Thursday, November 19, 2015

Jesus Loves The Little Children, Red And Yellow, But Especially. . .

By Victor J. Ward

White. They are precious in his sight.

I had a friend that I will call Timothy. He was a white guy. We went to church together. We were students at Cal Berkeley: He was a senior when I was a freshman.

On one particular Sunday, we were both teaching in the Children’s Ministry/Sunday School. Part of the lesson involved singing, and we were singing one of the old standby songs, "Jesus Loves The Little Children."

The actual wording is:

Jesus loves the little children,
All the children of the world.
Red and Yellow,
Black and White,
They are precious in his sight.
Jesus loves the little children of the world.

Tim told me that when he was in high school, he and his privileged White friends had changed the wording to:

Jesus loves the little children,
All the children of the world.
Red and Yellow,
But especially White.
They are precious in his sight.
Jesus loves the little children of the world.


Tim also told me that one time, when he was leading the song in front of a group of parents, he sang the edited version rather than the traditional version.

He said that the parents were none to happy.

When I heard the story, I immediately called the minister of the church and complained about Tim’s White privilege and his racism. I asked for Tim to be banned from ever teaching Sunday School and I also said that the church leadership should consider excommunication.

The next thing I did was to tell every Black person I knew about Tim's Whiteness. Then, all of us Black folks formed a group: “Black Christians Matter.”

The next time we were at church, we brought signs that said, “Jesus Loves Us, Too;” “Jesus Was Probably A Black Man;” and “Keep Hope Alive.”

We started a chant:

"Hey Hey, Ho Ho,
Jesus loving White children more than Black children has got to go."

We prayed and fasted:

“Dear Almighty Black Jesus: Please curse this White devil and all his White demons."

Oh wait — no, I didn’t do any of that.

When Tim told me his story, I laughed and laughed.

Then, I immediately made my own song:

Jesus loves the little children,
All the children of the world.
Red and Yellow,
But especially Black,
He supplies the things they lack.
Jesus loves the little children of the world.

Granted, not the most original wording, but catchy nonetheless.

To the Black Lives Matter people and the Cry Bullies and all those offended by life: If you see everything in life as a slight or an offense, you cannot laugh. If you cannot laugh, there is no way for you to have joy. And, if you cannot have joy, you cannot have peace.

And peace is the thing that you really want.

If you are in college, maybe there is some physical threat confronting you. In that case, I would say to either get a gun or to call the police.

If, however, there is no physical threat, then a gun will not give you peace, but neither will the police nor your Ethnic Studies Professor, nor your House Master, nor your School President.

The safe space that you want your Dean to create for you is not the way to peace.

Trying to end all forms of racism won’t lead to peace, either.

In fact, even the removal of all forms of external violence from your life will not give you peace.

Peace is something that comes from the inside and flows out, never the other way around.

Instead of chanting and protesting to others, you need to start chanting and protesting to yourself.

Maybe, sing yourself a little song:

Jesus loves me,
This I know,
For my Black Religion Professor
Tells me so.

Victor J. Ward  first came across libertarianism by reading Murray Rothbard's Ronald Reagan: An Autopsy and Walter Block's Defending the Undefendable. He holds a law degree from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law and an MBA from Santa Clara University.

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