In my hometown of Chattanooga, Tennessee, a recent incident involving black suspects and white law-enforcement officers is proving to be yet another case study of how perennial race-baiting agitators wait for any opening to promote themselves.

The opportunities for such self-aggrandizement have been slim lately, but finally, opportunity rang. Two white Hamilton County deputies stopped a vehicle for having unlawfully dark window tinting — which is to say they could not see inside the vehicle — always dangerous to officers making a stop, which is one of the reasons window tinting is regulated. Because the officers could not see the occupants of the vehicle, it would be difficult to make a “racial profiling” case, but crack cocaine was found in the underwear of a black occupant (a favorite place for concealment) and that is the basis for the race hustlers’ complaint.

The usual race-baiters have their panties in a wad, claiming the suspect, who as it turns out has 40 prior arrests, was “strip searched” in public and subjected to a “cavity search,” despite the fact video footage from two camera angles negates those claims. After a meeting of black community faith leaders convened, most pastors declined to participate in this charade. But a small group of the loudest agitators, along with the leader of hater Louis Farrakhan’s local Nation of Islam cadre, are calling for Sheriff Jim Hammond’s resignation.

My friend Mark Alexander, who has a background in law enforcement, has known Jim Hammond for 30 years, and notes, “Jim is a man with an impeccable color-blind career, an ethical and faithful man who is the most professional Sheriff in HCSO’s history — by a measure of magnitude.” But leftists never let facts get in the way of their agenda.

However, sometimes law enforcement officers cross the line, and there are bad cops. But calling for Hammond’s head is not the solution. Prosecuting officers who violate the law is.

Meanwhile, Chattanooga, like most urban centers Democrat mayors are turning into slums, had one of the bloodiest weekends of 2019. Among the murder victims was a pregnant 19-year-old and mother of a two-½-year-old girl. But the agitators and community are not coming together to find the assailant or demand justice for this young mother; they are on the government steps blasting the officers that have sworn to protect and serve them.

Pastors and ministers are not called to be race-bait hustlers but peacemakers. Peacemakers are not partial and prejudiced. Ironically, the racially biased behavior exhibited by these local “men of faith” is the same behavior they claim they oppose.

Of course, race-baiting hustlers are nothing new.

Writing about such race agitators in his 1911 book, My Larger Education, Booker T. Washington wrote the following words that are even more relevant to present-day race agitators: “There is [a] class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public… Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs — partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays.”

Washington continued: “Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs… There is a certain class of race-problem solvers who do not want the patient to get well, because as long as the disease holds out they have not only an easy means of making a living, but also an easy medium through which to make themselves prominent before the public.”

The real tragedy in this unfortunate situation is that young black men are dying at an alarming rate, most murdered by other young black men.

Pastors, where is your concern for the souls of these citizens? Where is the call to repentance? Where is the strategy to build flourishing Christian families? Where is the Good News of the Gospel that gives your community hope? These are valid questions that challenge these race-bait agitators. Instead of fulfilling the Great Commission, these pastors have been indoctrinated with hatred and black tribalism, fomented by today’s Democrat Party and its cadres of social justice warriors who thrive on dividing us by race and every other measure.

Truth is, the great majority of Hamilton County citizens support our law enforcement, as do real pastors doing the real work of the cross. We will not stand idly by while radical Islamists and agitators sow racial discord in our community. We have worked too hard and too long to build a peaceful city.

As Washington wrote, “Great men cultivate love. … Only little men cherish a spirit of hatred.”