Charges of Racism and the Kyle Rittenhouse Verdict

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In the midst of growing racial tension in America and the aftermath of the Kyle Rittenhouse not guilty verdict, how do we move forward here 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. Thanks for joining us today on what is going to be a very important broadcast. I want to urge you to give me your very best ear to listen as carefully as you can so that nothing is misunderstood, as I will be weighing every word that I say, as I always do. And then I want to hear from you, whether you agree with me or whether you disagree with me, whether you think I'm nailing things right on or whether you think I'm way off and missing things, I really want to hear from you today, 866-34-TRUTH, 866-34-87-884. You might be a first time listener, so you don't know me and you're just going to judge about what you hear today, that's fine.

Others have been listening regularly for over a decade. You know me better. I'd love to hear from anyone though that wants to weigh in at 866-34-TRUTH, 866-34-87-884. This is Michael Brown. Welcome to the line of fire.

One thing we seek to be in the midst of chaos and confusion is a voice of reason and to ground everything in scriptural reasoning and life-giving thinking so that we're not just talking politically, we're not just talking from a natural viewpoint, but ultimately from a spiritual viewpoint. Alright, my views on the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict and the whole situation, I agree the charges that were looked at, that he was not guilty of all of those charges. That seems self-evident to me and there is even talk, it is just talk at this point, but the Attorney General that would have tried this case and has a great reputation in his state gave it over to the Assistant District Attorney, according to some, because he knew it was a losing case, that it was clearly an issue of self-defense. Do I believe that Kyle Rittenhouse should have been in Kenosha with a gun?

No. I don't believe it was a wise situation to go into, especially as a 17-year-old kid, especially without adult supervision, especially doing this separate from the police. Would he have a right to, if he legally owned the gun and could cross county lines with it or state lines, if that's the case, then if those things are true, he had the right to be there. I don't believe he should have been there. I don't believe it was wise for him to have been there. That being said, I don't believe this has anything to do with white supremacy or white racism, period. I do not believe it has anything to do with that and those that are pushing that narrative, I believe, are further dividing America and further missing the real issues that we need to be thinking about and concentrating on. Now, I'm going to give you my reasons for this upfront, then we're going to play a bunch of clips, look at a bunch of quotes, get some different perspectives, and then hear from you.

866-3-4-Truth. Now, I got blasted by people when I wrote about this saying, I don't believe he should have been there. I believe it was wise for him to be there with a gun. People, but how is Second Amendment rights, what's the time at Second Amendment rights?

What's the time talking about wisdom? Well, it turns out now that his mother says if he had to do it over, he wouldn't have been there. And even though he's not guilty, the fact is he took two human lives.

Yes, I believe he did it in self-defense and shot a third person in self-defense, legitimate self-defense and therefore the jury made the right decision in saying not guilty. But if he wasn't there in the first place, then none of that would have happened. You say, well, what if he was there without a gun? Probably things would not have unfolded the way they did either.

But we'll put that aside. What was he doing there? Was he fighting against black protesters as a white man? No, that was not the issue. And he has subsequently actually said he believes in peaceful protests and he believes in the BLM, interestingly.

Okay. What business was he protected? There is a dispute as to whether he was asked to protect it or not. But the fact is it was two brown skinned men, Indian descent, right? That's the business he was protecting. And all the people shot were what? They were white. They were white. When President Biden made him the face of white supremacy, okay, he was not there shooting black people. He was protecting a business, whether he was asked to or not. He was protecting a business that was owned by brown skinned brothers. And the men that he shot in self-defense were all white. So how is this a matter of white supremacy? Well, he's a member of the Proud Boys.

Okay. He was not a member of the Proud Boys. He ended up meeting some of them at a bar and posed with them.

Did he know who they were? There's no evidence that they were connected before that or other evidence of him being a quote white supremacy. Oh, he gave the white supremacy sign.

I'm 66 years old. I just found out that the okay sign is supposedly the white supremacy sign. But bottom line, his being in Kenosha was not related to that.

His father lived there. Maybe he's a vigilante. Fine. Look at him as a vigilante and there to give medical care. But it has nothing to do with white racism or white supremacy.

And to make it into that is to completely go in the wrong direction here. It is to further inflame tension. Listen, the tragedy on Sunday night when a black man in an SUV plows into over 40 people at a parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin, the victims, every picture I've seen is a white person. All right. Five people killed, over 40 injured. The dancing grannies, this troupe of grandmothers that would dance at special events and meet to do that. Some of them killed.

All right. Children in critical condition. From what we're hearing, that was not a targeted attack on these people that was related to Kenosha. From what we're hearing. What we're hearing, this was a man never should have been out on bail, but was running from some other domestic dispute and was just driving fast and then drove into this. Now, once he was there, was he targeting people, driving at people? What insanity was going on? We don't know the details. What if suddenly media people around the country start saying, look at this, this black man attacking white people, it was, it may have had zero, absolutely zero to do with race. Where you see what happens when you let that Rittenhouse kid in, this is what you get. And people come up with all these narratives and it may be 100% detached from reality. 100%.

We must be careful. The media has been absolutely irresponsible with this case. Absolutely irresponsible. You say, ah, but it's white privilege that he got off. Well, was it white privilege that got Derek Chauvin convicted for the murder of George Floyd? And remember, it's rare in any situation to see the police convicted, whether it's white on white, black on black, white on black, black on white. It's rare to see them convicted because they are the law. It takes a lot of evidence for that to happen. Here you had the video evidence, et cetera. So at first it wasn't white privilege. It was, he's a white supremacist. Then when he gets out, it's white privilege. Shall I start to, shall I start to go to all of the cases online?

Just do a search for a black man acquitted of murder by the courts and different cases that come up. What's that? It's the system working properly.

Oh no, no. This is the slaveholder system. According to some, this is the system that is working to support white supremacy. Listen, I will fight with you, stand fight on your side, stand with you. If you are a victim of racial injustice, I will plead your cause. I will push back against the sins of America in history. I will push back and say that to this day, the sins of slavery and segregation have still left a mark. Even if those sins are not present in our midst today, even if we are not systemically racist, our systemically racist past in much of our history has still left scars on the black community today and still put them in an unequal situation. I will go to the mat fighting for that because that's true.

That's right. But I will absolutely oppose this white supremacist nonsense. There anyone who voted for Trump is a white supremacist. This is divisive garbage that is tearing up America and we need to stand up against it. All right. Now look at some of these quotes.

Check these out. We start with Joy Reed on MSNBC. A particular kind of freedom and a particular kind of citizenship that only they have. That gives, you know, from the slave catchers on the right to inflict violence in the name of protecting property.

That's like the foundational creation of the United States. So it would have been shocking. The real as I'm glad you mentioned the Derek Chauvin verdict. That was the surprising verdict. This should have been unsurprising. Ah, so when it, when it does not support your narrative, that's surprising when it doesn't support the narrative.

It's unsurprising. Bottom line, this was not a matter of white men protecting things in the days of slave homes. This just incendiary rhetoric, nothing more than dangerous incendiary rhetoric that must be called out.

And I'm going to play some voices from black Americans saying exactly what I'm saying. Okay. Uh, what did vice president Kamala Harris say about this verdict? This is the vice president candidate, Joe Biden already branded cow written house, a white supremacist, and there's talk about him suing cow written house, suing now president Biden for defamation of character and saying that, but, but listen to what Kamala Harris says when she's asked for her viewpoint and, um, they have questions about the verdict and the verdict really speaks for itself as maybe now I've spent a majority of my career working to make the criminal justice system more equitable and clearly there's a lot more work to do. Thanks.

Thanks all. Madam vice president, people are calling it systemic clear. Clearly there's a lot more work to do this. This was in many ways an open and shut case of self defense. People watching the trial on all sides, liberals and others and left and right and many saying, yeah, he's going to be acquitted of the charge and the charges went too far. Some of them went too far here. Let me go over to the daily wire. They have a list of some of the most extreme quotes from the left.

I'm going to start before the break, come back after I got more video clips to play. And I want to hear from you eight, six, six, three, four truth. Let's see. So president Biden, while the verdict in Kenosha will leave many Americans feeling angry and concerned myself included myself included, we must acknowledge that the jury has spoken. Many Americans are going to be angry, concerned, including the president over this not guilty verdict. Uh, governor Gavin Newsom, California, America today, you can break the law, carry around weapons built for military, shoot and kill people and get away with it.

That's the message we've just sent to armed vigilantes across the nation. Well, what message were you sending to the protesters burning down buildings? How many black businesses were hurt by the protests? How many small businesses are out of business now? How many people are trying to piece their lives back together?

How much violence was there by Antifa and BLM protesters and the media saying largely peaceful protests and pulled the police out? What message is being sent? I will be back with more. We're just getting started, but I want to hear from you whether you agree with me or not. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural and spiritual revolution. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Hey friends, if you were on our mailing list or email list, you would know of something very special taking place. You know, Dr. Mark Stangler is a sponsor of our broadcast, the first partner we have ever worked with officially in 13 years on the air because we so appreciate his work and his health supplements and his generosity towards us. He's doing something special.

His company decided to do this. We want to bless you with it. From now until the 28th of November, go to vitaminmission.com, but don't use the normal code. Use the code health.

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So vitaminmission.com. Can you tell your friends? If you're a pastor, can you tell your church? Tell everybody.

You have until the 28th to take advantage of this. Just reading a report now, the suspect in terms of the man who drove into the crowd Sunday night charged with five counts of homicide and Sunday's Waukesha Christmas parade massacre was not being chased by police and intentionally drove into the crowd. We don't know his motivation for doing that. He was fleeing from a domestic dispute and then this says intentionally drove into the crowd.

What motivated? We still don't know the details. Let me just say this one thing. It would be the horror of horrors. We don't know. We don't know this. We don't know this, but it would be the horror of horrors. If he did this in response to the Rittenhouse verdict and the way it is being portrayed by the media, white supremacy and white this and white that and watch what the backlash is going to be.

And when he saw the crowd intentionally thought he could kill people. This is please hear me. This is not being reported. But the moment I saw what happened, I thought, oh no, if that's the case, if that's the case, further massive indictment on the irresponsibility of the media.

I really hope that's not the case, but either way, the media has been terribly irresponsible and government leadership. Let me read you a few other quotes, 866-34-TRUTH, 866-34-TRUTH. Governor J.B. Pritzker, Illinois, carrying a loaded gun into a community 20 miles from your home and shooting unarmed citizens is fundamentally wrong. Again, his father lives in Kenosha. He was going there to protect your property, but the jury said it was self-defense. Again, I don't think he should have been there with a gun. That's my own opinion.

You're asking for trouble when you do that, even if your intentions are good, okay? It's a volatile, dangerous situation. Nonetheless, that's a governor saying this or Representative Adriano Espaillat in New York. Carl Rittenhouse is living proof that white tears can still forestall justice. A murderer is once again walking free today.

Our system is terribly broken down. He's going to call him a murderer. This is a representative, this is a representative of the government elected by the people of America calling him a murderer.

So forget the jury evidence, forget all the video evidence, forget all that, the jury verdict. Here, influential author Ibram Kendi, what does he tweet out, wrote it last year thinking about it now, Rittenhouse verdict, quote, they are fighting to maintain white male supremacy, which is to say they are defending law and order, defending their America where white men can rule and brutalize without consequence. What about all the people looting? What about all the people, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, whoever they were, looting and destroying without consequence, without arrest in city after city in America?

What about them? So the guy who goes wanting to protect property and give medical help if needed, again, I think it was wise for him to be there with a gun, but the guy who does that, he's the murderer, he's the white male supremacist. Yes, I know in American history in the past that law and order was, was used to enforce a white supremacist order in different parts of America, in different parts of our history.

I understand that, but that is not the ongoing role of law and order in America today. This is not the issue. It is frustrating to hear this, this kind of thing. Jason Whitlock, black man himself, and I'm only mentioning skin color or ethnicity simply so you know who's saying what, that it's not just me sitting here as a white American Jew making comments because I, I get blast. I get blasted. I put out an article a week ago, what many white Americans still don't get about inequities and injustices and trying to get my fellow white Americans to, to see things better and to, and to be more sensitive to issues that are being raised by our black friends.

Okay. I get it from both sides. I'm trying to speak truth. I'm trying to speak truth. I'm trying to be your voice for moral sanity and spiritual clarity, not for skin color, not for race, not for ethnicity, not for America, not for the police, not for a party, but to do my best to cause, I see Jason Whitlock headline on the blaze and what does it say?

Yeah. Rittenhouse trial demonstrates the folly of racial justice and trolling white conservatives. Here is a black man speaking out against us here.

How about, how about Leo Terrell, African American and a civil rights lawyer. So he's on Fox. I want you to hear what he has to say. And then I've got a couple of quotes from BLM, Dr. King, and then we go to your calls.

866-344-TRUTH. All right, let's listen to Leo Terrell on Fox. Here with reaction to the lies is civil rights attorney and Fox News contributor, Leo Terrell. All right.

Good evening, Leo. It's certainly very disappointing. This young boy who was fighting for his life turned out to be a punching bag for everyone who had an agenda, whatever their agenda was, you know, he was a punching bag for them. Can you explain to me how an individual who is white, who is charged with shooting three people who are white with a jury that was white, a judge that was white, all the lawyers who are white is a white supremacist.

What am I missing? You're missing nothing because you see, Judge, the left doesn't care about facts. The left plays the race card because they're racist. And for their agenda, they need to play the race card. That was a colorblind verdict. There was nothing about race in that case from beginning to end.

It doesn't make a difference to CNN or MSNBC. And it drives me as a civil rights attorney crazy. What they want to do, Judge, is inject racism in every aspect of our life. If you don't agree with them, you're a racist. If you support Kyle Rittenhouse, you're a white supremacist. I'm a lawyer. I supported the verdict. So therefore what? We have people of all colors representing the judicial system, black judges, brown judges, black prosecutor.

The system is not racist, but it doesn't make a difference to them. Joe Biden, the Democrats, used Kyle Rittenhouse, that prosecutor who should never prosecute another case. I agree. Grant tried that case as a political trial. He ignored justice, Judge. You're a judge. You represent justice. That guy, that prosecutor was only interested in winning, not justice. And you know what? Kyle Rittenhouse proved that the system is stronger than a political agenda.

All right. And what is BLM doing during this time? I've been saying for over five years now that we must separate the important foundational statement that every black life matters. We must separate that from the dangerous BLM movement.

I've been saying that for more than five years, friends. So here's what BLM, the official Twitter account of BLM, this is what they tweet out November 19th, 1.34 in the afternoon, reminder, the system is working exactly as it is meant to. The system was always meant to protect and uphold white supremacy. Again, Kyle Rittenhouse shot three white men in self-defense, one he wounded, two he killed. Jury verdict, and it seemed pretty much cut and dry from the start, self-defense.

The business that he was standing in front of was owned by two Indian brown-skinned men. All right. What does this have to do with white supremacy? Nothing. Many of the rioters themselves were white and were destroying black businesses.

That's reality, friends. What is the BLM tweet November 19th, 8.51 PM in the evening? Look at this. This is supposed to be a key civil rights movement, and we're all supposed to genuflect and bow down before this to prove our passion to be anti-racist.

Look at this. The little racist terrorist, Kyle Rittenhouse, represents the exact kind of white supremacist vigilante violence that we've seen before with the equivalent of George Zimmerman and the murder of Trayvon Martin. And whatever your view on the Zimmerman Martin case, this is not the same.

This is definitely not the same, all right, for many reasons. Call them little racist terrorists, white supremacist vigilante violence. This is the leading civil rights movement of our day. So then in an interview with Tucker Carlson, Rittenhouse says this, and Newsweek posted this quote, I'm not a racist person. I support the BLM movement. I support peacefully demonstrating. BLM then posts that quote and then literally spelled out an F U. Yeah.

And then a video saying that very thing. So I have an article, you can read it on my website now. I urge you to take a few minutes when you have it and go to AskDrBrown.org and read this article is entitled The Massive Difference Between Dr. Martin Luther King and BLM. The Massive Difference Between Dr. Martin Luther King and BLM. And I'm going to read you some amazing quotes from Dr. King after I go to some of your calls on the other side of the break, but please hear me. If you care, I'm just going to focus right now on my black brothers and sisters speak to everyone else. If you care about the dignity of every African American, if you care about the equal and fair treatment of every African African American in our country, then you must, you must denounce and renounce the spirit of BLM and embrace the spirit of Martin Luther King. If we want to move forward and see the betterment of all peoples, you must renounce the one which is the spirit of hate and destruction and embrace the other, which is the spirit of life and unity and progress. All right. You tell me if you agree or disagree.

I'm not asking you if I'm right or wrong. I'm asking if you agree or disagree, eight six six three four three. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get into the line of fire now by calling eight six six three four truth. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown.

Thanks for joining us on the line of fire. Eight six six three four truth. We can weigh in your views of the entire situation with Kyle Rittenhouse, the verdict, the reactions of the media on the left and the right to believe that this is being wrongly portrayed as a matter of white supremacy. That's been my position. That's been wrongly painted in that way.

Do you believe that there are things that I am missing? Viewpoints points of view. And remember, it started out started out he's a white supremacist. And while the trial is an example of white privilege, those are theoretically two separate things. Now, obviously, we're watching carefully the trial in the murder of Achmed Arbery or the killing of Achmed Arbery, what appeared to be murder.

And that's going to be decided. That to me is is a very much race related case. And now you have black militias. So armed black militias warning about what's going to happen if the verdict doesn't go the right way. So you've got you've got bad stuff on all sides. You've got the white militias and the black militias.

You've got people, whatever the jury says, it's not going to be good enough. We're going to take the law in our own hands. We got this on all sides.

There's junk, there's hatred, there's anger, there's junk on all sides. What I'm seeking to do using the medium of this radio broadcast, using the medium of the articles that I can write and the platforms I have on social media is to steer us in the direction of truth and ultimately gospel so that we can bring answers and solutions rather than further inflame hatred, tension. I'm going to read you some incredible quotes from Dr. King. And I cite them in this article, which is on my website. I'm really encouraging you to go to AskDr.Brown.org, the massive difference between the spirit of a BLM and Dr. King. I've got the quotes there. I've got even more quotes that'll be in my book, The Silencing of the Lambs, The Ominous Rise of Cancel Culture, How We Can Overcome It, that's due out in March, where I quote even more from Dr. King about a better way.

It's the Jesus way. But right now I want to go to your calls and we'll start with Rov in Richmond, Virginia. Thanks sir for calling the line of fire. Oh, thank you for taking my call, I appreciate that.

Sure thing. My thing is, as far as the young man in Wisconsin, which I kind of find hard to accept that, first of all, a 17-year-old has access to that type of weaponry. So that's number one.

Number two, you go across state lines. And granted, we're going to say for argument's sake, this was self-defense. But the thing of it is, is two people lost their lives because of that, and it's something that this young man perhaps should not be involved in in the first place.

Granted, it's his decision to do what he's done, but two people lost their lives. Now I'm not saying the young man is a racist, he may support BLM, that's his decision to make, but also let's get all the way down to where everything started at. Yes, this is a spiritual problem that we have in our country, I agree with that 100%. It's with the thoughts of men that we treat someone differently because of the color of their skin. Now we can say all the great things about Dr. King, in which they are great things, but Dr. King has been dead for 53 years for standing up for that. Because his whole point was, if you're a Christian, and I'm a Christian, why should I be treated differently because of the color of my skin?

Or if I'm a human being, and you're a human being, why should I be treated differently? See Rob, you are nailing what we need to nail, in other words, take race out of the Kyle Rittenhouse situation, because I don't believe it belongs there. Then we can talk about, should he have been there in the first place? Then we can talk about, did he have the gun legally or not?

From what I understand, his dad lives in Kenosha, he and his mom live nearby, so it's his dad city and all that. But should we be doing that? Is there ever a proper time for vigilantism, et cetera? And then talk about how this has been made into a race issue and address it. So this is exactly the conversation we need to have when we make this use white supremacy. Now all you do is get people angry on both sides because it's based on falsehoods, as opposed to saying, okay, do we still have race issues in America? Do we still have tensions? Do we still have inequities? So that's the conversation we need to be having.

Yes. And all of this, and like I said, let's get all the way down to this, because at some point in time, in not only just American history, but world history, where me as a black person was not considered to be a whole human being. So with that being said, that's what I mean, it's a spiritual thing, because that is casting down imagination of every kind of thing that sets itself against the knowledge of God. That's what this is about, because if you can still treat me bad because of my skin color or you're afraid, it's for me. I've had people not get on the elevator because I'm standing on the elevator, by myself. I've had that happen. And you're not there with a gun or a knife, exactly. Just you.

That's the whole point. Yes, sir. As a black man, and I'm a Christian, I mean, do I have to have a t-shirt on, do I have to have a cross around my neck to prove that I am a Christian?

Why can't I just be judged just for, hey, I'm gonna get on the elevator with you just because the elevator is empty, and I may be uncomfortable, but I'm gonna at least speak to you, acknowledge that you're there. But this is what I'm saying, this is the spirit that has to be broken over our country, because it goes all the way back to slavery, it really does. I know we don't like to necessarily talk that way because we say, okay, slavery's over with, but the thinking, now all that permeates. Yeah, or even here, let's look at it even from a different angle, okay? Yes, sir.

Yes, sir. And let's say this, let's just say as a legacy of slavery, then segregation, and then systems set up that disfavored black Americans, right? So that as a result of that, you end up with certain situations, either with more poverty or less education or broken home, whatever it is, whoever's fault it is, this is where we are.

Then you end up having higher crime rates, right? So a disproportionate number of blacks in our prisons. Is it because blacks are morally inferior to whites or less blacks with college education? Is it because they're intellectually inferior?

Probably not. To say that is to be blatantly racist. So whatever the situation is now, there's this thought, oh, if it's a black man, he could be dangerous, right? Forget slavery, forget segregation, it's just how we got where we are.

That ought not to be. Something's wrong with the picture, and it's the picture that is reality. Or something that's commonly brought up is net worth, right? That the net worth of your average white family is much higher than the net worth of average black family because of a history. All right, that doesn't mean to me we start sharing the money and make reparations. It means, okay, what can we do to try to level the playing field? How can we care together as Americans to look at the education system, to look at, without being the white fragility thing, I don't have to be fragile about it. I love Jesus. I love my neighbor where we can do better. Let's do better. So and look, I was fine a few months ago, maybe within the last year.

I'm flying and because I fly so much, I get free upgrades in the States very frequently. So I end up sitting next to a black man, turns out he's a bishop. So we get to talking, but he's really well-dressed, right? And I noticed how well-dressed he was, and he said to me, if I don't dress like this in first class, I don't get treated rightly.

They look at me like you don't belong here. He said, because he said, as a businessman, businessman, it's legit, but if you're not a businessman, now I'm sitting next to another black man on another flight. And I'm looking at him and I thought he looks like an athlete. Big guy looks like an athlete. That's my first thought. He must be an athlete, has some extra money.

That's what he's up for. It turns out he's a university chancellor. And he said to me, he said, now, come on, what's the first thought when you see a black man in first class on the plane, he's either a rap star or an athlete. So in other words, as crazy as that may sound, right, that's, so it's not a matter of some racist, angry, hateful thoughts, just there's, there's a lot more going on. And when we have these conversations, this is what we have to do is just say, hey, my life experience is different than yours or my, you know, as a Jew, I can tell you that as a follower of Jesus, I can tell you that you can tell me things as a black man, as a black Christian. So we, and this has helped me over the years, having these exact conversations for many years with callers calling, getting given perspective, Hey, listen, I, I got a bunch of callers, but, but I, it's so important to have this conversation, sir. This is what we need to talk about. Are there disparities? Do we, do we see people differently?

Are we colorblind or do we make subtle judgments or, Hey, if your experience has been very different than mine and that colors the way you see the world, talk to me about it. Talk, I'm not going to feel guilty because I didn't do it. All right. But let's, let's find out, especially as followers of Jesus, what we can do, it starts with listening to each other. Is it that hard?

It's really not. My brother, thank you for the call. I appreciate it.

And thanks everyone for your patience and holding eight, six, six, three, four truth. Let's go to Jasmine in Charlotte. Yeah, Jasmine, you are, you are on the air now.

Are you free to talk? Oh, Oh, I'm so sorry. I've been dropping off.

No, no, no. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it.

You've been on hold. So are you good to go? Yeah. All right. I tell you what, I can come back to you in a minute. How about here? Tell you what, why don't you sort things out and I'm going to come back to you in a couple of minutes.

Right? So stay right there and I'm going to come back to you this way. You can do whatever you're doing without distraction and we'll come back. All right.

Let's go to Reed also in Charlotte, North Carolina. Welcome to the line of fire. Appreciate it.

Thanks for taking my call. I just wanted to point out or just say that the frustration, and I'm a black Christian as well, but for me, I think that Rittenhouse, I think definitely it was self-defense. And again, as you said, he probably shouldn't go into a hot area with a gun when he didn't have to, but I think it was definitely self-defense. But where the frustration lies is that he, along with so many others, tend to get a trial by jury where black folks tend to be tried in the street and we get tried and we're convicted and we're executed. So when you look at someone like a Trayvon Martin or Amadou Diallo, so on and so forth, Ahmaud Arbery, whose case is going on right now, Tamir Rice, so on and so forth, but these people don't even get a chance to go to trial.

And that is the frustration. So that's where, at least from my perspective, that is where the race plays a part in it. It's not necessarily me saying that Kyle Rittenhouse is a white guy, I don't even know who he is. Stay right there. Don't come back on the other side of the break. What you're saying is, hey, there's no evidence he was a white supremacist, it just feels like he got to live through this to at least go to trial, whereas many blacks would be cut down on the street in the same situation.

That's your perspective, hence the frustration. 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 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. I just saw this headline from New York Times November 20th, just three days ago, Missouri detective is convicted in fatal shooting of a black man outside his house. The judge convicted Detective Eric, don't know how to pronounce the last name there, of involuntary manslaughter and the death of Cameron Lamb outside his home in 2019. We want our justice system to be colorblind. Often things don't work out with that. That way they haven't in our history, and there have not been juries with peers and things like this. Our caller now just saying, hey, often it doesn't even get to the courthouse.

Reed, let me just ask you this last question. Do you feel that in a case like this, when the media brands someone a white supremacist and defames them, that that's another thing that gets in the way of our justice system. You're mentioning, hey, here's a black person. Well, he's jogging through my neighborhood. He must be guilty. We heard that somebody is coming through stealing, so we better take justice in our own hands. If that's the reality, the video seems to point in that direction, then whatever the evidence comes out, I hope the jury does the right thing.

I really hope there's justice served in this case, whatever that looks like. But do you think right now there's kind of reactions both ways that are making it even more difficult for us to be a civil society? Well, absolutely. I think that people like or networks like MSNBC are definitely over the top. But then again, I also think Fox News with what Tucker Carlson has going on right now is completely over the top as well.

So I've been doing a documentary of the whole thing, like filming that in the background. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And I think you mentioned justice should be blind, but it's not.

It's absolutely not. And I remember a few years back when former President Trump was in office, there was some sort of a lawsuit against him, and he himself said that he didn't think he would get a fair trial because the judge was of Mexican descent or something along those lines. And so if he's you on the race card, and I mean, really. Right. And the bottom line, look, that was one of my issues. As much as I voted for Trump, I felt that his presidency was so divisive that there was just unnecessary destruction. You can have your differences.

You can be a strong leader. Hey, Reed, thank you for the conversation again. I'm not Fox News.

I'm obviously not MSNBC. We are gospel based. So we do talk about political cultural issues, but always doing our best to do it before the Lord and having respectful conversations with each other. Let's stretch each other.

And we got to friends. The church has to lead the way and show there's a better way. Thank you, sir, for the call. And I want to get you in the call or two and then read some of these quotes from Dr. King, which are so powerful. All right. Back to Jasmine and Charlotte. You still there?

Jasmine? Yep, I am. All right. We are all ears.

Go ahead. There's so much stuff going on right now and I wasn't doing anything when I first put the call in. But I was my main concern, as far as based off what you were talking about, like I had heard the name of Rittenhouse and whatever, but I didn't really have any details about the case. So by the time you're hearing the ruling, everybody just kind of making it seem like it's a race thing so much so to the point that it's a white man that shot black people.

I didn't find out that he even shot white whoever for whatever reason until you were saying it. So I called in asking like, why does the government keep on trying to make everything about a race thing and like trying to turn people against each other in the form of race when the reality is that depopulation is a real thing and the government has been trying to get rid of people from all different types of aspects and their race is against the billions in a sense. It has nothing to do with skin color, in my opinion, and I'm wondering why it's so hard for us as a people to see it. You know, Jasmine, we have to do this very thing and not let somebody else shape our viewpoints because a lot of us, we see the headline, we see the meme, the book, you know, on all sides, right, left, black, white, Jew, Gentile on all sides, male, female.

We all do the same thing. We get all inflamed. I believe President Obama, with a lot of his rhetoric, divided us in race. I believe President Trump, with a lot of his rhetoric, divided us in a whole lot of other ways.

I believe President Biden is continuing. It's like, wait a second, you're the leader of the government. Bring us together.

Do you know? And so if the government leaders aren't going to do it, then pastors and church leaders have to do it. And if they don't do it, then we just have to say, you know, I'm not going to prejudge somebody and I'm not going to prejudge your situation and I'm going to say, well, tell me what life is like in your world and tell me what you've experienced and tell me, you know, and then you compare notes.

It's like, wow, your experience is different than mine. Or it's the same because I think fundamentally most Americans want to get along and most Americans want equality. You know, you look, I don't agree with same sex marriage, but I obviously I want to redefine marriage, but I want everyone to be treated equally under the law. So I think most Americans, if I find out that that your lot in life has been difficult and that there's a way I can help fix that, I think most Americans want to do that.

And certainly most Christians. So yeah, we, we got to get past the government, the media trying to devise, look, if it's sensationalism sells controversy sells. So you're in business and if you got more controversy, you get more business.

That's not the way it should be for us. So yeah, well, Hey, Jasmine, thanks for holding so long to say that cause it needed to be said. It needed to be said.

I appreciate that. And may I say one other thing? I know you're pressed for time, but what you said about the same sex marriage, that actually struck me too, because it almost seems like the Democrats, they're here to just influence just the LGBTQ stuff. Came down from Obama. Like his first time he's, Oh, well I'm for, you know, one man, one woman, blah, blah, blah.

Second round. Then he changed his stance as far as just things like that, because he already knows that he did that the first four years and he wouldn't have been able to have believers on his side type of thing. So it just seems like they've been little by little doing things. And if you say anything that you can ask two people that, you know, same sex relationship, Oh, well, how did you have a baby? Just legitimate questions and they just define their hate speech is everything is hate speech. If you don't say the same thing, it's just like, no, I mean, and even when it comes to the language, they're trying to, to reclaim the English language that we've had the line is just like, that doesn't make any sense.

Like, what are you talking about after awhile? So it just seems like they're taking things that have nothing to do with the other, just to try to keep mess stirred in the pot to where they want people to stay in chaos. So nobody ever talks about anything that makes sense and realizes that they're really trying to divide people, period.

In my opinion. Hey, Jasmine, I'm just going to let your opinion just stand without my commentary, but people are not our enemy. There's a dangerous agenda that is seeking to divide and destroy what are we going to do about it? Hey, thank you for the call. All right, listen. There are more quotes in my article about the massive difference between Dr. Martin Luther King and BLM.

It said, ask Dr. Brown.org. Wherever you read my articles, it'll be up within 24 hours, but, but Dr. King is talking in 1957 in a message about Jesus come in as to love our enemies and he says, yes, it is love that will save our world and our civilization love even for enemies. He said, well, how do we do this? First you examine your own self because you have shortcomings too, and maybe people hate us because there's something wrong in us. And then he says, next, you've got to discover some good within your enemies. He said, and every time you begin to hate that person and think of hating that person, realize that there is some good there and look at those good points, which will overbalance the bad points.

He also emphasized that we must not make our battles personal, noting when you rise to the level of love of its great beauty and power. You seek only to defeat evil systems, individuals who happen to be caught up in that system you love, but you seek to defeat the system. Ah, and then why we must respond with love and we're hated. He explained that hate for hate only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe. If I hit you and you hit me and I hit you back and you hit me back and go on, you see that goes on ad infinitum.

It just never ends. Somewhere somebody must have a little sense and that's the strong person. The strong person is the person who can cut off the chain of hate, the chain of evil. He added, men must see that force begets force, hate begets hate, toughness begets toughness, and it is all a descending spiral, ultimately ending in destruction for all and everybody. Somebody must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate and the chain of evil in the universe and you do that by love. And he said, for the person who hates, you can stand up and see a person and that person can be beautiful and you will call them ugly. The person who hates the beautiful becomes ugly and the ugly becomes beautiful.

And then he talks about how, how it distorts you. He says, love has within it a redemptive power. There is a power there that eventually transforms individuals. That's why Jesus says, love your enemies, because if you hate your enemies, you have no way to redeem and transform your enemies, but if you love your enemies, you'll discover that at the very root of love is the power of redemption.

You just keep loving people and keep loving them even though they're mistreating you. Friends, the mainstream media on the right or on the left, the ultimate goal is not loving enemies and redemption. That's not the ultimate goal. It is certainly not the ultimate goal of the BLM movements and the others and the white supremacists.

It's not their goal. Our goal as followers of Jesus is to transform people through love rather than being overcome by evil. Paul writes, we overcome evil with good. Can we do that?

Can we model that? Hey friends, that's my goal. Are you with me?

Are we in this together? Hey, one quick reminder, we just want to be a blessing to you, our sponsor, Dr. Stengler, now through November 28th, and you go to vitaminmission.com and get the finest health supplements you can get. Use the code HEALTH, H-E-A-L-T-H, use the code HEALTH to get double the normal discount. Dr. Stengler, must be a blessing to you these days. Take advantage of it. Back with you tomorrow. Your program powered by the Truth Network.