“Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain – and most fools do.”

~ Benjamin Franklin

What does race do for us?  What does it do for you, your relationships, your community?  What are the benefits of our belief in race, our practice of stereotyping and segregating and judging ourselves better and others worse?

The truth is that for all of our arguments and disagreements because of race, it makes us feel good.  Race speaks highly of us.  It credits our flesh with goodness and ability.  It is because of the social coloring of skin that we are desirable and thereby successful.

But, race is a fool.  All is knows how to do is criticize, condemn and complain.  Race makes us great by comparison.  We are only good because we have made them bad.  We can see ourselves as beautiful because we have defined their appearance as ugly.

Listen to the ways in which we speak of other cultures when it comes to race.  “Those people have come to our country to take our jobs.  These people are helpless.  I am so glad that I am not like them.”

Race does not teach us to speak well of others (James 4.11).  Instead, it encourage us to pride ourselves, to boast of our culture, to favor our country over other lands.  Race does not support community but thrives on division.

Frankly, race is making a fool of us by keeping us separated.  We know that we need each other, that there is nothing to fear but race itself.  Race is the problem not human beings.  The social coloring of skin is not the solution but unconditional love.  Race is making a fool of us by keeping our hands folded inward instead of reaching out to others, holding hands, forming circles, staying connected.

Some one has tied a noose on a tree on the campus at Duke University.  This historical symbol of terror and social injustice is a foolish one.  I mean, what is the point really?  What is the goal of such but to point us back to an ignorant past and practice that neither benefitted the American justice system that supported it nor the individuals who rushed to judgment, lied and conspired to make the person (s) guilty?

What point are persons who hate and scare, who fear and prejudge, who believe that persons should be killed because only they have a right to life trying to make?  Surely, there is more to life than to criticize, condemn and complain.  Unless of course, you are a fool.

Mark Twain was right.  He said, “It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.”  No one wants to “play the fool.” And since race has convinced us that we are the source of power, the key to knowledge and the evidence of truth, though it is not impossible it incredibly difficult to prove that race is making a fool out of us. I’m going to try any way.  I will repeat it as often as I am given opportunity.

Open your eyes and see that race does not help our humanity.  It does not love us because race does not want us to love others.  It is a social conditioning and says that love is conditional.  But, we cannot serve the God of unconditional love and race.  Be a disciple of Christ; don’t be a fool for race.