November 9 2017 – Click here to listen
There is a petition going around that urges folks to boycott the NFL this coming Veterans Day weekend. It seems fitting to me that we should not support an organization that disparages our country and those who bravely fought for it and have kept us free from the Hitlers, Stalins, and Hirohitos of the world. Most of the players who are protesting are black and the purpose for the protest is their claim to not stand up for a country where black people are being unfairly treated and murdered by the police.
Why would police profile blacks more than whites? Is it because they hate black people, or that blacks commit more crimes? It is a proven fact that a disproportionate number of blacks commit the crimes. It is just a fact.
Having worked in prison ministry some 30 years now I am convinced the problems that land people in prison are not because of skin color, but having been raised in a fatherless home, being abused as a child, generational governmental assistance that prevents work ethic, and dropping out of school. With no work, self-esteem, education and little hopes of attaining it, drug and alcohol abuse and crime are sure to follow.
What is “the primary problem?”
I believe the largest problem facing blacks is being raised in a fatherless environment. I can tell you first-hand regardless of your skin color that God-fearing fathers are vitally important in raising children. My father wouldn’t give me the time of day and when he did it was in the form of a beating. Is it any wonder that I became bitter and full of hate and turned to drugs and crime?
The police profiled me and pursued me daily and I needed it. Had they caught me, it would have served the community well because I was committing crimes. Loving God-fearing fathers teach their children that immoral behavior is wrong. They understand that their children are blessings from God and they teach their kids the value of education and work ethic. They teach them to revere this great country and to respect the police who are working so hard to protect us. They monitor their children and encourage them to make friends with good kids and to stay away from thugs and drugs. Most importantly they love them and support them emotionally and financially.
I received the following from a reader last week:
“Children raised in fatherless homes, especially black children, are far more likely than children raised in two parent homes to engage in criminal behavior and thus, have contact with police. Ergo when they father a child with a woman to whom they are not married – or at least living with – they are contributing to the problem against which these football players are taking a knee.
If you look at many of these players’ records on out-of-wedlock children, you find that they are contributing significantly to the problem against which they are protesting.
For example, Antonio Cromartie has 12 children by 9 different women. Apparently, the NFL had to shell out $500,000 before he could even play football for them. Travis Henry has 11 children by 10 women, Willis McGahee has 9 children by 8 women, Derrick Thomas has 7 children by 5 different women, Bennie Blades has 6 children by 6 women, Ray Lewis has 6 children by 4 women and Marshall Faulk has 6 children by 3 women.
Before these guys take a knee they should take a good look in the mirror. It appears that their problem is not the knee.”
So many problems in life could be easily solved if fathers would follow God and teach their children to do likewise. I have no idea how these guys treat their kids, they might love and support them more than anyone else in the world, but what they are doing is not healthy to society nor to the kids . . . It is wrong!
Proverbs 22:6
Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.