On this week’s show:
Rather than mob’s holding pitchforks, today’s form of violence seems to be taking place on “GiveSendGo.”
The Supreme Court rules in favor of Trump’s trans ban in the military.
For the first time in 2000 years of Christianity, we now have the first ever American Pope.
Bernie Sanders unapologetic use of gas-guzzling jets, and a quick look at America’s health avengers
Finally, is there a Christian revival in San Francisco? I’ll talk to Michelle Stephens, founder of Acts 17 Collective about how she’s bringing tech influences to Christ.
The story of online mobs and their virtual pitchforks…
Shiloh Hendrix is getting a lot of coverage. She is a white woman caught on camera at a Rochester, Minnesota playground shouting racial slurs. The video is taken by a race-baiting black man who clearly provoked this woman to capture a viral moment. He wants the woman to apologize for saying the “N-word” to a 5-yr-old boy who allegedly stole something out of her baby’s baby bag. Watch that video here.
So why did this video get so much coverage? Because the video went viral, the woman received a lot of threats so she put up a “Protect my family” GiveSendGo page and boom… the funds poured in from well over 25,000 people. Sharmake Omar, the man who videotaped this woman was interviewed by a local TV station saying Shiloh should have been punished, but yet she’s been rewarded.
Here’s where the moral debate: Does supporting the woman reward her behavior? Or is supporting her a way to allow people to carry out their natural tendencies to be violent?
A popular personality on X - Colin Wright, an evolutionary biologist who posts often about sex being binary, believes people are rewarding her behavior. He posted on X: “The woke right is now mirroring the woke left’s tendency to glorify and martyr immoral degenerates solely based on shared racial identity.”
“This woke one-upmanship is a race to the very bottom.” Wright is referring to a post that shows that Shiloh raised $537-thousand dollars compared to Karmelo Anthony who raised $520,000. Recall - Anthony is accused of stabbing and murdering Austin Metcalf after an altercation. This person Anthony has a fundraising page to help pay for his defense. When you look at that X post, it’s easy to be on Colin’s side. These two aren’t model citizens. Why are they being supported at all? Why are we glorifying their behavior? Why in his words are we “valorizing scum?”
It’s a great point… But supporting the fundraiser isn’t the same as sanctioning her behavior. There’s a couple good reasons why people would support her fundraiser – 1) to allow for due process to enable her to defend herself 2) to condemn the videographer's behavior.
Nick Fuentes (who has half a million followers) puts it this way: Shiloh’s fundraiser is a big middle finger to the other side essentially saying, enough is enough. Stop framing white people!
Conservative commentator for Daily Wire Matt Walsh for his part did a whole monologue saying he supports Shiloh’s fundraiser because it helps stop cancel culture. And that in of itself is a good thing.
I agree with Nick Fuentes and Matt Walsh in this case because they’re not condoning Shiloh’s behavior. They’re pretty explicit about it.
They’re condemning Sharmake’s and all those who've been trying to frame white people.
To carry out justice, Sharmake should have followed Matthew 18:15. He should have confronted the woman and the boy’s parents. If they didn’t listen, he could have tried to find witnesses. But he didn’t. He immediately published the video, which is a form of gossip to muddy her reputation and threaten her livelihood.
This is similar to what happened to Amy Cooper. The white woman in central park in New York who was caught on camera by a so-called bird watcher? The bird watcher wanted her to put a leash on her dog and Amy Cooper ended up calling the police saying a black man was threatening her life. That video went viral and she was accused of white privilege. I defended Amy Cooper in my book “Unequally Yoked” because I looked into the details of the matter. But not many people did and many people supported the bird watcher because they felt guilty of their so-called white privilege. Amy Cooper lost her job but no one (in large numbers) defended her.
In Shiloh’s case, people are now coming to her defense - not to defend her behavior - but to condone the behavior of Sharmake and all who are trying to shame her.
Another point to make regarding this incident is brought up by another person on X who posted on Colin Wright’s post. This person posts: People are tribal - that is part of human nature. Colin says yes but we can’t allow that to run amuck - we need to stop people from being tribal. Colin appears to want to be the wise referee here.
But then someone jumps in and points out rightly…
Umm… Colin - you are actually being tribal yourself. What happens when people don’t like your tribe? Wright says: you condemn them, shame them and if there are laws that mandate fairness, you enforce them. “Abandoning the goal of detribalization is the wrong way to go about things… Dark times often come to pass…we have to give it enough time, but this doesn’t mean we should abandon the goal.”
Hmmm. Dark times just end and fizzle out? This person responds: “Nope.” Dark times end in various ways, including by forced compliance or external factors. The way to end conflict or dark times is by allowing mobs to fight each other. He also adds that we were shielded from the fact that violence or the threat of violence ends conflict but rather we were told that tribalism can end by being nice to one another.
Let’s step back here. I don’t know this person who wrote this, but what he raises is a good point: conflict is resolved through violence – whether we like it or not. This is particularly the case when the conflict is deep-rooted. This deep strife doesn’t just “come to pass” as Colin says it might.
To resolve this debate requires some form of violence. If the right doesn’t fight, violence or the threat of violence is used by the other side.
So Why as Colin points out - can’t we allow this dark moment to pass or why can’t we just shame Shiloh and everyone involved into compliance? Because the other side isn’t our friend. The other side sees us as the enemy. They will never stop.
Many people have forgotten that violence often has to take place to end conflict because we don’t think about the deep metaphysical roots of our behavior and human nature. We don’t think about our proclivities and the nature of our humanity or being.
But if we go back 300 years ago - during the Enlightenment and Age of Reason years - around the 18th century. What began to emerge was this idea that we could be rational beings who could reason our way to civility. We would do away with religious fights about the true god and the nature of humanity. If we just muzzled religious conversations we could live in harmony.
Then in the 20th century, after WWII, it was believed that the world could actually contain violence if countries came together and helped each other economically. So under the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and other organizations, money was sent to developing nations in order to civilize the world and contain violence.
But here’s the rub - we can’t contain violence. It will come out because all people are inherently capable of violence. That is the nature of man. We are not inherently good compliant robots that listen to reason. Violence and anger come out in different forms and no amount of lecturing from people like Colin Wright can get people to change that nature. No moral indignation toward them will change their minds. Their violence will come out in mob-like form - either with people with pitchforks, people in an actual war with guns, weapons on the battlefield or people on social media trolling the other side.
And maybe this is a much better way to let violence play out. Maybe just maybe, the internet is containing the violence… the violence we so desperately want to demolish, but the violence that in the end, must be carried out.
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