Welcome to the nonprofits. For our fourth and final story this week, we take a look at what a Christian seminary student had to say about the Black Lives Matter movement. Black Lives Matter movement, I'm sure it's a very fair and considerate op ed piece, Jonathan Ruttabush.
Let's dive right in.
Yeah, the op ed is trying to associate Black Lives Matter movements relevance in the society with the acquittal of a white man in the death of a black man, trying to frame it in racial terms. But was it did BLM have anything to do with the case of homeless man Jordan Neely, a black man who was asphyxiated by a white former marine, Daniel Perry, on basically a train on a subway. So the entire article is weirdly saying that BLM is fading because of fading from the
public consciousness. Because a man who has skilled enough to use a choke hold to subt do someone is acquitted in court, so twelve jurors represent the entire populace of New York City. He choked him for about six minutes trying to subdue him. Note, most people are unconscious if they are healthy and fit in ten seconds if they're if you're using a stranglehold which cuts off the blood supply to the brain and the airway. But we don't know if that's what he did. A video showed that
it was improperly if and not consistently applied. This was evaluated by the same marine who had taught combat to Penny himself. So the writer said that Penny's acquittal was a sign that the US public no longer believes the lying rhetoric of Marxist BLM movement. Was this the case? Was this case about race? Or was it about a mentally ill homeless man acting out on a subway and threatening people. When Jordan threatened the pregnant woman, Daniel Petty
acted to protect her. That DA saw that differently and prosecuted Penny for negligent homicide and manslaughter. The manslaughter charge was dropped, an example of the spin that Wolf states, BLM from its inception has proven itself not just about advocating for racial justice, but also as a vehicle for promoting anti American and anti white rhetoric, division and chaos. Not biased at all. What do you guys think?
Well, before we find out what we think, Jonathan, I want to hear a little bit more about what you think. First, the author said, quote, Penny employed a chokehold, which you've mentioned a technique from his military training in what was clearly an active self defense of others. Okay, So that was the quote from the op ed, And I assume that he's kind of implying that the force that he was using was appropriate and not excessive. So you're a military man, what can you comment on that?
Well, there's two types of things he chokes, which is just airway obstruction. Can take up to several minutes to render a well conditioned person unconscious. It depends on the person, you know, and how the choke is apply. Strangles or strangulation is about cutting off the blood supply, and that happens within seconds because no blood of the brain, no consciousness. So and it basically compresses the cartoid artery and the juggly veins, making sure that no blame blood goes in
or out of the head. So that's what happens. It can also compress the airway, the trachea, the larynx, and so that can also cause asphyxia. The said Asphix. You so I assume he was cutting the airway, but I have no way of knowing for sure, Marie. The Marines I worked with when I was in the anfib Navy, I believe they use strangleholds in combat training, as as described above. If he was still moving after several minutes, the hold was either improperly applied or just a show cold.
In either case, Penny should have known that holding either one of those types of chokes more than two to three minutes could possibly result in permanent brain damage or damage to the individual. Evidently he was not looking at his watch, and I wonder why not. Yeah, yeah, but you know, people react the way they're trained, is the last thing I'll say for this go.
So was he acting appropriate to his training? The amount of force that he used was that to be expected.
I would expect that if he was acting as he was trained, he probably was doing the best he could in that situation with the restrictions of the space that he was in. But then again, I wasn't there, so I'm and I'm not an expert in hand to gain combat, So you know, I couldn't say whether or not he did it right. But apparently his instructor said he didn't, so, okay, well you have a.
Dead guy, right.
Somebody died because of this and that brings me Steve, and I wanted to ask you following the following about Daniel Penny's acquittal.
This is what the author had to say.
His active courage protecting the vulnerable in a moment of chaos resonance with the Christian call to stand up for one's neighbor in times of need. Now a man is now dead because Penny stood up. Do you think that the acquittal of Daniel Penny is in alignment with the morality and dictates of Christianity, or rather, I should say, the professed.
Morality and dictates of Christianity. Do you think that? Do you think things line up?
Is this?
Is he judging that correctly? Then he will say to those on his left, depart from me, you who are cursed into the eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink. I was a stranger and you did not invite me in. I needed clothes and you did not clothe me. I was sick and in prison, and
you did not look after me. And they will answer, Lord, when did we see you hungry, thirsty, a stranger, needing clothes, sick in prison and did not help you? And he will reply, Truly, I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me. Then they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.
How telling? How telling for the Christian Post to run this story, because there was nothing nothing christ like about this. He was protecting his neighbors from being uncomfortable by a problem that we all have to face. You know, what's not going to solve homelessness, Scott being protected from it being having homeless people killed in front of us is not going to actually address the homelessness issue, right, But the privileged white guy kills a marginalized black man and
got away with it. And this is antithetical to the gospel that the Christian Post is supposed to be promoting. How telling? How unsurprising?
Yeah, I'm not surprising at all.
I mean we see these kind of stories prop up fairly often, you know, and it would be it would be refreshing to hear some Christians complaining about it rather than just you know, a nonprofits atheists show and on you know once a week.
Right, I want to go over to Kelly for a second real quick here.
So this piece spends a lot of time talking and promoting kind of in us versus them them Outlook, So is this some sort of spiritual axis and allies.
That they're talking about.
What are your thoughts on this chasm that's between the religious right and uh and and well pretty much everyone else, you know, What's what's the deal there?
Yeah, I think you judged that pretty well. There is there is a movement to make the Christian right be better and more moral than everybody else. And I think there is a chasm there. I think that chasm is growing wider and wider and wider. But I think they're the doing it. I think they're ones who created that chasm, and they're the ones who are making it larger. One of the things that he said in the article was it's time to move forward, focusing on true equality, not
on reversing racial injustices with new ones. And I saw that and what I read from there. Now, I don't know if you know anything about the author. I looked into his background a little bit. He's just a rich white guy from the South. He's got a history of his family being rich white guys from the South. So what I read between the lines was, I know it was people just like me, you know, rich white guys from the South that kept literally kept people like you.
But please don't hold that against me now, right, It seems like nothing for an excuse, but for why this dangerous black man was justified in being killed by this heroic white guy, right, and one other things, I don't think I'm not surprised that he was acquitted. I don't know a lot of people know. I'm a history buff. I remember a lot of things when I was growing up to But in the eighties in New York City on the subway, there was a guy who shot four
young black men. His name was Bernard Getz, and he actually chased one of the men down through three cars and shot him in the back. And he was acquitted of all four of those killings. So this didn't surprise me at all, Jonathan.
So this is our third story this week about violence being committed by conservative Christians basically, and so coming from the God is Love crowd, this seems counter message, as Stephen was talking about before, and we also talked about
earlier in our earlier segments. This week, Kelly mentioned something about he used the analogy of a cornered animal respond you know, reacting and you know, feeling feeling pressured and responding violently that way, Why do you think that these people are being so violent?
And is this gonna get.
Worse or is it going to get you know, I mean, is it going to reach a maximum pointer? Where is this leading as far as interacting with other human beings?
Well, first off, I'm not sure if mister Penny was a Christian or not. It doesn't really I don't think it says.
That does a good point.
That's a good point, and the fact they were accenting the fact he was a marine. Marines are are extremely good fighters. They're trained to fight there, they're trained in how to have good judgment about the situation, to react appropriately with appropriate measures. So I when when that marine describes the situation and why he did what he did, which he did in this article, well briefly in this article I read a few other things, but I have
a very biased opinion that I believe him. I believe that that's what he thought at the time, that he thought that not only was the passengers threatened, but that once he had taken action, that he was also threatened because of the position he was in, and he was trying to control that. He felt he was in a vulnerable position. If I'm not that kind of fighter, you know, I don't do that kind of thing on a regular basis. I'm not trained like that. People behave the way they're trained.
Firemen run towards a fire, police run towards an assault, you know. The Marines, you know, run towards an enemy or and deal with a problem that way. So this is just a training mindset, you know. I can't fault him for that. You know, I don't think it was racially motivated. This guy came on, was yelling and screaming, was obviously mentally disturbed, and then got in the face of a pregnant woman. At that point, he had enough
and he said, that's it. I'm done. I'm going to take this guy down and just you know, wait for the police to get here. Right. Unfortunately, he didn't let up, like but you know, that could be training too. Marines aren't used to letting people live, you know, unless they're told to specifically, you know, So it's it's like, I'm not an expert on the Marine Corps either, but the military training is pretty intense for these guys, and the experiences are pretty intense. So in that light, you know,
I tend to believe him when he says that. However, you know, the christianization of the fight here them using this as us versus them episode. The more we hear that, the more I, like you asked, I'm afraid it's going to get worse. This emboldens people, you know, Oh, I can I can kill these people because I'm not going to get convicted. And we keep showing them that over and over again. So this is going to get worse and before it gets better, and we have to we
have to mobilize what we can to combat that. And you know, like we were talking about earlier, BLM is is an organization that I don't think we can afford to let fade away. I think we need to make sure that it's still alive and kicking.
Excellent transition to my next question.
This one's going to go over to Steve and hopefully looks like we're having a little bit of technical issues there hopefully we can get some more of Steven's words on this. The title of the piece is the Age of BLM is Over. What do you think he meant by that?
Like buzzwords? Like like, on the one hand, like this is something that has struck me just recently, you know, because of Oh, I am sorry, I'm forgetting his name now in twenty twenty, the black man who was killed by the police officer Lloyd. What was his name again, George Floyd, Yeah, George Floyd. You know, when George Floyd was murdered, then there was uproar and that's when we
all knew about BLM. And now another black man has been murdered and there isn't an uproar, and and like, I like, maybe that's that's a piece of it that huh, finally we can. But I think the meat of the article points to something far more pedantic and inane, the idea that this Marxist ideology of you know, anti white racism is coming to an end. And just like like obviously that perspective is completely skewed and doesn't have a place in thinking society.
But yeah, so do you think the author was taking advantage of of an event that happened in order to take a poke at one of his favorite targets.
Yeah, maybe he had a writing maybe he had a writing deadline. He's like, what can I do? What can I what land can I put on this that will get clicks and get this article picked up? And this was the tripe that he was able to spew out. I don't think it's I think it was a far far reach for him to pretend that this was some kind of earnest observation that he was making.
I think he using the choking death right. What happened to George Floyd, what started to b l M movement was him getting choked at death. So now here here, here's here's another black man getting choked at that. The white guy gets acquitted. So obviously the message is and it seems like what he's saying in the article is the messages it's okay to choke black men.
That that interesting.
Yeah, And another thing about the whole thing that's a tragedy is that this this this poor man was mentally ill and having and homeless. He was hungry and he needed everything. He needed clothing, he needed a bath, he needed a place to sleep. He was he was upset
about that. He was ranting about it, and rather than have a system, the failure of our social support system and addition to the innate racism in society at large, was I think the real cause of his death, because he should have been treated in a hospital or treated in a mental health facility, be given all the food he needs, be given clothing, being given shoes if he needs them. That's what should have happened. And then he
wouldn't have been on that train. He would have forced the doors open and came in ranting about being hungry and you know, and not caring if he was going to go to jail, because at least he get food, you know, I mean the guy, you know, he should have been helped, no period. You know, there's no excuse
for our society allowing these people to just die. I know, they don't like looking at them, and they don't like them in their parks, and they we've done stories before about governments trying to move them into camps outside of the city limits so they don't have to look at them. But these are real human beings and they deserve to be treated like human beings and with respect and dignity and the lack of that is what torques me the most.
You know, it's just this trial and that I have a lot of opinions about that, as I've already stated, but as a last note, the failure of our government to take care of them uh and uh, and to take care of the veterans as well. You know, when they get out after going into battle conditions and coming back, they're they're not caught up with the mental health of the military people that came back yet. I don't know
if this gentleman has PTSD or anything. I don't think so, because the way he acted, I think he was fine. But a lot of others are still hanging out, and a lot of them are those homeless people.
So so you're saying that this was a foreseeable and an avoidable circumstance and that and that really just we just dropped the ball, basically, just the United States government dropped the ball here and and let this thing happen.
Is that what you're is that kind of what you're getting at.
I'm saying that it's intentional as well.
Oh okay, let's then let's take that thought over to Stephen then. So so if we're seeing if what we see is increase not only increased violence and conflict and you know, headbutting and that kind of thing, but an
increased tolerance for that kind of thing. People are are finding it more and more acceptable to talk about that kind of thing to support, especially in recent political arena, right, we've seen we've discovered that people are willing to support what they you know, what they would have earlier thought of as horrendous ideas, horrible ideas, abusive ideas, violent ideas,
racist ideas, you know, all this kind of stuff. Do you think that is an indication that maybe this stuff is baked into us as human beings are, is our attempts at building a more peaceful world?
Just folly?
If we look back five hundred one thousand years ago, would we say that those negative qualities are just as as they were back then? I hope not. I don't think so. I believe that we are, in comparison, a kinder, more thoughtful, more empathetic society cavilization. So can I then extrapolate that and say, okay, a thousand years down the road, if we survive, things will be just that much more better?
I hope? So? Is it wired into us right now. Sure, the good and the bad, but I think that that we're changing that wiring slowly, bit by bit, and even if we have setbacks like we are looking at right now, I'm a man of faith. I got to have faith that we can and will improve and get better. And even if our current generation is shot, those of us who have eyes to see will know that we need to take care of the next generation. We need to be sowing those seeds and raising up people who will
you know, inch that ball down the field. Just another in Kelly.
I know you had one last thing you wanted to say, but I also want to get your opinion on what Stephen was just saying. Do you think that do you think that we can make progress on this? Do you
think that we're moving in the right direction? I mean, by some measures, as Steven pointed out, you know, we're better than we were five hundred years ago, But on the other hand, we're worse off than we were maybe ten years ago, or at least it appears that way fifteen twenty years ago, fifty years ago, things like that.
Are we making progress?
Is or is this a two steps forward, one step back kind of situation?
Or what are your thoughts there.
You know, even if we take two steps forward and one step back, we're still progressing, right, So yeah, I do see us slipping back right now. But in the long run, like you said, five, we've come a long way in just the last one hundred years. So when we slip back five, while it hurts us and we see it as being something really bad, if you look at it in the big, long run, it's really not that big of a deal. And I think that's it's
important for us to keep that in focus. And it's also important for us to keep in the focus that it doesn't have to keep continuing that if we stand up, we can stop this and get back on the track we were on before and keep progressing like we were before, which we will do eventually, I'm sure, because unfortunately for conservatives, reality has a liberal view, so there's just a liberal bias in the world. I did want to point out
a couple of things, as you mentioned. One was that this article was written by somebody who was in Trump's administration and is most likely going to be back inside of Trump's administration, something to keep in mind. I also wanted to point out that this is from the Christian post, the Christian Post, and it goes back to something I've been saying all week. This is an organization. It's supposed to reprice at the message of peace and love that
Jesus supposedly taught. At least that's the mess that a lot of Christians I know that I talk to and the ones that call into the show is keep telling us. So I got a message for those people. Hi, folks, I know I say a lot of things that you don't like, and I just want to let you know I don't hate hate you. I don't even hate your belief as long as you keep it to yourself. But you know, when you talk about messages of peace and love, I'm all for it. I'm an old hippie, But let
me give you a hint. When you need to rain in these guys that are using your savior's name to spread hate, it makes buying the whole peace and love message a lot lot harder to swallow when the guy next to you is ignoring over two hundred years of prejudices and hate to say even more hateful things while he's using it behind his religion, veiling it behind the religion, just trying to help you out here, you might want to rain these people in.
That's all well said, well said, and I think that's a great point for us to end here. I just want to thank all the panelists. Jonathan, I really appreciated your perspective on this last bit here. Kelly Stevens always a good time.