Hard truth — all of your protesting and politicking isn’t going to change a thing.

You can’t fix racism with a march or a political program.  Racism is sin rooted in collectivism and groupthink and it’s been with us for millennia. It’s a matter of the heart.

And you probably won’t change somebody’s heart by yelling at them, wagging your finger in their face or demanding that they make some kind of sacrifice to atone for their sin.

Love and mercy overcome racism.

And sometimes they don’t.

But what about systemic racism? That’s the real problem, right? Isn’t that what the protests are all about? If we can’t fix racism, we can at least change the system.

And that’s where the whole protest movement falls apart. Nobody really wants to change the system. They just want to redistribute power within it.

Lyrics from the Backwordz song Self Ownership sum it up nicely.

When a cop’s shooting a black man you focus on the racism, ignoring all the statism
Holding signs, rioting is not about to save him
Cause you must’ve forgot that that’s the power that you gave them

When you boil it all down – government power is the problem. The evil of racism has always been sustained by government force – from slavery, to Jim Crow, to violent policing.

You need to address the power problem. I’m talking about real systemic change.

The system itself is built on violence, force and coercion. Until you reject the fundamental notion that some people have the right to rule over others and bend them to their will through political means, you will keep getting what you’ve got.

When all of the protests are said and done, the system will still stand. We may see some shifts in the distribution of power. But the core will remain unchanged. The violence, force and coercion will remain. And somebody will still face the business end of the guns.