Black by Color Only

God’s Grace, Not Race

What’s crackin’? Welcome to Black By Color Only, the page where the truth matters more than skin color. I was born in 1968 when the events of the Civil Rights era were ending. Several months before I was born, the US witnessed the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy. Since then, the US has made great strides in healing from its racist past. Black folks have enjoyed every aspect of success on many levels. Today, there is nothing that can be held back from America’s POC (People of Color) in the USA.

However, there are those out there that would disagree with that concept. Many still believe black folks suffer from “systemic racism”, otherwise known as “institutional racism.” To hear it from many black folks, white supremacy still dominates the landscape, the KKK are still committing acts of terror consistently, and the “white man” is keeping the black man below his level of expectations. To hear it from black proponents, black folks can’t get ahead because of white folks permeating every facet of society and, therefore, prevent blacks from achieving higher levels of success. Ever since the end of slavery, the rhetoric goes, white folks have been benefiting from that institution to the detriment of America’s blacks.

My experience, though, has taught me that white folks aren’t the biggest threat to black people. There is another faction that is more dangerous than the KKK, the Aryan Nation, racist cops, and white supremacy combined. That threat is the existence of the individual-minded, free-thinking, conservative/Christian black person. No one is more of a threat to the Apostles of Blackness than the black man who uses reason and logic to form his opinions. This is also the person who chooses not to indict white people for his shortcomings or the failures of black people. This is the person who refuses to jump to conclusions and waits for evidence about an incident before making his judgments. Mainstream black America refers to this person as a “coon, sellout, Uncle Tom/Ruckus, oreo,” or any of a myriad of other cute names that they like to hurl at their fellow black “bruthas” who refuse to toe the victimization line. Yessiree, the biggest threat to Black America is the black person who actually thinks for himself.

As you may already know by reading what I’ve already posted above, I am one of those black folks whose way of thinking we consider a detriment to black society. I refuse to use my skin color as an excuse for my shortcomings nor will I use it to set the course of my emotions. As a Christian, no matter our skin color, I believe we are all created in the image of God (Acts 17:26) and our duty is to respect all people, be they white, black, brown, olive, yellow, or red.

I created this page hoping someone will peruse it and gain some understanding about the racial complexities we find ourselves in. I hope when someone checks out this page, the reader will read it with an open mind and understand the position that the author (me) is coming from. We need to stop demonizing others who look like us and don’t think like us.

We need to understand even though we may look alike, we are not monoliths obligated to follow the collective as we are all individuals, once again created in the image of God. We need to understand that a disagreement with one’s point of view is not akin to disrespecting the person individually. I think those of us who make up the black race are overly sensitive to incidents in which one of our members ends up on the short end of the stick, so to speak, especially if that short end is given by a member of another race, most likely a white person. We need to suppress our sensitivities instead of diving headlong into situations we have little information about.

Anyway, I hope you get something out of your visit to this page and I hope you find it very informative.