Speaker 1: Welcome to the nonprofits. For our fourth and final story
Speaker 1: this week, we take a look at what a Christian
Speaker 1: seminary student had to say about the Black Lives Matter movement.
Speaker 1: Black Lives Matter movement, I'm sure it's a very fair
Speaker 1: and considerate op ed piece, Jonathan Ruttabush.
Speaker 2: Let's dive right in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the op ed is trying to associate Black Lives
Speaker 3: Matter movements relevance in the society with the acquittal of
Speaker 3: a white man in the death of a black man,
Speaker 3: trying to frame it in racial terms. But was it
Speaker 3: did BLM have anything to do with the case of
Speaker 3: homeless man Jordan Neely, a black man who was asphyxiated
Speaker 3: by a white former marine, Daniel Perry, on basically a
Speaker 3: train on a subway. So the entire article is weirdly
Speaker 3: saying that BLM is fading because of fading from the
Speaker 3: public consciousness. Because a man who has skilled enough to
Speaker 3: use a choke hold to subt do someone is acquitted
Speaker 3: in court, so twelve jurors represent the entire populace of
Speaker 3: New York City. He choked him for about six minutes
Speaker 3: trying to subdue him. Note, most people are unconscious if
Speaker 3: they are healthy and fit in ten seconds if they're
Speaker 3: if you're using a stranglehold which cuts off the blood
Speaker 3: supply to the brain and the airway. But we don't
Speaker 3: know if that's what he did. A video showed that
Speaker 3: it was improperly if and not consistently applied. This was
Speaker 3: evaluated by the same marine who had taught combat to
Speaker 3: Penny himself. So the writer said that Penny's acquittal was
Speaker 3: a sign that the US public no longer believes the
Speaker 3: lying rhetoric of Marxist BLM movement. Was this the case?
Speaker 3: Was this case about race? Or was it about a
Speaker 3: mentally ill homeless man acting out on a subway and
Speaker 3: threatening people. When Jordan threatened the pregnant woman, Daniel Petty
Speaker 3: acted to protect her. That DA saw that differently and
Speaker 3: prosecuted Penny for negligent homicide and manslaughter. The manslaughter charge
Speaker 3: was dropped, an example of the spin that Wolf states,
Speaker 3: BLM from its inception has proven itself not just about
Speaker 3: advocating for racial justice, but also as a vehicle for
Speaker 3: promoting anti American and anti white rhetoric, division and chaos.
Speaker 3: Not biased at all. What do you guys think?
Speaker 1: Well, before we find out what we think, Jonathan, I
Speaker 1: want to hear a little bit more about what you think. First,
Speaker 1: the author said, quote, Penny employed a chokehold, which you've
Speaker 1: mentioned a technique from his military training in what was
Speaker 1: clearly an active self defense of others. Okay, So that
Speaker 1: was the quote from the op ed, And I assume
Speaker 1: that he's kind of implying that the force that he
Speaker 1: was using was appropriate and not excessive. So you're a
Speaker 1: military man, what can you comment on that?
Speaker 3: Well, there's two types of things he chokes, which is
Speaker 3: just airway obstruction. Can take up to several minutes to
Speaker 3: render a well conditioned person unconscious. It depends on the person,
Speaker 3: you know, and how the choke is apply. Strangles or
Speaker 3: strangulation is about cutting off the blood supply, and that
Speaker 3: happens within seconds because no blood of the brain, no consciousness.
Speaker 3: So and it basically compresses the cartoid artery and the
Speaker 3: juggly veins, making sure that no blame blood goes in
Speaker 3: or out of the head. So that's what happens. It
Speaker 3: can also compress the airway, the trachea, the larynx, and
Speaker 3: so that can also cause asphyxia. The said Asphix. You
Speaker 3: so I assume he was cutting the airway, but I
Speaker 3: have no way of knowing for sure, Marie. The Marines
Speaker 3: I worked with when I was in the anfib Navy,
Speaker 3: I believe they use strangleholds in combat training, as as
Speaker 3: described above. If he was still moving after several minutes,
Speaker 3: the hold was either improperly applied or just a show cold.
Speaker 3: In either case, Penny should have known that holding either
Speaker 3: one of those types of chokes more than two to
Speaker 3: three minutes could possibly result in permanent brain damage or
Speaker 3: damage to the individual. Evidently he was not looking at
Speaker 3: his watch, and I wonder why not. Yeah, yeah, but
Speaker 3: you know, people react the way they're trained, is the
Speaker 3: last thing I'll say for this go.
Speaker 1: So was he acting appropriate to his training? The amount
Speaker 1: of force that he used was that to be expected.
Speaker 3: I would expect that if he was acting as he
Speaker 3: was trained, he probably was doing the best he could
Speaker 3: in that situation with the restrictions of the space that
Speaker 3: he was in. But then again, I wasn't there, so
Speaker 3: I'm and I'm not an expert in hand to gain combat,
Speaker 3: So you know, I couldn't say whether or not he
Speaker 3: did it right. But apparently his instructor said he didn't, so, okay,
Speaker 3: well you have a.
Speaker 2: Dead guy, right.
Speaker 1: Somebody died because of this and that brings me Steve,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to ask you following the following about
Speaker 1: Daniel Penny's acquittal.
Speaker 2: This is what the author had to say.
Speaker 1: His active courage protecting the vulnerable in a moment of
Speaker 1: chaos resonance with the Christian call to stand up for
Speaker 1: one's neighbor in times of need. Now a man is
Speaker 1: now dead because Penny stood up. Do you think that
Speaker 1: the acquittal of Daniel Penny is in alignment with the
Speaker 1: morality and dictates of Christianity, or rather, I should say,
Speaker 1: the professed.
Speaker 2: Morality and dictates of Christianity. Do you think that? Do
Speaker 2: you think things line up?
Speaker 4: Is this?
Speaker 5: Is he judging that correctly? Then he will say to
Speaker 5: those on his left, depart from me, you who are
Speaker 5: cursed into the eternal fire, prepared for the devil and
Speaker 5: his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me
Speaker 5: nothing to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me
Speaker 5: nothing to drink. I was a stranger and you did
Speaker 5: not invite me in. I needed clothes and you did
Speaker 5: not clothe me. I was sick and in prison, and
Speaker 5: you did not look after me. And they will answer, Lord,
Speaker 5: when did we see you hungry, thirsty, a stranger, needing clothes,
Speaker 5: sick in prison and did not help you? And he
Speaker 5: will reply, Truly, I tell you, whatever you did not
Speaker 5: do for one of the least of these, you did
Speaker 5: not do for me. Then they will go away into
Speaker 5: eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.
Speaker 4: How telling? How telling for the Christian Post to run
Speaker 4: this story, because there was nothing nothing christ like about this.
Speaker 4: He was protecting his neighbors from being uncomfortable by a
Speaker 4: problem that we all have to face. You know, what's
Speaker 4: not going to solve homelessness, Scott being protected from it
Speaker 4: being having homeless people killed in front of us is
Speaker 4: not going to actually address the homelessness issue, right, But
Speaker 4: the privileged white guy kills a marginalized black man and
Speaker 4: got away with it. And this is antithetical to the
Speaker 4: gospel that the Christian Post is supposed to be promoting.
Speaker 4: How telling? How unsurprising?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not surprising at all.
Speaker 1: I mean we see these kind of stories prop up
Speaker 1: fairly often, you know, and it would be it would
Speaker 1: be refreshing to hear some Christians complaining about it rather
Speaker 1: than just you know, a nonprofits atheists show and on
Speaker 1: you know once a week.
Speaker 2: Right, I want to go over to Kelly for a
Speaker 2: second real quick here.
Speaker 1: So this piece spends a lot of time talking and
Speaker 1: promoting kind of in us versus them them Outlook, So
Speaker 1: is this some sort of spiritual axis and allies.
Speaker 2: That they're talking about.
Speaker 1: What are your thoughts on this chasm that's between the
Speaker 1: religious right and uh and and well pretty much everyone else,
Speaker 1: you know, What's what's the deal there?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think you judged that pretty well. There is
Speaker 6: there is a movement to make the Christian right be
Speaker 6: better and more moral than everybody else. And I think
Speaker 6: there is a chasm there. I think that chasm is
Speaker 6: growing wider and wider and wider. But I think they're
Speaker 6: the doing it. I think they're ones who created that chasm,
Speaker 6: and they're the ones who are making it larger. One
Speaker 6: of the things that he said in the article was
Speaker 6: it's time to move forward, focusing on true equality, not
Speaker 6: on reversing racial injustices with new ones. And I saw
Speaker 6: that and what I read from there. Now, I don't
Speaker 6: know if you know anything about the author. I looked
Speaker 6: into his background a little bit. He's just a rich
Speaker 6: white guy from the South. He's got a history of
Speaker 6: his family being rich white guys from the South. So
Speaker 6: what I read between the lines was, I know it
Speaker 6: was people just like me, you know, rich white guys
Speaker 6: from the South that kept literally kept people like you.
Speaker 6: But please don't hold that against me now, right, It
Speaker 6: seems like nothing for an excuse, but for why this
Speaker 6: dangerous black man was justified in being killed by this
Speaker 6: heroic white guy, right, and one other things, I don't
Speaker 6: think I'm not surprised that he was acquitted. I don't
Speaker 6: know a lot of people know. I'm a history buff.
Speaker 6: I remember a lot of things when I was growing
Speaker 6: up to But in the eighties in New York City
Speaker 6: on the subway, there was a guy who shot four
Speaker 6: young black men. His name was Bernard Getz, and he
Speaker 6: actually chased one of the men down through three cars
Speaker 6: and shot him in the back. And he was acquitted
Speaker 6: of all four of those killings. So this didn't surprise
Speaker 6: me at all, Jonathan.
Speaker 1: So this is our third story this week about violence
Speaker 1: being committed by conservative Christians basically, and so coming from
Speaker 1: the God is Love crowd, this seems counter message, as
Speaker 1: Stephen was talking about before, and we also talked about
Speaker 1: earlier in our earlier segments. This week, Kelly mentioned something
Speaker 1: about he used the analogy of a cornered animal respond
Speaker 1: you know, reacting and you know, feeling feeling pressured and
Speaker 1: responding violently that way, Why do you think that these
Speaker 1: people are being so violent?
Speaker 2: And is this gonna get.
Speaker 1: Worse or is it going to get you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: is it going to reach a maximum pointer? Where is
Speaker 1: this leading as far as interacting with other human beings?
Speaker 3: Well, first off, I'm not sure if mister Penny was
Speaker 3: a Christian or not. It doesn't really I don't think
Speaker 3: it says.
Speaker 2: That does a good point.
Speaker 3: That's a good point, and the fact they were accenting
Speaker 3: the fact he was a marine. Marines are are extremely
Speaker 3: good fighters. They're trained to fight there, they're trained in
Speaker 3: how to have good judgment about the situation, to react
Speaker 3: appropriately with appropriate measures. So I when when that marine
Speaker 3: describes the situation and why he did what he did,
Speaker 3: which he did in this article, well briefly in this
Speaker 3: article I read a few other things, but I have
Speaker 3: a very biased opinion that I believe him. I believe
Speaker 3: that that's what he thought at the time, that he
Speaker 3: thought that not only was the passengers threatened, but that
Speaker 3: once he had taken action, that he was also threatened
Speaker 3: because of the position he was in, and he was
Speaker 3: trying to control that. He felt he was in a
Speaker 3: vulnerable position. If I'm not that kind of fighter, you know,
Speaker 3: I don't do that kind of thing on a regular basis.
Speaker 3: I'm not trained like that. People behave the way they're trained.
Speaker 3: Firemen run towards a fire, police run towards an assault,
Speaker 3: you know. The Marines, you know, run towards an enemy
Speaker 3: or and deal with a problem that way. So this
Speaker 3: is just a training mindset, you know. I can't fault
Speaker 3: him for that. You know, I don't think it was
Speaker 3: racially motivated. This guy came on, was yelling and screaming,
Speaker 3: was obviously mentally disturbed, and then got in the face
Speaker 3: of a pregnant woman. At that point, he had enough
Speaker 3: and he said, that's it. I'm done. I'm going to
Speaker 3: take this guy down and just you know, wait for
Speaker 3: the police to get here. Right. Unfortunately, he didn't let up,
Speaker 3: like but you know, that could be training too. Marines
Speaker 3: aren't used to letting people live, you know, unless they're
Speaker 3: told to specifically, you know, So it's it's like, I'm
Speaker 3: not an expert on the Marine Corps either, but the
Speaker 3: military training is pretty intense for these guys, and the
Speaker 3: experiences are pretty intense. So in that light, you know,
Speaker 3: I tend to believe him when he says that. However,
Speaker 3: you know, the christianization of the fight here them using
Speaker 3: this as us versus them episode. The more we hear that,
Speaker 3: the more I, like you asked, I'm afraid it's going
Speaker 3: to get worse. This emboldens people, you know, Oh, I
Speaker 3: can I can kill these people because I'm not going
Speaker 3: to get convicted. And we keep showing them that over
Speaker 3: and over again. So this is going to get worse
Speaker 3: and before it gets better, and we have to we
Speaker 3: have to mobilize what we can to combat that. And
Speaker 3: you know, like we were talking about earlier, BLM is
Speaker 3: is an organization that I don't think we can afford
Speaker 3: to let fade away. I think we need to make
Speaker 3: sure that it's still alive and kicking.
Speaker 2: Excellent transition to my next question.
Speaker 1: This one's going to go over to Steve and hopefully
Speaker 1: looks like we're having a little bit of technical issues
Speaker 1: there hopefully we can get some more of Steven's words
Speaker 1: on this. The title of the piece is the Age
Speaker 1: of BLM is Over. What do you think he meant
Speaker 1: by that?
Speaker 4: Like buzzwords? Like like, on the one hand, like this
Speaker 4: is something that has struck me just recently, you know,
Speaker 4: because of Oh, I am sorry, I'm forgetting his name
Speaker 4: now in twenty twenty, the black man who was killed
Speaker 4: by the police officer Lloyd. What was his name again,
Speaker 4: George Floyd, Yeah, George Floyd. You know, when George Floyd
Speaker 4: was murdered, then there was uproar and that's when we
Speaker 4: all knew about BLM. And now another black man has
Speaker 4: been murdered and there isn't an uproar, and and like,
Speaker 4: I like, maybe that's that's a piece of it that huh,
Speaker 4: finally we can. But I think the meat of the
Speaker 4: article points to something far more pedantic and inane, the
Speaker 4: idea that this Marxist ideology of you know, anti white
Speaker 4: racism is coming to an end. And just like like
Speaker 4: obviously that perspective is completely skewed and doesn't have a
Speaker 4: place in thinking society.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so do you think the author was taking
Speaker 1: advantage of of an event that happened in order to
Speaker 1: take a poke at one of his favorite targets.
Speaker 4: Yeah, maybe he had a writing maybe he had a
Speaker 4: writing deadline. He's like, what can I do? What can
Speaker 4: I what land can I put on this that will
Speaker 4: get clicks and get this article picked up? And this
Speaker 4: was the tripe that he was able to spew out.
Speaker 4: I don't think it's I think it was a far
Speaker 4: far reach for him to pretend that this was some
Speaker 4: kind of earnest observation that he was making.
Speaker 6: I think he using the choking death right. What happened
Speaker 6: to George Floyd, what started to b l M movement
Speaker 6: was him getting choked at death. So now here here,
Speaker 6: here's here's another black man getting choked at that. The
Speaker 6: white guy gets acquitted. So obviously the message is and
Speaker 6: it seems like what he's saying in the article is
Speaker 6: the messages it's okay to choke black men.
Speaker 2: That that interesting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And another thing about the whole thing that's a
Speaker 3: tragedy is that this this this poor man was mentally
Speaker 3: ill and having and homeless. He was hungry and he
Speaker 3: needed everything. He needed clothing, he needed a bath, he
Speaker 3: needed a place to sleep. He was he was upset
Speaker 3: about that. He was ranting about it, and rather than
Speaker 3: have a system, the failure of our social support system
Speaker 3: and addition to the innate racism in society at large,
Speaker 3: was I think the real cause of his death, because
Speaker 3: he should have been treated in a hospital or treated
Speaker 3: in a mental health facility, be given all the food
Speaker 3: he needs, be given clothing, being given shoes if he
Speaker 3: needs them. That's what should have happened. And then he
Speaker 3: wouldn't have been on that train. He would have forced
Speaker 3: the doors open and came in ranting about being hungry
Speaker 3: and you know, and not caring if he was going
Speaker 3: to go to jail, because at least he get food,
Speaker 3: you know, I mean the guy, you know, he should
Speaker 3: have been helped, no period. You know, there's no excuse
Speaker 3: for our society allowing these people to just die. I know,
Speaker 3: they don't like looking at them, and they don't like
Speaker 3: them in their parks, and they we've done stories before
Speaker 3: about governments trying to move them into camps outside of
Speaker 3: the city limits so they don't have to look at them.
Speaker 3: But these are real human beings and they deserve to
Speaker 3: be treated like human beings and with respect and dignity
Speaker 3: and the lack of that is what torques me the most.
Speaker 3: You know, it's just this trial and that I have
Speaker 3: a lot of opinions about that, as I've already stated,
Speaker 3: but as a last note, the failure of our government
Speaker 3: to take care of them uh and uh, and to
Speaker 3: take care of the veterans as well. You know, when
Speaker 3: they get out after going into battle conditions and coming back,
Speaker 3: they're they're not caught up with the mental health of
Speaker 3: the military people that came back yet. I don't know
Speaker 3: if this gentleman has PTSD or anything. I don't think so,
Speaker 3: because the way he acted, I think he was fine.
Speaker 3: But a lot of others are still hanging out, and
Speaker 3: a lot of them are those homeless people.
Speaker 1: So so you're saying that this was a foreseeable and
Speaker 1: an avoidable circumstance and that and that really just we
Speaker 1: just dropped the ball, basically, just the United States government
Speaker 1: dropped the ball here and and let this thing happen.
Speaker 2: Is that what you're is that kind of what you're
Speaker 2: getting at.
Speaker 3: I'm saying that it's intentional as well.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, let's then let's take that thought over to
Speaker 1: Stephen then. So so if we're seeing if what we
Speaker 1: see is increase not only increased violence and conflict and
Speaker 1: you know, headbutting and that kind of thing, but an
Speaker 1: increased tolerance for that kind of thing. People are are
Speaker 1: finding it more and more acceptable to talk about that
Speaker 1: kind of thing to support, especially in recent political arena, right,
Speaker 1: we've seen we've discovered that people are willing to support
Speaker 1: what they you know, what they would have earlier thought
Speaker 1: of as horrendous ideas, horrible ideas, abusive ideas, violent ideas,
Speaker 1: racist ideas, you know, all this kind of stuff. Do
Speaker 1: you think that is an indication that maybe this stuff
Speaker 1: is baked into us as human beings are, is our
Speaker 1: attempts at building a more peaceful world?
Speaker 2: Just folly?
Speaker 4: If we look back five hundred one thousand years ago,
Speaker 4: would we say that those negative qualities are just as
Speaker 4: as they were back then? I hope not. I don't
Speaker 4: think so. I believe that we are, in comparison, a kinder,
Speaker 4: more thoughtful, more empathetic society cavilization. So can I then
Speaker 4: extrapolate that and say, okay, a thousand years down the road,
Speaker 4: if we survive, things will be just that much more better?
Speaker 4: I hope? So? Is it wired into us right now. Sure,
Speaker 4: the good and the bad, but I think that that
Speaker 4: we're changing that wiring slowly, bit by bit, and even
Speaker 4: if we have setbacks like we are looking at right now,
Speaker 4: I'm a man of faith. I got to have faith
Speaker 4: that we can and will improve and get better. And
Speaker 4: even if our current generation is shot, those of us
Speaker 4: who have eyes to see will know that we need
Speaker 4: to take care of the next generation. We need to
Speaker 4: be sowing those seeds and raising up people who will
Speaker 4: you know, inch that ball down the field. Just another
Speaker 4: in Kelly.
Speaker 1: I know you had one last thing you wanted to say,
Speaker 1: but I also want to get your opinion on what
Speaker 1: Stephen was just saying. Do you think that do you
Speaker 1: think that we can make progress on this? Do you
Speaker 1: think that we're moving in the right direction? I mean,
Speaker 1: by some measures, as Steven pointed out, you know, we're
Speaker 1: better than we were five hundred years ago, But on
Speaker 1: the other hand, we're worse off than we were maybe
Speaker 1: ten years ago, or at least it appears that way
Speaker 1: fifteen twenty years ago, fifty years ago, things like that.
Speaker 2: Are we making progress?
Speaker 1: Is or is this a two steps forward, one step
Speaker 1: back kind of situation?
Speaker 2: Or what are your thoughts there.
Speaker 6: You know, even if we take two steps forward and
Speaker 6: one step back, we're still progressing, right, So yeah, I
Speaker 6: do see us slipping back right now. But in the
Speaker 6: long run, like you said, five, we've come a long
Speaker 6: way in just the last one hundred years. So when
Speaker 6: we slip back five, while it hurts us and we
Speaker 6: see it as being something really bad, if you look
Speaker 6: at it in the big, long run, it's really not
Speaker 6: that big of a deal. And I think that's it's
Speaker 6: important for us to keep that in focus. And it's
Speaker 6: also important for us to keep in the focus that
Speaker 6: it doesn't have to keep continuing that if we stand up,
Speaker 6: we can stop this and get back on the track
Speaker 6: we were on before and keep progressing like we were before,
Speaker 6: which we will do eventually, I'm sure, because unfortunately for conservatives,
Speaker 6: reality has a liberal view, so there's just a liberal
Speaker 6: bias in the world. I did want to point out
Speaker 6: a couple of things, as you mentioned. One was that
Speaker 6: this article was written by somebody who was in Trump's
Speaker 6: administration and is most likely going to be back inside
Speaker 6: of Trump's administration, something to keep in mind. I also
Speaker 6: wanted to point out that this is from the Christian post,
Speaker 6: the Christian Post, and it goes back to something I've
Speaker 6: been saying all week. This is an organization. It's supposed
Speaker 6: to reprice at the message of peace and love that
Speaker 6: Jesus supposedly taught. At least that's the mess that a
Speaker 6: lot of Christians I know that I talk to and
Speaker 6: the ones that call into the show is keep telling us.
Speaker 6: So I got a message for those people. Hi, folks,
Speaker 6: I know I say a lot of things that you
Speaker 6: don't like, and I just want to let you know
Speaker 6: I don't hate hate you. I don't even hate your
Speaker 6: belief as long as you keep it to yourself. But
Speaker 6: you know, when you talk about messages of peace and love,
Speaker 6: I'm all for it. I'm an old hippie, But let
Speaker 6: me give you a hint. When you need to rain
Speaker 6: in these guys that are using your savior's name to
Speaker 6: spread hate, it makes buying the whole peace and love
Speaker 6: message a lot lot harder to swallow when the guy
Speaker 6: next to you is ignoring over two hundred years of
Speaker 6: prejudices and hate to say even more hateful things while
Speaker 6: he's using it behind his religion, veiling it behind the religion,
Speaker 6: just trying to help you out here, you might want
Speaker 6: to rain these people in.
Speaker 1: That's all well said, well said, and I think that's
Speaker 1: a great point for us to end here. I just
Speaker 1: want to thank all the panelists. Jonathan, I really appreciated
Speaker 1: your perspective on this last bit here. Kelly Stevens always
Speaker 1: a good time.