By Larry Craig

We are told that the U.S. is a racist country that oppresses and holds down people of color.

Yet there is not another country in the world today that any person of color who is already here now would rather live in. And millions of people of color have come to live here by their own choice, far more than were ever brought here forcibly, and millions more are waiting to do so. Should we tell them not to come?

If it had not been for slavery, all the descendants of slavery here now would still be in Africa and not in the country of their choosing. I submit that their life here now is better than it would have been if they had never been brought here so long ago from Africa. People of color, frankly, should be thanking God every day that they live here in spite of everything they say is wrong with this country.

There is a story in the Bible of a man whom God, you could say, caused to be sold into slavery and later unjustly imprisoned. This man thanked God afterwards when he realized how God was using the events of his life for a greater good. (Genesis 37-50.) And this man forgave the ones who sold him into slavery in the first place because of that.

But we are told that people must protest and even riot about the mistreatment of black people by the police.

The mistreatment of black people by the police was indeed the stated reason for the protests when they started, but the purpose for the protests by those who actually organized them and got them going goes far beyond problems with the police. The mistreatment of blacks by police gave their cause acceptability in the eyes of the public.

We know that the protests are not really about the plight of black people because they say and do nothing about the much greater problem of rampant violence in black communities. More people are shot and killed in black neighborhoods by black men in a few weeks than die at the hands of police officers in an entire year.

We know that the protests are not really about the plight of black people because they are offering nothing that is intended to improve the lives of anyone. There is a proposal to shift funding for policing to social services. Most people I think see that as unrealistic and even dangerous. We are already seeing what a diminished police presence looks like in some places, and I don’t expect that to last. The goal I believe is to reduce possible future police resistance as these protests and riots continue and expand.

We are told that we should not bring up the issue of violence in the black communities, because that is a different, separate, and unrelated issue than the issue at hand — that of racism, both personal and systemic.

But people aren’t buying that.

We are told that everybody needs to invest in black communities, but we have seen what has happened to people who have. Not everybody is able and willing to rebuild their businesses after they have been looted and burned to the ground.

We are told that all our schools and neighborhoods need to be fully integrated. But people who live in those neighborhoods that are said to need more integration are afraid that that violence that we read about every day in the newspapers will follow that integration.

There is a lot more going on than simply protesting over the death of one man at the hands of police.

Their intention is to present a constant complaint about American society and life so that they can condition the American people to see their country as broken and so that they accept these complaints as valid.

The protests now include the issues of slavery, systemic racism, and indigenous peoples with the goal of discrediting the entire foundation of the United States and Western civilization.

They want the American people to see the whole basis and organization of our country as irredeemably flawed, such that it cannot be repaired and must be replaced. They don’t want to fix the United States; they want to replace it.

They want to intimidate and shame the American people into silence and acquiescence such that they will not resist as these protestors try to reinvent America.

I wish I could say that positive changes will come out of these protests and riots. But they are no longer about George Floyd and the police but about bringing down the United States as we know it.

Please visit my blog at poligion1.blogspot.com for articles I have written on politics, culture, and public life.