Heart of Darkness

Racism, at its heart, is the pernicious idea that everyone should think like me, and the more people are not like me, the less human they are.  Racism tends to focus on appearance:  facial structure, skin color, hair color.  But the idea that people not like me are not people is part of the reason anti-Islamic fervor (and where did that go?) was racism.

Dan Patrick wins the hat trick:

In the past, Patrick has been vocally critical of those protest movements, saying in 2016 that the Black Lives Matter movement was responsible for the shooting of five police officers in Dallas. Black Lives Matter leaders in Dallas called those comments “dangerous and irresponsible” at the time. Patrick has also been known to make incendiary comments about people of color, including referring to undocumented immigrants as an “illegal invasion” and boycotting a prayer by a Muslim cleric on the floor of the Senate.

But Dan Patrick's heart is pure, and it bleeds for people who don't know Jeebus (the slight is intended) the way he does:

“I look at this, and it breaks my heart what I’m seeing — from the original crime that was committed by the police officer on George Floyd to what’s happening in our streets,” said Patrick, speaking to Fox News host Shannon Bream. “We have racism in this country, Shannon. But it’s really an issue of love. It’s loving God. If if you cannot love your fellow man, if you don’t love God — and we have a country where we’ve been working really hard, particularly on the left, to kick God out. We need a culture change to address this racism.

“You cannot change the culture of a country until you change the character of mankind,” he continued. “You can’t change that unless you change the heart, and for billions of us on the planet, we believe you can’t do that unless you accept Jesus Christ, unless you accept God.”

Now, I grew up listening to this sanctimonious claptrap from people just like Dan Patrick:  nasty vicious bastards who would steal the pennies off their mother's eyes, humble bragging (as the phrase once was) about themselves by talking about how sad they were at the indecency and impropriety of...other people.  It was always other people who needed to get right with God, come to Jesus, and start thinking like...well, Dan Patrick.

Or Donald Trump.  You can't really slip a piece of paper between them on almost anything, which is probably why Dan Patrick is making as much noise as he can lately.  LIke Trump, Patrick likes to be the center of attention.  Like Trump, Patrick likes to stir the pot.  Even though he has no authority over Texas school districts, except as a voting member of the Legislature, he ran to Forth Worth a few years ago to denounce any accomodation to transgender students.  Now he goes to Dallas to bail out a woman jailed for violating Gov. Abbot's orders on closing salons and stores (the first time around, so a while back).  Patrick paid her bail; out of his political account, not his own pocket.  He's not stupid enough to put his money where his mouth is, he puts other people's money there.  Again, like someone we are all too familiar with.  And Patrick really likes it when you agree with him; because if you don't, well, you're just damned, that's all.

"....unless you accept Jesus Christ, unless you accept God."  He's got a very specific, very narrow idea, of what that means; and even Christians who are not Catholics (I can't imagine he doesn't secretly think they're all dupes of the Beast of Babylon) are not "saved" if they don't believe as Dan believes.  As I say, I grew up with this crap, and when my Southern Baptist friends would earnestly ask me if I'd "accepted Jesus into my heart," I'd just as earnestly tell them I hadn't, because I wasn't sure there was room in there for Jesus, amongst the four ventricles and the valves and all.  They said I knew what they meant, and I said I didn't and could you explain it to me, because somehow "accepting" Jesus wasn't enough, it had to be "into my heart," and I frankly never understood why that distinction was so important.  I still don't.

The thing is, I don't even disagree with Patrick.  I agree we can't really resolve problems like racism without a "change of heart," and I agree with Auden that "we must love one another or die."  Then again, I agree with Herbert McCabe:  "If you don't love, you're dead, and if you do love, they'll kill you."  So I understand that notion of love a bit differently than the Lite Guv.  He means you're supposed to love the way he does, where money is obviously far more important than people.  And you have to love the God he loves, which is a god I don't even recognize as the God of Abraham, or otherwise.  We are, you see, at an impasse.  And Dan Patrick thinks that's my problem, and that's why I'm damned.  And I just think that's why Dan Patrick is a damned fool.

My only consolation in this life is going to be Dan Patrick presiding over a Texas Senate in January that is majority Democrats.  Prognosticators and wise heads say it could happen.  It would be even better than seeing Patrick voted out of office, because he'd have to put up with all those Democrats who are damned and don't agree with his politics.

As for "fixing" the problem of racism, Dan, you go first.  It's not at all Christian, by my understanding, to think you're heart is pure, and somebody else's doesn't meet your standards.

I need to pray for him; but I don't need to like him.