Jim Wallis, the far Left self-styled evangelical for high taxes on the rich, wealth-redistribution, endless federal programs, and all in the name of Jesus, has once again proven that he is the master of guilt-manipulation. He cries out against white Christians’ acceptance of the jury’s decision in the Zimmerman trial.
The prosecution failed, he says. It did not play the race card. It owed it to black America to play the race card.
It was a political, legal, and moral mistake to not put race at the center of this trial because it was at the center from the beginning of this terrible case.
Now, don’t you go around saying that Rev. Wallis believes in racial profiling. In court, yes. Play that race card! But not on the street. Never on the street.
And racial profiling is a sin in the eyes of God. It should also be a crime in the eyes of our society, and the laws we enact to protect each other and our common good.
You may conclude that Rev. Wallis is suffering from a bad case of intellectual schizophrenia. But he has an excuse. He’s a liberal. He’s a white liberal. Also, he gets paid $197,000 a year by his non-profit organization. He earns his keep.
The jury could not possibly have understood what went on, you see.
What exactly happened between Zimmerman and Martin will never be known, because the boy is dead and the adult did not have to testify and be cross examined.
That’s the trouble with murder cases. Someone was murdered. So, he cannot give his side of the story. Therefore, jurors have to Do The Right Thing. They have to look at the victim’s color, as if it were 1955 in Mississippi, only with colors reversed.
Testimony? Useless! Cross-examination? Irrelevant!
How a black boy responded to a strange man who was following him, and what the stranger did with that, is a story we can never really know. But regardless of the verdict that rests on narrow definitions of self-defense and reasonable doubt, it is absolutely clear that racial profiling was present in this whole incident.
So, the verdict is irrelevant. We must look beyond the verdict.
But while the legal verdicts of this trial must be accepted, the larger social meaning of court cases and verdicts must be dealt with, especially as they impact the moral quality of our society.
Yes, sir, what is important is the Larger Social Meaning. And what is this Larger Social Meaning?
White Christians cannot and must not leave the sole responsibility of telling the truth about America, how it has failed Trayvon Martin and so many black Americans, solely to their African American brothers and sisters in Christ. It’s time for white Christians to listen to their black brothers and sisters, to learn their stories, and to speak out for racial justice and reconciliation. The country needs multi-racial communities of faith to show us how to live together.
