Long story short, the ones preaching for Tolerance and Acceptances are also the main ones oppressing the opinions and personalities they don’t accept. Which makes them the dictators they keep accusing others of being.
True acceptance is acknowledging that people are different. All of us. Groups of people might have a different opinion, a different way of life, a different culture, religion, perspective, or a different sense or morality, what’s right or what’s wrong.
Letting that person express their opinion without trying to get them in trouble for having those thoughts and opinions…that is acceptance.
I’m not saying there should be no consequences. But who gets to decide what those consequences are? And if the consequences are so arbitrary and based on who’s offended the most, is there equality? Is there acceptance? Or…does that give all the power and authority to the one who’s offended.
In psychology, there’s the concept of Projection. Plainly put, “projection is when someone attributes their own thoughts, feelings, or behaviors to another person. This can be a defense mechanism to externalize blame, guilt, or responsibility. For example, someone who is self-critical may think that others are critical of them.”
A lot of people who claim that Social Justice is to stamp out oppression and protect victims and the marginalized from being bullied, these people have become the bullies. It’s what led to cancel culture and it’s also why you can’t trust polls or studies based on human honesty. People lie. Lies are mostly used out of fear of…you guessed it…the truth!
Milo Yiannopolous famously quipped, “The reason why Hillary Clinton Huma Abedin think all men are liars and womanizers is because they believe all men are like their husbands.”
The point being, a lot of people who are so quick to accuse others of racism are they biggest racists themselves. I even put those who are guilty of having the “Bigotry of low expectations” in this camp. The same as people who believe in lowering standard test requirements for (insert any group, race, or gender).
I grew up in the 90s where yes, we knew Racism existed. Bullies have been around for generations. Sexism was rampant and there were always those who were out to stop you from trying to accomplish what you were trying to do, regardless of your race, creed, or gender.
But in that generation, we were taught to rise above it. My father taught me that life will be difficult, yes, but that adversity is what makes you stronger, far stronger than those who had no road blocks or hurdles they had to climb. So, embrace it. Don’t cry about it! Look at the goal and say, “Challenge accepted.”
One of the coolest things about the Civil Rights Movement wasn’t their push for “give me free things and treat me like I’m special,” but more treat me like I’m equal, the same.
Allow me to be clear. The only extent in which I believe in Tolerance and Acceptance, is that, with the exception of protecting myself and my loved ones from harm, I will not stop a person from exercising their free will.
But if you were to ask if I embrace the general sentiment of Tolerance and Acceptance in this country, the answer is no. I don’t embrace it, because I don’t believe our Heavenly Father embraces it.
In 1 Corinthians Chapter 6:9-11, God makes it clear about what kind of behaviors have no place in the Kingdom of Heaven. Meaning, God will not tolerate these practices and behaviors. God will not tolerate and accept wickedness in his future Kingdom.
What is wickedness? Plainly put, it’s disobedience. If God calls you to live a certain way, to abstain from certain behaviors, to treat others with love and you don’t…you are disobedient.
That’s why I cringe when I hear lukewarm Christians and those with this romanticized version of God is say things like, “God is love” when it comes to justifying their acceptance and active participation worldly indulgences that go against how God calls us to live.
It’s like, their version of “love” means you’re free to do whatever you want as long as it makes you happy and that is false. The main reason why a lot of these people don’t want to pick up the Bible and read what it says for themselves, is because they like living in denial, where they can claim ignorance or blame others for misleading them.
Yes, God is love…but sometimes love looks like hate. Sometimes love is stopping you from doing what you want to do. When a parent punishes you for touching a stove when they told you not to, it might look like they hate you, but it’s with love that they’re disciplining you so that you don’t touch it when it happens to be hot, and subsequently burn yourself.
It’s out of love that the parent is trying to save you. It might look like hate. But it takes maturity to realize that it was really love, and sometimes that maturity takes a while to manifest, depending on the individual.
Ezekiel Chapter 18 is an awesome chapter that plainly speaks about God’s love and how he has no desire to destroy anyone. He wants everyone to live. But it’s up to you to repent. The choice is yours, whether you choose life or destruction. If you reject God and choose to live however you want, you will be destroyed.
And if you think about it, there’s so much logic in people like that being destroy because it’s with love that God is tending to the flock of people who choose Him over the world.
Humans are social creatures. Influence, persuasion, and temptations are strong magnets that are constantly pulling us off the narrow path. This makes life hard, confusion, frustrating, and often times sad, leading to pain and suffering.
It’s with love that one day, Jehovah will remove all of that and destroy all wickedness to usher in a paradise where there is no more crying, no more pain and suffering.
When I was coming up in my 20s, I had to endure a form of oppression that I’m worried I might have to deal with again. When a certain group of people get to say whatever they want, but you can’t or else they’ll be offended and accuse you of (insert whatever)…to me, that was oppressive.
I wasn’t always an introvert. When I wrote this essay laying out the reasons why I don’t like going to parties and social events, it was due to my Millennial snowflake peers constantly telling on me to managers because they took something I said the wrong way.
When you’re in your 20s, living paycheck to paycheck, that is a scary thing. I didn’t have a safety net, or roommates, or family who I could fall back on if I got fired. And so, these people I worked with had so much power over me where they could get me to crawl back in my shell with a simply complaint of, “Rock said this during that meeting and I was offended.”
Meanwhile…these same groups of people would get away with saying some of the most outlandish, offensive and insulting stuff in a group setting and everyone laughed. No one batted an eye.
Basically, if you love America, believe in gender roles, exude traditional strength, masculinity, competitiveness, and to traditional values or Biblical standards…they won’t like you.
But if you worship Fandoms, you’re for the Democratic party, you believe in gender fluidity, you dislike meritocracy and instead, support Diversity Equity and Inclusion, which really just means left-leaning, liberal ideals while shunning all forms of conservatism…you’ll fit right in.
The difference between these groups, however…is that the Conservatives don’t generally go out of their way to complain and get you fired just because you said something they didn’t like.
I remember there was a group chat conversation, where people started joking about JFK getting his head blown off and so many of my peers were laughing at that. I was deeply offended. I thought the jokes were crude and as much as these people want to talk about having empathy and emotional intelligence, I found it remarkable how incredibly absent these values were when it comes to how others outside of their clique might feel about it.
Did I complain? No. Did I try to get them in trouble? No. Did I approach the person and tell them how much I didn’t like the joke. No. Why? Because I’m an adult! I grew up in the 90s where we got off the school bus catching strays of “yo momma jokes” and “what kind of hand-me-down clothes you got on?”
I’m not gonna try to get you fired just because you said something I don’t like. And even there, the reason why I wouldn’t do that is out of compassion and deep down, love for my enemy. Do I want to stop my enemy from providing for themselves? No. So, I’ll just brush that off, hit the gym and go on about my life.
I mentioned, “love for my enemy”…because that is what I confess, I’m currently struggling with.
Some of the people I had to deal with in my 20s have resurfaced. I might have to see their faces and work with them again. When Christ talks about forgiveness…I thought I had forgiven them, but seeing them again at a recent work function, everything just came flooding back.
A close friend described it almost as PTSD, where as soon as I leave the function, I’m instinctively replaying every conversation making sure I didn’t say anything offensive. It’s a rotten thing. Which is why I usually don’t go.
Mind you…most of the horrible episodes happened well over eight years ago, and even though I believe people are capable of improvement…I don’t think people really change the essence of who they really are.
When I was reunited with some of those old peers, I can’t tell you how repulsed and disgusted I was. Like, as they told me about themselves, it took strength to keep from looking at them with the cringiest expression. The only “improvement” they made was how far deeper they got into their woke ideologies.
Which, again…my version of tolerance and acceptance is not stopping them from doing any of that. At the same time, I don’t want to know anything about them. I don’t want anything to do with these people.
And what hurts me the most is that I know God can see my heart. My disgust of them…I don’t think that’s right. But what can I do?
I don’t think I’ve forgiven them. Or maybe I have and it’s just the wisdom and reluctance to tell them anything about myself, to withhold as much as I can and keep it strictly professional so they don’t tell on me again. But even there, I resent them for that.
Because unlike me, they don’t have to worry about me telling on them for saying something I don’t like or offends me.
And I think that same dichotomy is why a lot of people on the right resent the ones on the left. It’s why resent cancel culture, the woke mobs, Diversity Equity and Inclusion, and the LGBTQ groups who have the power to say they’re offended by something and thus, get their way over everyone else.
And I remember…one last thing…but I remember one time when a person complained about something, I said during a workshop I was giving. I asked my manager, “Do you think I’d literally do what that person is supposedly worried about me doing?”
The manager said no.
So, I said, “Then why don’t you tell the person that it was just a joke and Rock didn’t mean anything by it? Why would you tell me about their anonymous complaint and thereby, silence me, because I’ll clearly be worried about saying something else that somebody finds offensive.”
They said it was company policy to act on every complaint. And that’s the problem. People use social justice, the village, the company to attack people they don’t like. They’re not standing on any principle. They’re not adhering to some rules or guidelines. Just their feelings.
If they don’t like you, it doesn’t matter what you say, they’ll find something to be offended by.
If they do like you, you can say whatever you want, and they’ll choose not to be offended because “hey! He didn’t mean anything by it.”
You see what happened there? You chose to believe that the joke was harmless. But giving the other person the benefit of the doubt isn’t there. Why? Because you just didn’t like him.
“Well, Rock. You could choose to just keep the workplace professional and not say anything jokey at all.”
Is everyone going to do that? Or am I the only one who has to put on muzzle.
To that end, one of the girls who complained literally said during a group meeting about me…true story, she said, “Well, if people complain about you, maybe you should change.”
And that’s what’s it’s all about. Change who you are to conform to us, or we’ll complain. How on earth can I not resent that? And by resent…sad to say, I do mean I hate it.
Moreover…it seems to be the story of my life personally when it comes to humans. When I was growing up, my mom’s Jehovah’s Witnesses side of the family pressured me to be a JW. My dad’s stereotypical black side of my family wanted me to act more black and less white.
Is it any wonder why I became a writer? Creating worlds to escape the one I’m in.
Stage In The Sky 