Radlye Balko made a cogent and well-supported case that the horrible beating death of young hands Tyre Nichols at the hands of five ‘elite” black Memphis cops was the result of cities creating unaccountable special urban law enforcement teams that are negligently supervised, trained and selected. Now comes iconoclast sportswriter, podcaster and pundit Jason Whitlock, a co-founder of “Outkick,” to offer a more explosive, and unwelcome explanation (in the woke community at least):
[T]he five police officers mimicked gang behavior and that the whole sad event is a byproduct of communities overrun with matriarchal values and controlled by single black mothers….the conversation we should be having in reaction to Tyre Nichols centers on the cost of destroying the black family.
…
Black urban areas are dominated by matriarchal rulership. It’s an utter failure and disaster. These areas all operate similar to Memphis. Crime is astronomical. Young men settle their differences with deadly violence. Academic performance hovers at record lows. Illegitimacy rates skyrocket.
Tyre Nichols was 29. The five police officers who participated in beating him to death range in age from 24 to 32. The behavior we witnessed from the officers resembles what happens when a group of Vice Lords catch a Gangster Disciple on their turf. The Disciple will flee. The Vice Lords will chase. Violence ensues.
My point is what we saw Friday night does not appear to be an outgrowth of bad policing. I’ve yet to see video evidence that depicts what caused the traffic stop and why Nichols had to be snatched from his car. It doesn’t feel like we’ve been shown the complete story. Something about the encounter feels far more personal than anything born of the frustration created by a resistant suspect. The use of pepper spray makes zero sense.
It feels like the outgrowth of a rotten culture, a culture where black men are canonized and celebrated for handling petty beefs and disrespect with lethal violence. That type of emotional violence is commonplace within zip codes dominated by the matriarchy.
Tyre Nichols cried out for his mama for a reason. I’m not saying that to belittle Nichols. I’m saying it’s a reflection of modern black culture, a culture that inappropriately places women at the top of the food chain. Mama is the ultimate authority and savior.
Fascinating. Whitlock is black, and much detested in Black Lives Matter-worshioing circles (you can imagine his views on that racist scam). He is also courageous and willing to raise issues that are considered too controversial and cancel-fodder for most commentators. In the same column, Whitlock also argues that the Nichols incident isn’t a national story but a local one over-hyped by the progressive-allied news media as it senses an opportunity to revive the “defund the police” push.
I agree that the news media and Democrats are eager to exploit the story for political gain (President Biden is bringing the victim’s parents to the State of the Union Address….ugh), but when five police officers beat to death a young man who appears to have done nothing wrong beyond “driving erratically,” attention must be paid.
I do wish Whitlock wouldn’t turn so many of his arguments into religious proselytizing. He does that here even more vigorously than usual for him, adding to his main argument,
That’s not what God intended. He is our Savior. He authorized man to exercise dominion over the earth. He prescribed family (man, woman, and child) as the foundation of order, obedience, and His will. No racial group in America is more out of line with God’s natural order than black people. Seventy percent of our kids are born to unwed mothers. We don’t view family as a necessity for success. It’s just one of many options. It’s prioritized well below allegiance to racial idolatry, the Democrat political party, and hip-hop culture.
Those allegiances have made us hostile to a biblical worldview, indifferent toward marriage, and convinced there’s little value in male leadership. Scripture is the kryptonite that weakens us rather than the cape we wrap ourselves in to unleash superpowers.
We’re out of order.
Ephesians 5:22-24: “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.”
There’s more: over half the column is devoted to a religious lecture. Whether you agree with his perspective or not, by linking his analyses to religion, and he does it routinely, Whitlock ensures that he will be dismissed and ignored by the people who would most benefit from his perspective. He has a great deal to contribute to the national discourse on race, crime, culture and society, and is a very intelligent man. He should be intelligent enough to restrain himself from undermining his own effectiveness.
Ethics Alarms 
I would suggest Whitlock weave the God references into the narrative without referencing any particular dogma.
There is a benefit to endorsing the notion of a supreme being when discussing morals and ethics. That benefit is the reinforcing of the concept of inalienable rights. The farther we move away from the notion of God the greater the chance that what we take for granted with respect to individual autonomy becomes lost. In every religion other than secular humanism there is a defined right and wrong so it is really unnecessary to quote any particulate scripture. The same points can be made simply by pointing out that our creator gave us responsibilities as well as rights. Dominion over the Earth means custody of it and custody means ensuring it is cared for. I know of no religious dogma that promotes anything other than a nuclear family so suggesting that only Christians believe this denigrates other philosophies. Obviously the submission part will alienate many resulting in his ideas being summarily dismissed because too many are so focused on their own interests they close themselves off to ideas when even the hint of an idea that diminishes them is proffered.
Whitlock should also address the reasons why black men have multiple “baby mamas” and how this correlated to the matriarchal power structure of poor black families.
Absolutely. That’s the way to do it. I’m tempted to write him about this. He’s a potentially influential voice, but not if he’s relegated to “The Blaze.”
That is odd. No body criticized MLK for his faith.
Whitlock is a deeply religious guy. While I agree that religious zealotry may diminish some of his messages, his article is directly on line with his faith. I can look past that position and try to perceive his larger message, that we are subjects to a larger calling and returning to Biblical tradition might help solve so many problems. Whitlock routinely criticizes the destruction the Great Society heaped and still heaps on black America, with the principle effect of rendering black males irrelevant and unnecessary to the all-giving government.
jvb
1. MLK was a minister. Whitlock is a sportswriter.
2. MLK was wise enough not to mix his message with Bible quotes suggesting that women should be subservient to men, and MLK figured that out before the women’s rights movement. Could there be a more sure way to have one
self labeled as a backward Neanderthal?
I haven’t taken the time to look through Whitlock’s article, but in my opinion, Ephesians has a strong message that is very pertinent to the problem in black culture, and our society at large. Paul goes on to write, “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church and handed himself over for her to sanctify her, cleansing her by the bath of water with the word, that he might present to himself the church in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.”
In other words, men should be willing to lay down their lives for their brides, instead of using and discarding them like Starbucks coffee cups.
However, in defense of using Ephesians 5, I think it is appropriate to state that there is an order in the family. Just saying that is grossly counter-cultural, because everyone likes to bristle at the idea that in some things, there is an “ought” in how the family is put together. Our society wants husband and wife to be something like co-regents, each struggling to impose his or her will on the whole, and thus always be in conflict. (Which the man should always lose, else he’s one of those Neanderthals.) Or our society wants man to be subservient to his wife, a pusillanimous weakling always mewling for his bride’s approval.
Christianity points out that in reality for a family to be strong, the man must be the head, and the wife must be subordinated to the man’s headship. To the extent that this offends reveals the extent to which our modern culture has poisoned our relationships and twisted our perception that, just because someone is subordinated to someone else, that must mean they are inferior and expected to be subservient. But that’s not the case. Ephesians 5:21, a verse before Whitlock begins speaking, says, “Be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ.” In other words, this subordination to start with is mutual, husband and wife placing themselves in the right order so that their spouses can also be rightly ordered. And the order asks the man to lay down his life for his bride, to be Christ in the family, and the woman is to order herself rightly in that context. What this is not is a request for the woman to subject herself to whatever whim or shameful desire her husband has, but to allow the man to die for her, while giving of herself to her husband. This is a mutual spiral of self-emptying for the sake of the other. Our culture doesn’t understand this. Our culture hates this. Our culture thinks itself enlightened and beyond “medieval” notions by rejecting this. But our culture is wrong.
Is there something inherently wrong with referencing the Bible?
It’s so Neanderthal, yet the principles it espouses that have been so thoroughly rejected in modern society have it falling apart.
That the family structure relies on the leadership of men has become inarguable statistically, but what a backwards book the Bible is for having that as a basic tenet the last several thousand years.
Maybe if we spent more time seriously reasoning out why the Bible says what it does instead of being pissed off about the fact it tells us we’re stupid for giving in to our lusts, we might save ourselves some grief in the long run.
Professing to be wise…
As I think I made clear, it’s bad strategy, if your objective, as Whitlock’s is, is to convince as many people as possible. he didn’t just reference the Bible; he turned what is a well-supported sociological argument into a religious one. That’s inherently divisive, and turns off many who would otherwise be receptive to his position. It irritates me, for example. Talk about appeal to authority: Whitlock doesn’t know what God intended; indeed, we are constantly told that “God works in mysterious ways.” That dichotomy is infuriating to may, and fairly so. When a religious advocate wants to endorse something it is suddenly God’s plan, but when some horrific event or cataclysm causes pain and suffering, the assessment is, “We can’t know God’s plan.” Yes, I’ve read attempts to reconcile those poles, but injecting that problem into his argument about gangs and fatherless families just weakens it….and looks desperate, frankly. In his last segment, which turns into a sermon, Whitlock appears to be attacking same sex marriage and saying that blacks are last on God’s moral totem poll. That’s far more inflammatory than saying that the black community’s culture is messed up, which can be shown by pure statistics.
It’s divisive only to those predisposed to reject a religious explanation. For any other fair observer, it’s at least an opportunity to investigate additional “reasons why”. And in this case, the religious argument was proved out by the sociological one.
And nearly every argument at some point becomes an appeal to authority, it’s just a matter of which one. We refer to such and such an expert because they’ve focused on the subject, and provide additional rationale for an argument.
Anything else becomes a game of “well, that’s just your opinion, man.”
As to what God intended, if he’s written it (presuming you subscribe to the position that it is His word to us), we can absolutely know what God intended. Where the Bible is silent, well, no, we can’t know it. Those aren’t poles to be reconciled, it’s just reality. Can’t always know what a great author or artist intends until they put it to paper/paint/sculpture, and even then the works will discussed ad nauseum to delve deeper in to the creator’s meaning. However, if we derive a meaning the creator did not intend, would she not be justified in correcting someone for stating something she didn’t intend? Same thing with some of those wild mathematical calculations, where scientists debate whether it’s correct or not because they can’t yet validate the conclusions. But at the point where it’s proved out, don’t we then know for sure?
And never mind black culture, our entire culture is messed up, the question is why. He offers a prescription for it that you disagree with because you find religion flawed. As if human being aren’t.
“It’s divisive only to those predisposed to reject a religious explanation.’
Much more than that, though that is a substantial group that shouldn’t be ignored. I’m not disposed to reject a religion based argument (as long as it isn’t as facile as “God works in mysterious ways”) but I am suspicious of advocates who default to religiosity when they run out of facts. or who proselytize in contexts where it is inappropriate, like, say, sportswriting.
Realistically, in argumentation, one should argue from where the two sides have common ground. As a Catholic, if I argue with another Catholic, then I can use as common ground the Bible, the Magisterium, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, and the writings of the Church Fathers. If I argue with a member of the Orthodox Churches, I can use the Bible and the Ecumenical Councils and Church Fathers up to the Great Schism. If I argue with a Protestant, I can use the New Testament and the 39 books of the Old Testament that we hold in common. If I argue with a Jew, I would use the Jewish canon, or perhaps only the Torah. If I argue with a Muslim, I could make some reference to scripture, but carefully at that knowing that Muslims believe that scripture has been corrupted. If I argue with someone who doesn’t believe in the Judeo-Christian God, then I would resort to those things that reason makes common to all human beings.
The problem with making a religious argument is not that it is religious, but that many people will utilize an authority that their target audience does not accept, and that greatly weakens the argument. Many times, arguments straight from the Bible run up against immediate rejection for a number of reasons. Some people don’t accept the authority of the Bible as the Word of God; others don’t accept the interpretive authority being used. Catholics and Protestants both accept the Bible as the inerrant Word of God, but the interpretations of many passages are different. (What did Jesus mean when he said, “Unless you eat my body and drink my blood, you will not have life within you”?) And in truth, the scandal of so many divisions in Christianity, with hundreds of different denominations out there with competing interpretations of Christianity, makes it hard for any one person to say with any broad credibility, “Thus sayeth Scripture, so thus sayeth God.”
Moreover, the Bible is not a scientific textbook. While it lines out a great many “thou shalt” and “thou shalt not” statements, it doesn’t spend much time in explicit detail as to why thou shalt or thou shalt not. It falls to human reasoning, hopefully guided by the Holy Spirit, to delve into the deeper questions of “why” one should or shouldn’t do something. And human reasoning can deduce that there is something very important in the traditional family structure, of a man and a woman united in a life-long, self-emptying, covenantal relationship, bonded to the children they produce, and ordered toward the husband’s headship, the wife’s sanctification, and the children’s obedience. So the Bible can act as a guide to which questions to ask, but once one starts to procure data, it is typically wise to let the data and the analysis of the data speak for themselves.
With regard to “sports writers” I don’t necessarily disagree, and/but/so I got turned on to Whitlock at your mention, and it seems to me that he long ago abandoned the purely sports angle.
From the standpoint of a consumer, he should do one or the other, or both but not in the same space (separately named and distinct channels). If that could even be done.
As to religion in social discourse, not using it was the first step to the march in removing religion from our society entirely – which is what the Yeshiva University and all the Colorado cake baker cases are all about.
The facile argument is saying religion is bigoted and should rarely or never be used in any argument about the facts.
And probably especially when the Bible’s argument is strengthened by them, as in regard to the family structure.
Jason Whitlock wrote:
It feels like the outgrowth of a rotten culture, a culture where black men are canonized and celebrated for handling petty beefs and disrespect with lethal violence.
Leaving aside the “lethal violence” part, which I find slightly (but not massively) hyperbolic, black men are taught both by their mothers and peers that “disrespect” cannot be tolerated. Anyone “disrespecting” you should be cowed or dealt with with whatever level of force is required to make them regret that lack of deference.
This is how violence is born and allowed to escalate to the lethal levels Whitlock refers to. It is justified by an idea rampantly promoted among black people that “disrespect” cannot be tolerated, and to do so is not “black.” Nowhere in this discussion is the idea that respect must be earned. On the contrary, it demands respect without accountability or effort merely on the basis of race. When we look for the root of the violence in Memphis, I guarantee “disrespect” is it.
In his book, Kingdom Politics, the great Christian minister Tony Evans says: “The saga of a nation is the saga of its families written large. Whoever owns the family owns the future. When family structure breaks down, all manner of calamity and chaos enter into society. When family breaks down, crime goes up, poverty goes up, abuse goes up. When the family breaks down, gender confusion and role confusion go up.”
This seems beyond contestation to me. The breakdown of the family, and lack of a male influence, is the genesis of “disrespect.” It excuses dependency, rationalizes criminal activity, and replaces self-reliance with racial victimhood.
Christian male leadership has been demonized to placate the feelings and promote the values of the BLM-LGBTQ Alphabet Mafia. Your children’s neighborhoods will have more in common with Memphis than Mayberry.
Whatever we may think about the Christian part, there is no doubt whatever about the male part. We have seen time and again that male influence is absolutely necessary, particularly to raising young men. This is not to disparage single mothers, who often do the best they can given the herculean task of raising children alone. But their best is only rarely good enough. And what this says about a culture who finds it acceptable for men to abandon their children doesn’t bear thinking on. Occasional fathers who show up when the spirit moves them probably do more harm than good.
Good for Whitlock. He is a voice crying in the wilderness. He deserves to be heard.
Well said
I too thought the punching and kicking in the head was just the same as a bunch of teenaged black kids (including girls) falling upon a victim. Where did kids learn to literally stomp on someone’s head? It’s unspeakable savagery. Unprecedented until the last few years.
Compare and contrast this with Edmund Spenser’s similar observations about the respect the 16th century Irish accorded to similar behaviour, as shown in the messaging of the bards.