Racial Justice and the Death of George Floyd

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network. Let's open the phone lines, and let's talk honestly and candidly today about the death of George Floyd and racial justice in America. It's time for The Line of Fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker and theologian, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Michael Brown is the director of the Coalition of Conscience and president of Fire School of Ministry. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH. That's 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. We're going to have one of those talks today. We're going to talk through some difficult issues.

We're going to be candid and hear the ground rules. You get to speak freely. You get to speak openly. You get to speak honestly. If your comments are offensive to me or someone else, as long as you're not rude or nasty, I want you to be honest. You have the right to say something that I might find distasteful or offensive in terms of a position that I don't agree with. Again, we're not getting nasty with each other, no profanity obviously, but you have my permission to be brutally honest, and someone else calls in and has the permission to be brutally honest with you. Fair enough. 866-348-7884.

866-348-7884. We have been waiting for the George Floyd trial to unfold further. The murder charges against Derek Chauvin, the former cop who was involved in the death of George Floyd. Did he cause the death of George Floyd? Did he cause the death of George Floyd intentionally?

Would George Floyd have died from other causes otherwise? Was this a blatant example of police brutality? Was this an example of racism?

These are all the questions that are being discussed that must be discussed as America is being torn up right now over these issues and cities are set on fire over these issues, over these questions. And then in the midst of all this horror of horrors, Daunte Wright, 20 years old, shot and killed. The officer involved 20 year veteran has now resigned. We'll watch a clip of this. She's saying it was an accident. She's yelling taser, taser, and then shoots him and says, oh, blank.

I shot him. The parents are saying, we don't believe it was an accident. Understandably, they're torn up over this 20 year old son gone. Was this because of race? Was it just a tragic coincidence at the same time that this trial is going on just a few miles away?

How do we sort these things out? What about the studies that indicate that there is not police brutality disproportionate towards blacks? What about many just shaking your heads as you hear that saying, I don't care what the stats say. I know my life experience.

866-34-TRUTH. As you have viewed the footage, if you've been following the trial, what's your take? Was Derek Chauvin intentionally trying to hurt George Floyd? Did he intend to kill him as an example of police brutality?

Does it have anything to do with race? Can we know for sure? So let me talk to you totally candidly as I do. And we've had these discussions for years on the broadcast. In fact, I know this will sound surprising to many, but when we were just doing radio, even though my face was all over the place in terms of online or on TV shows or whatever, plenty of people only knew me by radio.

And I would go into the city where we had a big radio station and do a rally or do a special meeting. And quite a few times African American listeners came up to me and said, Dr. Brown, we didn't know you were white. Now, what blessed me about that was that we had talked through issues like this where my life experience and my upbringing would be very different from any black Americans.

It was, I'd never been racially profiled in America. I didn't have a, have to have a talk where we had two daughters, but if we had two sons, I wouldn't have had to have the talk with them as they were becoming teenagers. And as they were starting to drive about conduct and how they should respond to officers and potential dangers and things that never had to have that talk. Haven't had to have that talk or our kids haven't had to have that talk with their sons. So our grandsons and, and yeah, obviously, you know, seem to be law abiding and respectful authority and all that, but there was never a sense that there would be a special threat to them. You know, maybe 18 years old driving in a predominantly white community as white kids that they might get stopped or what do you doing here or how to respond to police or something like that.

They may be just, you know, potential suspects. Well, we didn't have to have that talk. So I've not had the same experience that others have had. And one thing that's been really helpful to me over the years has been honest calls from callers who said, Hey, let me tell you about how it is where I live. Let me tell you what my life experience has been. Hey, I was a professional athlete and I got stopped by police when I was in a predominantly white area just because it didn't look like I belong. You know, I had an African American college say that, or, you know, pastor called God fearing pastor and saying, Hey, I just want you to know my experience as an African American. So I understand we could throw stats out and we could look at it through that angle.

And then we could also look at life experience. The question is, is there intentional police brutality? Is there intentional police brutality towards minorities? Are certain people singled out? Uh, do we have a situation in our society where because of fatherless homes and higher crime rates in certain African American communities that therefore there are more young African American suspects and therefore more profiling going on. And then human beings being human beings, they don't always act rightly. I'm talking about police and things like that. And it leads to issues and abuses.

Or is this just the latest social justice narrative? And here's the challenge. Here's the challenge. On the one hand, I'm just talking personally, honestly, straight with you.

And then we're going to take a lot of calls, eight, six, six, three, four truth. And I want to get your perspective as a white American, as a black American, Hispanic American, Asian American, whatever your particular perspective is, or as an officer of law, policeman, police woman. Here's the tension that I feel personally. On the one hand, I'm sure that there are still issues in our society because we have not fully overcome the legacy of the past. Just for example, the amount of generations that white families have had to accumulate wealth, status, et cetera, is different than the amount of generations that black families have had to accumulate wealth status. So if you look at net worth, do a little survey of that average net worth of white Americans versus black Americans, you'll see something very disparate.

And you might say, well, no, Asian Americans are high. Well, Asian Americans didn't come in behind the eight ball in the same way. They didn't come in as slaves. They didn't have to face segregation. I'm sure discrimination and different things like that, but it would be different.

You cannot compare the two. So if you look at net worth, if you look at things like that, you see, okay, there are still inequities. I've read some major studies that indicate that for crimes that are equal with people with equal backgrounds in terms of criminal backgrounds, non-criminal backgrounds, that African Americans get stiffer sentences than non-African Americans.

I've seen some major studies that indicate that. Now, in my mind, this is not because of some intentional racism. In my mind, it's not because the BLM movement is correct and the social justice movement is correct. In other words, there are still inequities in our system that have to be worked out and there's racism all over, meaning there's hatred based on race across the board around the world.

And certainly we have it in America, but I don't see that as the dominant issue. So my tension is on the one hand, I want to stand up for what's right. I want to expose what's wrong. I want to call for us to examine things deeply and look for justice and fairness and equity. On the one hand, on the other hand, I don't want to say, look how woke I am or as if I'm responding to BLM movement or anything like that. You follow?

So these are the issues here. I want to be a God honoring servant of the Lord, just like so many of you want to be. I want to pursue truth.

I don't want to be moved by media reports on the left or on the right. Don't want to fall into stereotyping. Don't want to have presuppositions just based on my own upbringing and experience. That's why I've listened and interacted with friends from different backgrounds for many, many years, because all of us have limitations by our own experience.

I mean, just whatever it is in culture, musical, foods, literature, a host of things, sports experiences. You know, you grow up doing certain things. You have certain backgrounds, certain perspective, and it means that it's limited. It doesn't mean that it's ungodly.

It just means it's limited. Traveling outside the U.S. about 200 times. I've spent literally several years of my life outside of America in different countries, different cultures.

That's been very helpful as well to help shape things. And then you get on your face before God with the Bible and say, God, I just want to pursue truth. I just want to pursue justice. I just want to see Jesus glorified. I want to do what's right for people. I don't want to be reacting to the left or to the right. So can we talk this through together?

Can we talk this through honestly and candidly? That's the goal. Let's look at the tragic footage. The death of Dante Wright. So he gets pulled over for an expired tag, expired license plate. As he's being pulled over, the officer notices that he has air fresheners hanging from his rearview mirror, which is illegal in Minnesota because it's thought that it can obstruct the view of the driver when they run his tag and find out who's involved.

Then they see that he has an outstanding warrant. That point he's on the phone with his mom. His mom says, take the air fresheners down and, you know, and it's telling him don't run.

For whatever reason, he tries to get back in his car. That's when the officer, the woman involved, yells taser, taser. She's going to tase him and instead shoots him. You wonder after 20 years, she's training a rookie, I understand as well, how you don't know the difference between a gun and a taser.

Could it be that things are so intense? Could it be that everything is so inflamed at that moment and with everything going on in the city that she's not thinking clearly? You understand why the parents are skeptical but I'm skeptical to think that she would just intentionally shoot someone in cold blood. So we will just listen for a moment to this tragic footage here. Here he's trying to get back in his car.

Right. So she's yelling taser taser. She's going to tase him. You know why he's trying to get back in the car. That's obviously terribly unfortunate and then, oh blank, I shot him. He drives off and then crashes and then is found dead. On the other hand, on the other hand, terrible loss and of all times and places with so much pain and so much division and tension already to happen at this time in Minnesota but there are other times where cops are just shot in cold blood by a driver and they've got that in their minds. How do we sort this out? How do we get beyond the emotion and tension of the moment and talk this through with fairness before God? 866-342 Your calls when we come back. Thanks friends for joining us on the line of fire.

866-342. There's an article I want to look at in a little while. It's on the red state website. Red state is very, very conservative, strongly conservative, a lot of good critique of the radical left and it's an article, why is our knee jerk reaction to blame black men with guns by Joe Cunningham and it's written again conservative website, conservative blogger or author and yet questioning how the right often reacts like you just have to follow this bad black man with a gun.

You got to fault the guy to try to justify what happened. I found it interesting to find that perspective on a conservative website. Also, I don't know if you've heard this but sports journalist Jason Whitlock has been blocked out of Twitter. Why? Because he criticized BLM founder Patrisse Cullors buying a $1.4 million home in a like 88% white area in California was like 1.8% black. That's it. Jason Whitlock himself black criticizing her spending on what she's doing and going against BLM values.

He's been blocked out of Twitter for that. One more thing then we go to the phones 866-34-truth to put this in perspective in terms of why police can be so edgy and why they can react the way they do. Just give another side of it. I'm going to narrate as this is going on but let's play this clip. This is in New Mexico.

It's a horrific thing to watch here. Police officer stopping a guy's pickup truck goes around to the front of it. This guy's not going to walk out of the truck. You can't see it and as soon as he gets by the cop he shoots him in cold blood. Comes around, shoots him some more times and he drives off. So this is what a policeman's thinking. This could be the last moment of my life right now. I might never see my wife and kids again. I may get shot.

Okay, I stopped this guy for this but we're looking for this guy and next thing you're dead. So these are all split-second judgments that are being made. These are all questions that have to be asked and with Derek Chauvin whether his kneeling on George Floyd's neck killed him, whether it contributed to his death and even if both of those were true was it because of racism or just police brutality? Those are all questions to be asked and either way a tragic loss of life in one of the most horrific videos that someone could watch. So let's discuss these things together. I want to get your perspective. I did a poll on Twitter just asking for perspectives on racial profiling, saying if you're a person of color, if you're white, just weigh in and I hate to divide things like that but I'm trying to get perspective based on our own life experience.

Alright, so we'll start in Chicago with Anil. Welcome to the Line of Fire. Thanks for calling, sir.

Yes, thank you. I'm as dark-skinned, dark brown as any black American. I just wanted to tell you, you know, it is not a police profiling incident but something that would lay light into it. Like, you know, some years ago, several years ago, we attended the Vineyard Church in Kansas and, you know, once a month they used to go, the pastors and few people would, volunteers would make dinner, breakfast for, you know, a homeless shelter run by a white woman, Monique, and, you know, every month they would make, you know, hash browns, biscuits and gravy and whatever.

And anyway, so I was also serving along with them and then I went to the client's place, you know, they call them clients, and then I went back to the kitchen. Then I heard someone behind me saying, sir, you can't go there, you can't go back there. And it was the lady, you know, coming to, you know, stop me and the people said, no, no, he's part of us, you know, and, you know, I, and then she was very embarrassed and apologizing a lot.

You know, of course, you know, she thought I'm black and I'm, you know, a colored person would be homeless. So that is, I feel that is why the racial profiling takes place. But the most important thing what I want to tell you is what is tragic is the president, the community leaders, the governors, the actors, actresses, celebrities, they should be telling the black youth, you know, when you are stopped by police, do not get out of the, do not resist, do not run away, show your hands, you know, behave properly because it's not like, because what is happening is there, there's so much outrage and each person taking advantage of things that the young kids, the young teenagers are getting into hysteria and they're running away and getting shot. And in fact, like I work, I'm a software engineer at a major investment bank and, you know, a managing director posted over there about how outraged he was that he was stopped by a black police officer and he was driving an expensive car and the police officer was rude to him thinking he was a drug dealer and all that.

But instead of that, they should be saying, let's tell our people, our young kids, our teenagers to be calm and not get off the handle. And the last thing I want to just say is really quickly is we immigrants do not have a right to be protesting against racism because we've all come from backgrounds where we are very racist. You know, in Korea, Koreans are extremely racist people and now they're agitating against all this. And you know, every, my wife grew up in the best Africa and was born and raised in Nigeria. She says the racism over there against inferior races or against foreigners is terrible.

Yeah. And, you know, just, just to jump in, sir, I've often heard from folks who've lived in different parts of the world, the identical statements, you know, folks have called in and said that, that racism in America now is much less than racism in most of the rest of the world and much of the rest of the world. You don't have as much immigration, so you just have your society and your skin color and your ethnicity. So someone else doesn't fit.

They can, they can really be outcast. I imagine, sir, thank you for the call that there there's some folks saying, Hey, we have to talk with our kids. And here I'll give an example. Let me just make sure I get the, the name right here.

Okay. It was U S army, second Lieutenant Karen Zario. This back in September, but now the officer involved has been fired.

Here it is. He's, he's African-American army Lieutenant. He he's, he's in his car. He's got his hands on the steering wheel. He gets pepper sprayed.

He gets, he gets terribly mistreated. It's like, well, what else, what else are you going to do? Or, you know, one of, one of the high profile killings, because everything was recorded on body cam was, was a gentleman, you know, in his vehicle and he's telling him, I have a gun. I'm re he's trying to say, okay, I'm reaching to get these and he gets shot and killed. So, I mean, again, the officers thing is going to pull the gun on me, but you look at it and think, how, how can you justify? So here's, here's the deal.

Some of you say, oh, you're pulling the race car. No, I'm trying to say as, as the body of Christ, his brothers and sisters, we got to talk, we got to share perspective. We we've got to help understand one another. And if part of the body's hurting, let's find out why. Let's find out why. It's six six three four truth. Let's go to Raleigh, North Carolina. Margaret, welcome to the line of fire. Hello, Dr. Brown.

I'm so glad you're holding this call today. I'm an abuse survivor and I would challenge everybody to pull up the pictures of Derek Chauvin and look at his face when he is with his knee pressed into George Floyd, because you can see in there and that if you're an abuse survivor, that after all he had been through with his wife, leaving him in the divorce problems and everything, he felt like he was finally in charge. He was finally in charge of something and there was nothing going to stop him from being in charge. And he was abusing George and I don't think it would have mattered who was underneath his knee. It was a control issue that he wanted to be in control because maybe in no other area of his life he was. So let me ask this, and I'm sorry to hear of your own story again, traumas that I can't relate to or understand, but as a police officer, if someone is resisting arrest, aren't you supposed to exercise control?

In other words, isn't that your job then as an officer to be in control? Not that long. Everything that's been on the radio and the TV, on the media lately has said that he had his knee down on George Floyd's neck, even after he died. Even after he died. He was laying on the ground, it was handcuffed, there's no way he could have got away. And he had his body jump on George Floyd when he's dead. I mean, I can see it, I can see it so plain in Chauvin's eyes that it was a matter of, I am finally in control and nobody's going to take this control from me.

From your experience looking at this, and again, God is the ultimate judge, then there'll be a jury decision here. This was not a race issue, this was a control issue. Exactly. Got it. Exactly. Hey, Margaret, I appreciate you weighing in. 866-34-TRUTH. And again, friends, we are not, the goal of this is not to be the judge and jury of Derek Chauvin or anyone else.

The goal is to talk honestly and to ask what your own experience is. Can there be a fair trial with things as they are in America today? Can there be a righteous outcome? And those who are protesting, those who are rioting, are they just being used by the radical left for further destructive and divisive causes?

Or is this just the pain of the black community America erupting once again? Honest questions to address. And look, most broadcast you get on, they're going to have a hard take on the left or a hard take on the right. I'm doing my best to sort things through with you before God. Phone lines are open, you get to weigh in. 866-348-7884. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. We are having an honest conversation today about the death of George Floyd, the child of former officer Derek Chauvin, the question of racial justice, racial equality in America.

866-348-7884. With the death of Trayvon Martin at the hands of George Zimmerman years back, we did a lot of shows. We talked about a lot of issues. I listened very carefully to as many calls as I could and had interaction with friends from different backgrounds. And then the death of my namesake, Michael Brown in Ferguson. And in that case, with the myth of hands up, don't shoot. But why did that trigger such emotion?

Why did it strike a chord across America? We talked those issues through. And I tried to simplify things by saying this in terms of blind spots, because we all have blind spots. Would you agree? We all have blind spots. I'm going to the phones momentarily.

866-34-TRUTH. It was my perception after listening, watching, observing, praying, thinking, reading, digesting information that white Americans often do not see racism when it is there. And black Americans often see racism when it isn't there. In other words, because white Americans have not suffered the same thing black Americans have historically, white Americans have not been subject to segregation, were not part of suffering the horrors of slavery, that there can be racism and white Americans just don't see it.

It's a blind spot. They're not aware of it. They're not aware of the mistreatment or the injustice. It's there, but they don't see it. Then on the other hand, black Americans, because of the history, because of the mistreatment, because of the inequality, may feel that something is racist and it's not there.

And so that's why we have to step back and try to analyze. For example, the tragic death of George Floyd, we all agree it's tragic and the video is heart-rending to watch. And so was it because of drugs in his system? You know, as the prosecution would argue and say that would be the toxicology report. Was it simply because of the police brutality as the video would seem to indicate? And then even if it was police brutality, was it based on racism? Those are all separate reasons. But as America is being torn apart right now, we, the body, we have to be able to talk to each other and talk through these things and say, hey, here's where you're missing it.

Here's where I don't see where I think you're not seeing it. And then you have the radical BLM movement. So Black Lives Matter, of course. Amen. Absolutely. Yes.

A thousand times over. But the radical BLM movement, what that tries to stir up in. So you've got all these things to process through together. We need to step back, take a deep breath, listen to one another, learn from one another.

Let's go to Lacey in Simpsonville, South Carolina. Welcome to the line of fire. Hi. I just wanted to bring up a point that I heard and kind of call out a point that I've been hearing from a lot of conservative media outlets recently about the new case with the female police officers shooting the 20-year-old. Yeah. I've heard a lot of conservative news sources saying that the reason why the officer made the mistake was because it was an affirmative action hire 20 years ago and that she shouldn't have been hired in the first place.

And that's the reason why she made the mistake. And I just think that's an extremely toxic idea. And I don't use the word sexist lightly, but it's a very sexist. I'm with you. I'm with you.

I don't use it lightly either, but that's the word that hits me. Gosh. So for 20 years, she somehow slipped by for 20 years being an inefficient woman and all the other inefficient women in the police force that they all just happen to get by somehow. But then this lady just slipped up to show, oh gosh, why do people need to do that?

Come up with ideas like that. Yeah. And instead of acknowledging that we should probably be training police officers better or extending training to more than what it is, they're just blaming a factor that is in this one case.

And they're basically simplifying it and doing exactly what the left BLM does all the time. Yeah. That's why we're having this conversation and doing our best not to be that and do that. Yikes. I had not even heard that one, but thanks. Thanks for sharing that. I appreciate it, Lacey. All right. Thank you. All right. Yeah. Gosh. What?

Why must we come up with these narratives? Why? Again, it's I'm not a trained officer, right? I have never held a taser in my hand. You think if you're day in, day out, you know exactly where things are and your belt and where you're grabbing and what you're grabbing, what you're holding, right? If you're saying taser taser and someone that's handled these, tell me the difference between shooting a taser and shooting a gun.

Do you know that what's in your hand? Everything seems to be a tragic mistake. The idea that she would just shoot him in cold blood. That to me is as hard to believe. And there was no threat to her life. There's no threat from what we can see. He's just trying to stop him from driving off.

And while he wanted to try and drive off another tragic mistake in the midst of all this, but to blame it on her being a woman is hard because of affirmative action. No, she's on the force for 20 years. 866-34-TRUTH. Oh, let's go to Deborah in Raleigh, North Carolina. Thanks for calling the line of fire. Thank you, Dr. Brown, for having me. And I also really appreciate your program. I try to listen to it regularly. Thank you. I haven't been raised in the South.

I grew up in the late 50s, early 60s. I've seen racism at its worst. And what I'm seeing now is really a slap in the face of those who have actually lived through a real country of racism. The African-American community, Black community, whatever term we want to be called by today, is constantly being agitated with propaganda about racism, Black Crow, social justice. And it doesn't take anything big at all for us to just lose it when something happens like with some of the issues that we mentioned, George Floyd and this young man now. But the problem is that as African-Americans, we're really not taking responsibility for our own cultural community. And it really is a moral issue. And so until we go back to the basics, which is a trust in God, because he's the one that brought us through those real times. And don't get me wrong, I'm not dismissing anyone's loss of a loved one through an officer's misconduct. But those times when we had no officers that would come to our rescue, there was one that did come to our rescue. That was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

And we've forgotten him. And so now I just believe with all my heart, a lot of the things that are happening in the Black community, because if you look at us, you know, the moral fiber is just no longer there. You cannot just walk away from God and expect everything to continue to go well. Well, Deborah, I appreciate your calling. And may all of us turn to God, whatever our background, America in so many ways in general has turned away from God and we are in such a mess. But Deborah, thank you for sharing your perspective and for being a regular listener. I really appreciate it. Thanks so much.

Thank you so much. Lord bless you. 6-6-3-4, truth.

Let's go to David in Fort Worth, Texas. Welcome to the line of fire. Yeah, Deborah had a lot of sense, Dr. Brown. Romans 13 is written to those who believe, but it applies to all of us.

I'm 67 and my father was part of the greatest generation. And when he raised me, he taught me, boy, you don't play with the police because they can kill you. And I think about Romans 13 where it says they do not bear the sword in vain.

Growing up, and I'm a pastor most of my life in the Black community, I'm a white man, and a lot of the stuff that came out of Jeremiah Wright's church that Obama was tied to, all that racist hatred of America and just all the anti-Semitism and baloney, a lot of that is being preached in a lot of the Black churches today. And these children, this just, and you know, it says the law is for the lawbreaker, 1 Timothy 1-9. It's not for the righteous man. And I tried to ignore my father growing up a couple of times by not listening to that about the police officer. And I got my due desert. I got, they took care of me. And I wound up in jail and I found out what daddy was right, but he was a God-fearing man. He didn't always do right. But he understood that principle that that authority is of God. And in all of this trying to figure this out, we cannot compromise our stand on the Word of God, that they don't bear the sword in vain, and they are working for the Lord.

So that was my comment. Got it. Hey, David, I appreciate the call very much. Thank you for weighing in. 866-34-TRUTH. Let's go to Brian in Davidson, North Carolina.

Welcome to the line of fire. Hi, hi, hi, Dr. Brown, how are you doing? Doing well, thank you, sir. All right.

I've called a couple of times. And like I've said before, Black Lives Matter, like you said, 100 percent, there are a lot of things in Black Lives Matter that I don't agree with personally. You know, in the movement, let me say, I don't want to say the movement, I say the group, because I kind of want to separate the two. But there is a, honestly, my original comment has just switched a little bit. But what I originally wanted to speak on was how I, when I look at like a lot of the insight of the, not even just Black Lives Matter, but like the January 6th riot, it was January 6th, you know. It's a lot of antifa that gets into this stuff, even with the Black Lives Matter.

They have that type of rile up in them. But I wanted to retract a little bit, if you don't mind, Dr. Brown. Yeah, we just got a minute, so just go for it.

Yeah, just go for it. All right. But I just want to speak to the last two callers, not anything against them. I don't know them. I pray for them.

I love them and the body of Christ. But there's a slippery slope of what they were talking about when it comes to the Black community, because I'm African American. And when you say the African Americans don't have the love of God in them anymore, and you just put the blanket statement out there, that's a slippery slope where we're getting, we're recycling some of the same things that braces people outside of the body of Christ can fuel to get to that same narrative.

You know what I'm saying? Yeah, well, I mean, in point of fact, and I'm just jumping in because of time, generally speaking, the African American community is more religious than the white American community, generally speaking. What our sister was talking about was something she grew up with in a fear of God that was in the home, that isn't there, and she feels that's the biggest issue, speak as an insider.

But yes, to make the general stereotypes can be dangerous on every side. Absolutely. Hey, thank you, sir, for calling in. It's The Line of Fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian, Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Get into The Line of Fire now by calling 866-342. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. As I'm sitting here listening and praying, Lord, what can I say? What can I add?

How can I help? Two simple statements come to mind which I want to share very quickly and then go back to your calls. First, don't stereotype. Don't stereotype.

Jews are the blacks are this, whites are the Americans are this. Don't stereotype. Second point, treat every situation fairly. Step back in the fear of God, put presuppositions away, and say, Father, if I was to be entrusted with making judgment here as your ambassador, I'm going to have to give a count to you. Can I do it in a fair-minded, impartial way?

Don't stereotype. It's first thing. Second, treat every case fairly.

I asked this question on Twitter. Would you feel this is justified or not? You personally believe that blacks are racially profiled by the police more than whites just to get perspective. And I said there are two sets of answers, one for a person of color, POC, and one for whites. So of those respondents, about 25% people of color, 75% white. So among people of color, it was like three to two saying yes, they believe there's racial profiling. Among those who are white, it's a little higher than three to two saying that they believe blacks are racially profiled more.

So just interesting, the overall feeling, consensus was fairly close. Okay, let's go back to the phones and we start with Gina in Durham, North Carolina. Welcome to the line of fire. Hey Dr. Brown.

Hey. I would just like to thank you for, you know, the godly work you're doing. You have one of the most godly perspectives that I've heard, you know, coming from a religious leader, so I really do appreciate that, and we could use more people like you.

Thank you, that means a lot, thank you. As far as, like, you know, this, you know, shooting of Mr. Wright and everything, I think that he was wrong and that, you know, like a lot of, unfortunately, young black men are wrong when they don't surrender and obey the police. I think a lot of what we're seeing in modern days is a respect problem. And yes, black Americans, we do have a storied history with the police, and it is not a good one. But, you know, we would see a lot less deaths if, you know, black leaders put more emphasis on respect of police than fear of the police. And you know, the more the media feeds us this narrative of predator versus prey, or victimization, the more we give into it, and the more our children who, you know, by and large, a lot of them are not properly churched.

You know, a lot of them are not brought up in fear of God, you know, even though we are more typically more, you know, churched than white people, you know, there's a large segment of us that, you know, are fatherless and are unchurched, and it shows in the ills in our culture. So yeah, it's on the flip side, you know, like you said, I believe that, you know, white evangelicals especially would do well to, you know, take every, you know, not to stereotype, and to see what we're talking about when we say that there is injustice. Gina, listen, I appreciate the call. I appreciate the kind words, and I appreciate the call. Friends, I hope you're listening to these callers. I hope you are. And Brian, glad you got to add on your comment, just spotted that on Facebook, just because we had a break coming up, wanted to get to the other calls, but thanks for posting.

Well, Gina, thanks for your kind words, and thanks for weighing in. Again, the purpose of this show is to hear from each of you and to learn from each other, to be sharpened by one another, to be challenged by one another. I don't have a point to prove. I don't have a point to prove. When I do, you know it. When I got a point to make, you know it. I'm here to listen, and I'm here to interact, and when I feel I have something constructive to say, I'm saying it. All right, let's go over to Atlanta, Georgia. Baptiste, thank you for calling the line of fire.

Hello, Dr. Brown. I actually wanted to speak on this issue really fast, so I do apologize. I have some men showing up to fix my extract, but it'll just be a brief moment. Go ahead.

And I wanted to weigh in and say that one of the things that I've noticed in our time is that... Hey, tell you what. Stay right there. Stay right there. Let me get you another caller, and I'll come back to you once you've sorted things out, all right?

Let's go to Max in Stokesdale, North Carolina. Welcome to the line of fire. Thank you, Dr. Brown. Great show. Appreciate you providing this forum.

Sure thing. Off and on about an 18-year career in law enforcement, the letter of the law is death. We know this. We know that we're a fallen race and we all live east of Eden, and I applaud you and your callers for pointing out, basically, when you paint with a broad brush, you get a lot on the windows. We're doing that as a people.

I did not wake up every morning trying to go get even with someone. Quite frankly, I was on assignments when I kissed my baby's goodbye and I went into places that I was the minority. You may not know this and your listeners may not know this, but it is illegal for most policemen to discuss certain things with the media. When I was carrying a badge and a weapon, I was told by my own administrators, I had policemen knocking on my door telling me I needed to shut up. These people cannot protect themselves against the onslaught, the tsunami of rhetoric that just washes over law enforcement, which is only going to make two things happen. The good ones will quit and the bad ones will become more careful, and the good ones who do stay in it will be even more victimized than I was. Yes, I know many bad law enforcement officers in my time.

I've also known many people in the churches, many people in pharmacies and law enforcement hierarchies of the courts. I've known people who've made some big, sadistic, intentional sins and crimes. It's not just the police that are going mad.

They're just the target of the day. Right, so you would feel then that the bad apples get everyone demonized and the others can't speak for themselves. Again, friends, don't stereotype. Don't stereotype police. Don't stereotype in ethnicity. Look at each case fairly, and then when you have cumulative evidence, make a righteous judgment.

Jesus said in John 7-24, don't judge based on outward appearance, but make righteous judgments. Hey, Max, thanks for calling in. Thanks for your years of service. We go back to Atlanta, but ah, we lost our brother there. Okay, sorry, we tried.

Let's go to Siobhan in Seattle, Washington. What are your thoughts? Hi, Dr. Brown.

I just wanted to say thank you for creating this space to be able to talk about this and also to talk about God and to just encourage and uplift the body. And I did want to share with you my experience as an African American, and particularly when I was in college. So I started at UC Davis in 1999, or 1998, actually, and I remember one of my first encounters with a student that was not black was her telling me that the only reason why I was admitted to Davis was because of affirmative action, which was not true because affirmative action had ended the year before I even started there. The house that I lived in, it was called the African diaspora house, and it was created and obtained because a mural that had depicted different people of color on it was defaced with the N word on it.

And so part of the demands that the students that were there during that time requested was a space for people of color, particularly African Americans, to be able to come together and to just talk about, you know, issues like that, but then also to learn more about African and African American history. Another experience that I didn't have, but one of my male friends had was he was pulled over several times while he was in UC Davis, not because he was driving erratically or doing anything wrong, but because he was a black man with the BMW. So that's just some of my experience as an African American. Shavon, do you feel that now in 2021 things are different or not? I honestly don't know. I don't know that I've experienced, I haven't personally experienced racism myself.

I know of other people that have experienced racism, so I would say no, I don't think things are any different. So in your own experience, do you feel that you have as fair a shot as anyone else in your career or life, or is there still something that you feel hangs over you? That's a great question. Well, I'm glad it's one that you have to think about as opposed to something that you think about constantly. That at least is positive. But well, listen, we are literally out of time. But friends, here's what we need to thank you for calling in. And again, we'll keep talking. I've been waiting with the trial and the death of George Floyd to get a little further and to wait for things to unfold. Now there's just more going on. Of course, listen, listen to each other.

That's the key thing. Find folks to interact with who are outside of your ethnicity, skin color, religious world, social step, whatever. Find others to interact with and talk honestly and say, how can we as followers of Jesus fix the deep pain and divide in our country? Whatever's behind them, we're the ones to fix it. God bless your friends. Another program powered by the Truth Network.