.

What proof is she looking for? We have ample evidence of dangerous white people being apprehended by police without harm. Dylann Roof, the notorious white supremacist who murdered several Black people inside a church, was taken to Burger King by his arresting officers. Meanwhile, we hear story after story about unarmed Black men being killed during routine traffic stops, despite complying with officer demands.

And that’s just one kind of racial injustice. As we speak, Republicans are taking steps to prevent Black people from voting in states where those votes could tip the balance of power. They don’t say they’re trying to block those votes. They just figure out how Black people often vote — by mail, after church on Sunday, in certain cities — and work to eliminate or decrease voting access in those places, at those times, with those methods.

Benson, who’s Black, goes on to decry the Black Lives Matter movement as “openly communist” and therefore useless in confronting America’s racism problem, ignoring how BLM marches and rallies can galvanize voters and citizens to spur social change. She seems to have forgotten her titular thesis entirely, since she devotes more article space to why she thinks the BLM movement is harmful than whether or not America is racist.

She concludes:

This situation deserves our attention, our prayers and our voices to be heard. We must appeal to God and government to end the Black Lives Matter movement. It is imperative we find legitimately peaceful ways to resolve the unrest in our nation. America doesn’t need to be fundamentally transformed into a communist society to dispense equality and justice. We simply need to reestablish truth, hold fast to biblical values, repent and return to our first love.

If truth matters, then it requires us to stop whitewashing America’s history of racism and oppression. Educating students is peaceful. Marches are peaceful. Yet Benson and others at Charisma want to prevent this history from being taught in public schools, all while using right-wing buzzwords to deflect from their own complicity in the matter.

Pretending not to see racism doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. By acting like activists are dividing the nation, she’s giving cover to the pastors and politicians who exacerbate the very real racism that exists — and has always existed — in society.

(Image via Shutterstock)