As I learn of the exception Trump is making to allow over 50 white South Africans asylum seekers into our country yesterday while excluding so many people of color who have far more serious cause to be granted asylum, it occurs to me that there is a huge difference between people who say they “believe in Jesus” and those who actually choose to follow him. May God grant us grace to follow the one who welcomes outcasts.
I'm a White, Jewish, senior citizen who's also a Childless Cat Lady. (My cat's name is Misty. I call her a "tuxico" because she's mostly a tuxedo with some calico splotches.) I survived Dreckmeister's first term, and I'm coping with his second. My opinion of him can't be expressed in a family-friendly blog. Keep fighting, John!
With you on all except “coping” - that I’m not. The rest I am.
I’m also in a city that for years was called “Chocolate City” - and was when I chose to live here nearly 50 years ago. The amazing diversity in many suburbs is what we had; one of the reasons I moved here. Now I find myself so uncomfortable in what is here and promoted by policies and practices. This is not like where I grew up. I want the immigrants who want to be here, who got through the Darien* Gap through sheer will because it was less daunting than life where they were. We must stop this nightmare.
I am a black, cisgender male who was raised in catholic school and converted to a baptist, now I'm a non denominational christian . I have read all your books and respect you and your beliefs. I must say that this post touched a sensitive issue. I have had to change my tone, diminish my presence to avoid "offending or intimidating " people. I am 6 ft 1 inch 220 pounds and a veteran. I know how it feels to be pre-judged as less intelligent or looked at as less capable or worse , looked at as "threatening " I am an educated person but often have to prove it. Black folks say "you have to be twice as good to get half the respect/credit" I sincerely hope and pray your words can galvanize the community of open minded, accepting and loving white Americans to stand ip to the hate, division and evil racism percolating in our nation.. God bless you and thanks for being so awesome
I am so sorry to read about the negatives you have experienced firsthand. It is not fair; it should not be that way, and I am with you in hoping and praying for better. God bless you, and thank you for being awesome, too, as you clearly are.
Thanks for posting - great article! I would only add that when, as a leader of several youth groups over the course of about a decade in my 20’s, when we put the teens on a rented bus from our church and hauled their asses to inner city Chicago, Washington DC and the Bronx to do service work side by side with community volunteers who lived there - for a mere *weekend* - the transformation of their inner barometers was profound: They worked side by side with black volunteers from other inner city church communities painting, doing demolition work in homes to be restored for low-income use, shoveling dirt in 90 degree DC heat, and a raft of other unpleasant things - their attitudes about their self-privilege changed from entitlement to gratitude, and an overwhelming desire to “do it again.”
It’s my first line of conversation in an open door with anyone from a southern church - I ask how many have volunteered in Atlanta, or traveled to Washington DC to see the “other side” of the city that isn’t built for tourism. How many have sweat and cut hands and arms alongside people who live there, talked to them, got to know them. Guess what? Every racist asshole pastor never prioritized volunteer work for his church’s teens to go out and do, even though the Bible is pretty clear on serving others in this way. They just promoted insulation, and carried a false narrative close to their hearts they spread from the pulpit to make myths about their own salvation more certain and the “permissiveness” of other American subcultures more evil. Most never open the door for more than a moment, if at all, to the idea they’re disconnected from their brothers and sisters who live in more difficult circumstances than theirs.
It’s not a mystery at all how these little social phages continue to exist and even grow. The more inward facing, mentally incestuous cross-pollination of inaccurate reality is what allows white, superior, poor for thee but not me mindsets to take hold and flourish in homes, families, and larger communities. I stopped doing that work 25 years ago when my job changed and required me to constantly travel, and I didn’t go back. But I know the kids who actually served, worked, and sweated alongside their brothers and sisters gained a lifetime of understanding they carry to this day.
Living outside the US will also do that. I was raised in PR, and the effects have never left this old man. Living in another culture, talking/listening to the people, and seeing poverty first hand that most people never see except on TV does that.
I've come to believe that all high schoolers and college students should be required to volunteer on work projects for the good of the less fortunate before graduating. Doing a semester of work for an organization like Habitat (as one well known example) would do a lot to bring the young into the larger world.
Couldn't agree more. Back when I lived in WA I volunteered with Habitat. The local high school carpentry class did as well. I supervised a group of high school kids helping build houses for Hispanic homeowners who worked alongside them. That is the best learning experience there is.
Thank you. I’m an old, white, straight, Christian guy, and essentially opposed to EVERYTHING Trump stands for: he is NOT making America great “again.” While I’ve hesitated to blame MAGA solely on racism, Trump’s welcoming White Afrikaners makes the racism pretty clear. Happy that the Episcopal Church (after gently but firmly slapping him down w Biahop Budde) is withdrawing from the gov resettlement program that would help the Afrikaners, while denying the same services to Haitians and South/Central Americans. I’m confident that the EC will find other ways to help those who truly are oppressed.
If you like tacos, spaghetti, mu shu pork, hummus, pho, jerk chicken, fried chicken, yams, rice, chocolate, corn, potatoes of any kind cooked any way, thank your lucky stars for our brown, Asian, black and other nonwhite citizens. You can also thank their remote ancestors for algebra, fireworks, any number of intriguing philosophical concepts, yoga, tai chi, judo, karate, the blues, rock n' roll, jazz... too many things and concepts, even words, to list here. We have yet to see where all this will ultimately take us, but my bet is it will be to a spicier and more interesting place than we'd be without our native and immigrant peoples. But maybe all this new wine in old wineskins has popped the brainpans of those who prefer to lose all this in favor of sitting permanently at the head of the table eating boiled beef and yorkshire pudding.
I can't say it better, Leigh. One of my favorite things about working on an Army base as a contractor was meeting people from all over the world. Too many take change and difference as threatening rather than opportunities to learn and grow.
This is the kind of confession white America needs to tattoo on its soul—and then maybe tattoo across a few pickup trucks in church parking lots, just to really test the Holy Spirit.
You nailed it: most of these folks wouldn’t recognize Jesus if he were brown-skinned, barefoot, and flipping their campaign merch tables outside Hobby Lobby. Which, let’s be honest, he’d totally do.
Trumpism isn’t Christianity—it’s cosplay for colonizers who want a savior that hates the same people they do.
And the terrifying part? They’re not confused. They know exactly what they’re doing. They’re building a gated heaven here on earth, and they plan to make it white, straight, armed, and under HOA rules.
Thank you for refusing to be the polite chaplain to this cult of cruelty. Real repentance starts when privileged folks stop whispering truth in private and start screaming it in places where it costs something.
Did you see the video of the white afrikaners coming in to US customs, juxtaposed with the starving families in Sudan? My heart hurts. What is happening in this country makes me nauseous.
I’m in total agreement. I feel like I belong when I’m in a group of diverse people. When I’m in an all white community I feel out of place. America is richer because of our diversity and the culture, food and art and talent immigrants have shared with America. We have to fight for this America
I am white too and feel like something is wrong when I am in a group of all white people which I call white bread America. Having lived in mostly urban areas around the country, a mixed race group is what I believe being an American is. In moving to different cities I always search out mixed race neighborhoods to locate my next residence and am grateful that I did. I love the diversity that is being an American. This country has never been the home of only the white as some believe.
Do you think those Afrikaners have been jailed for jaywalking, for expressing themselves and their opinions , for speaking out in the face of injustice, for being stopped by police for being white, worse being killed by cop for being white, for living in broken down housing, from homelessness, for going hungry because your SNAP has been cut off, from being unable to get decent health care? Of course I could go on and on, but we all get it. These Afrikaners are being brought here because they are white and think they are better than the indigenous South Africans. They are exactly the kind of people that the MAGAs want to increase their numbers. This is the epitome of hypocrisy.
Nae doot, Nay. And we could and should say the same about most whites here re the way they've treated the indigenous populations -- and still do, largely.
You are absolutely right. I live in AZ and have seen firsthand what we continue to do to the indigenous people. Their housing is often terrible, no central heat or cooling, And of course it will get worse with he who shall be nameless .It’s as if the indigenous do not exist and he will continue to “drill baby drill” on their lands and poison them with runoff water and the aquifers. Many have no running water. It is deplorable that whites are still treating them so awfully.
Yes, exactly! White history in this country re centuries of historical abuses of indigenous peoples -- besides stealing native lands, plundering resources, then mining uranium and poisoning their water sources, the abuses also include enslavement, bounties on scalps, broken treaties, diseased blankets to spread plagues, starvation, slaughters of whole villages, other murders, rapes, ripping native children from their families and putting them into the abusive vicious schools / institutions to reprogram them into white culture, defiling sacred tribal lands, and other various maltreatments -- is sickeningly immoral, egregious and outrageous.
In recent years, there has been Obama's failure to stand up for Standing Rock, both Obama's and then Biden's failure to release Leonard Peltier far sooner -- so fucking what if the FBI would be pissy and aggrieved! The FBI scapegoated Peltier and sabotaged his due process, so they can stick their wah-wah wounded pride right up their asses! Do the right thing, dammit! Yes, Biden finally did, but only at the very last second of his final hours in office. Peltier could have been and should have been released a decade and a half sooner.
And then there's the theft of Oak Flat, the San Carlos Apache Tribe's sacred tribal land in Arizona's Tonto National Forest (a place of great spiritual significance to them for time immemorial), which was allowed to be misappropriated by a mining company (intending on cratering the site, thereby utterly irretrievably destroying it) with the help of R Senator John McCain, whom I otherwise liked even though he was a Republican, and then further helped by tRUMP, whom I loathe with every fiber of my being and who is happy to partake in theft and despoiling sacred lands in order to plunder resources. Current status of legal battle to stop the theft: As of May 7, 2025, "Apache tribes urge court to block Oak Flat land swap before June 16, fearing destruction of sacred ground by copper mining." PLEASE HELP IF YOU CAN!!!
And ongoing for years and years and recently escalating: in both the USA and Canada, the "disappearing" of indigenous women and teen girls, some of whom are later found raped, or raped and murdered, and some of whom are never found at all. This is horrific and has reached epidemic proportions!
All of this is so abhorrent that I can't even begin to fathom it -- how can one group of humans be so evil as to commit theses atrocities on another group? I can read all about the brainwashing, cultural indoctrination, and mob mentality that people are exposed to or undergo in one form or another that makes them this way... yet I still can't wrap my head around how they can't overcome that and think for themselves. They do know, somewhere deep inside, that it's wrong, don't they? And yet for millennia, some peoples have perpetrated these evils on other peoples, thinking that somehow they are better than or superior to "others," ergo they're entitled to treat "others" as less than they are. They exploit the concept of "otherness" -- they're just not like us (read: "they're just not us") -- as justification for these abuses.
What you described also existed in the north through red-lining, police brutality, and in many forms of financial discrimination. When crimes were committed against white citizens by "purported" black perpetrators cases were not investigated well. Often innocents were arrested and convicted to give the impression that white communities were safe. I remember on tv news, night after night seeing the brutality of how rioters were treated in 1967 in Detroit. Images of injustice like these were deeply etched in my mind when I entered seminary and in my years of ministry.
I could not have phrased it better. As a gay, white man, I have had the luxury of being able to fly under the radar. Nothing to see here! I always knew how 'lucky' I was. It shouldn't be that way. Not if all of these 'Christians ' believed their Savior. But it's all an act. A straight, white play.
As a 72 white female Catholic Christian it boggles my mind to realize that these right wing Christian nationalists believe Christ was white and spoke their language. I pray that someday they truly educate themselves to the true nature and woke meds of Jesus Christ. Thanks John fir always schooling is on the truth
Your comment reminds me of a joke circulating decades ago among more progressive Baptist churches about their fundamentalist brethren's rejection of all modern Bible translations: "If the King James version was good enough for Paul and Silas, it's good enough for me!"
Disrupt always! Our white privilege can be used for better and to raise up all no matter race, religion, gender, all deserve to be heard and to matter! I pray every day we as a nation will wake up! Woke is a great four letter word!
John thank you for the effort you put into your daily posts. I look forward to them every day and feel they are a little (lot actually) bit of sanity in what is becoming a chaotic world. Peace be with you.
As I learn of the exception Trump is making to allow over 50 white South Africans asylum seekers into our country yesterday while excluding so many people of color who have far more serious cause to be granted asylum, it occurs to me that there is a huge difference between people who say they “believe in Jesus” and those who actually choose to follow him. May God grant us grace to follow the one who welcomes outcasts.
I'm a White, Jewish, senior citizen who's also a Childless Cat Lady. (My cat's name is Misty. I call her a "tuxico" because she's mostly a tuxedo with some calico splotches.) I survived Dreckmeister's first term, and I'm coping with his second. My opinion of him can't be expressed in a family-friendly blog. Keep fighting, John!
With you on all except “coping” - that I’m not. The rest I am.
I’m also in a city that for years was called “Chocolate City” - and was when I chose to live here nearly 50 years ago. The amazing diversity in many suburbs is what we had; one of the reasons I moved here. Now I find myself so uncomfortable in what is here and promoted by policies and practices. This is not like where I grew up. I want the immigrants who want to be here, who got through the Darien* Gap through sheer will because it was less daunting than life where they were. We must stop this nightmare.
*If spelling is incorrect, apologies.
You are not alone brother… not alone
I am a black, cisgender male who was raised in catholic school and converted to a baptist, now I'm a non denominational christian . I have read all your books and respect you and your beliefs. I must say that this post touched a sensitive issue. I have had to change my tone, diminish my presence to avoid "offending or intimidating " people. I am 6 ft 1 inch 220 pounds and a veteran. I know how it feels to be pre-judged as less intelligent or looked at as less capable or worse , looked at as "threatening " I am an educated person but often have to prove it. Black folks say "you have to be twice as good to get half the respect/credit" I sincerely hope and pray your words can galvanize the community of open minded, accepting and loving white Americans to stand ip to the hate, division and evil racism percolating in our nation.. God bless you and thanks for being so awesome
I am so sorry to read about the negatives you have experienced firsthand. It is not fair; it should not be that way, and I am with you in hoping and praying for better. God bless you, and thank you for being awesome, too, as you clearly are.
Thanks for posting - great article! I would only add that when, as a leader of several youth groups over the course of about a decade in my 20’s, when we put the teens on a rented bus from our church and hauled their asses to inner city Chicago, Washington DC and the Bronx to do service work side by side with community volunteers who lived there - for a mere *weekend* - the transformation of their inner barometers was profound: They worked side by side with black volunteers from other inner city church communities painting, doing demolition work in homes to be restored for low-income use, shoveling dirt in 90 degree DC heat, and a raft of other unpleasant things - their attitudes about their self-privilege changed from entitlement to gratitude, and an overwhelming desire to “do it again.”
It’s my first line of conversation in an open door with anyone from a southern church - I ask how many have volunteered in Atlanta, or traveled to Washington DC to see the “other side” of the city that isn’t built for tourism. How many have sweat and cut hands and arms alongside people who live there, talked to them, got to know them. Guess what? Every racist asshole pastor never prioritized volunteer work for his church’s teens to go out and do, even though the Bible is pretty clear on serving others in this way. They just promoted insulation, and carried a false narrative close to their hearts they spread from the pulpit to make myths about their own salvation more certain and the “permissiveness” of other American subcultures more evil. Most never open the door for more than a moment, if at all, to the idea they’re disconnected from their brothers and sisters who live in more difficult circumstances than theirs.
It’s not a mystery at all how these little social phages continue to exist and even grow. The more inward facing, mentally incestuous cross-pollination of inaccurate reality is what allows white, superior, poor for thee but not me mindsets to take hold and flourish in homes, families, and larger communities. I stopped doing that work 25 years ago when my job changed and required me to constantly travel, and I didn’t go back. But I know the kids who actually served, worked, and sweated alongside their brothers and sisters gained a lifetime of understanding they carry to this day.
Living outside the US will also do that. I was raised in PR, and the effects have never left this old man. Living in another culture, talking/listening to the people, and seeing poverty first hand that most people never see except on TV does that.
I've come to believe that all high schoolers and college students should be required to volunteer on work projects for the good of the less fortunate before graduating. Doing a semester of work for an organization like Habitat (as one well known example) would do a lot to bring the young into the larger world.
Couldn't agree more. Back when I lived in WA I volunteered with Habitat. The local high school carpentry class did as well. I supervised a group of high school kids helping build houses for Hispanic homeowners who worked alongside them. That is the best learning experience there is.
Thank you, Rick. Beautiful and spot on.
Thank you. I’m an old, white, straight, Christian guy, and essentially opposed to EVERYTHING Trump stands for: he is NOT making America great “again.” While I’ve hesitated to blame MAGA solely on racism, Trump’s welcoming White Afrikaners makes the racism pretty clear. Happy that the Episcopal Church (after gently but firmly slapping him down w Biahop Budde) is withdrawing from the gov resettlement program that would help the Afrikaners, while denying the same services to Haitians and South/Central Americans. I’m confident that the EC will find other ways to help those who truly are oppressed.
I not a believer, but I admire the EC'S stance and Bishop Budde for standing up for their beliefs.
If you like tacos, spaghetti, mu shu pork, hummus, pho, jerk chicken, fried chicken, yams, rice, chocolate, corn, potatoes of any kind cooked any way, thank your lucky stars for our brown, Asian, black and other nonwhite citizens. You can also thank their remote ancestors for algebra, fireworks, any number of intriguing philosophical concepts, yoga, tai chi, judo, karate, the blues, rock n' roll, jazz... too many things and concepts, even words, to list here. We have yet to see where all this will ultimately take us, but my bet is it will be to a spicier and more interesting place than we'd be without our native and immigrant peoples. But maybe all this new wine in old wineskins has popped the brainpans of those who prefer to lose all this in favor of sitting permanently at the head of the table eating boiled beef and yorkshire pudding.
I can't say it better, Leigh. One of my favorite things about working on an Army base as a contractor was meeting people from all over the world. Too many take change and difference as threatening rather than opportunities to learn and grow.
Bravo!!
Amen and anti-men like Trump.
This is the kind of confession white America needs to tattoo on its soul—and then maybe tattoo across a few pickup trucks in church parking lots, just to really test the Holy Spirit.
You nailed it: most of these folks wouldn’t recognize Jesus if he were brown-skinned, barefoot, and flipping their campaign merch tables outside Hobby Lobby. Which, let’s be honest, he’d totally do.
Trumpism isn’t Christianity—it’s cosplay for colonizers who want a savior that hates the same people they do.
And the terrifying part? They’re not confused. They know exactly what they’re doing. They’re building a gated heaven here on earth, and they plan to make it white, straight, armed, and under HOA rules.
Thank you for refusing to be the polite chaplain to this cult of cruelty. Real repentance starts when privileged folks stop whispering truth in private and start screaming it in places where it costs something.
Let the empire tremble.
—Virgin Monk Boy
Virgin Monk Boy, I don’t know you but I already like you a lot.
Did you see the video of the white afrikaners coming in to US customs, juxtaposed with the starving families in Sudan? My heart hurts. What is happening in this country makes me nauseous.
That is the perfect metaphor for what is happening to our country. Agreed. It makes me nauseous, too!
I’m in total agreement. I feel like I belong when I’m in a group of diverse people. When I’m in an all white community I feel out of place. America is richer because of our diversity and the culture, food and art and talent immigrants have shared with America. We have to fight for this America
I am white too and feel like something is wrong when I am in a group of all white people which I call white bread America. Having lived in mostly urban areas around the country, a mixed race group is what I believe being an American is. In moving to different cities I always search out mixed race neighborhoods to locate my next residence and am grateful that I did. I love the diversity that is being an American. This country has never been the home of only the white as some believe.
Patricia & Diana~~ 100% agreed! This, too, is the America that I have loved being a part of.
Do you think those Afrikaners have been jailed for jaywalking, for expressing themselves and their opinions , for speaking out in the face of injustice, for being stopped by police for being white, worse being killed by cop for being white, for living in broken down housing, from homelessness, for going hungry because your SNAP has been cut off, from being unable to get decent health care? Of course I could go on and on, but we all get it. These Afrikaners are being brought here because they are white and think they are better than the indigenous South Africans. They are exactly the kind of people that the MAGAs want to increase their numbers. This is the epitome of hypocrisy.
Nae doot, Nay. And we could and should say the same about most whites here re the way they've treated the indigenous populations -- and still do, largely.
You are absolutely right. I live in AZ and have seen firsthand what we continue to do to the indigenous people. Their housing is often terrible, no central heat or cooling, And of course it will get worse with he who shall be nameless .It’s as if the indigenous do not exist and he will continue to “drill baby drill” on their lands and poison them with runoff water and the aquifers. Many have no running water. It is deplorable that whites are still treating them so awfully.
Yes, exactly! White history in this country re centuries of historical abuses of indigenous peoples -- besides stealing native lands, plundering resources, then mining uranium and poisoning their water sources, the abuses also include enslavement, bounties on scalps, broken treaties, diseased blankets to spread plagues, starvation, slaughters of whole villages, other murders, rapes, ripping native children from their families and putting them into the abusive vicious schools / institutions to reprogram them into white culture, defiling sacred tribal lands, and other various maltreatments -- is sickeningly immoral, egregious and outrageous.
In recent years, there has been Obama's failure to stand up for Standing Rock, both Obama's and then Biden's failure to release Leonard Peltier far sooner -- so fucking what if the FBI would be pissy and aggrieved! The FBI scapegoated Peltier and sabotaged his due process, so they can stick their wah-wah wounded pride right up their asses! Do the right thing, dammit! Yes, Biden finally did, but only at the very last second of his final hours in office. Peltier could have been and should have been released a decade and a half sooner.
And then there's the theft of Oak Flat, the San Carlos Apache Tribe's sacred tribal land in Arizona's Tonto National Forest (a place of great spiritual significance to them for time immemorial), which was allowed to be misappropriated by a mining company (intending on cratering the site, thereby utterly irretrievably destroying it) with the help of R Senator John McCain, whom I otherwise liked even though he was a Republican, and then further helped by tRUMP, whom I loathe with every fiber of my being and who is happy to partake in theft and despoiling sacred lands in order to plunder resources. Current status of legal battle to stop the theft: As of May 7, 2025, "Apache tribes urge court to block Oak Flat land swap before June 16, fearing destruction of sacred ground by copper mining." PLEASE HELP IF YOU CAN!!!
And ongoing for years and years and recently escalating: in both the USA and Canada, the "disappearing" of indigenous women and teen girls, some of whom are later found raped, or raped and murdered, and some of whom are never found at all. This is horrific and has reached epidemic proportions!
All of this is so abhorrent that I can't even begin to fathom it -- how can one group of humans be so evil as to commit theses atrocities on another group? I can read all about the brainwashing, cultural indoctrination, and mob mentality that people are exposed to or undergo in one form or another that makes them this way... yet I still can't wrap my head around how they can't overcome that and think for themselves. They do know, somewhere deep inside, that it's wrong, don't they? And yet for millennia, some peoples have perpetrated these evils on other peoples, thinking that somehow they are better than or superior to "others," ergo they're entitled to treat "others" as less than they are. They exploit the concept of "otherness" -- they're just not like us (read: "they're just not us") -- as justification for these abuses.
I just don't get it... I just don't get it...
Right on John! RESIST and IMPEACH! Racism is part of America’s past and present but need not be part of its future.
What you described also existed in the north through red-lining, police brutality, and in many forms of financial discrimination. When crimes were committed against white citizens by "purported" black perpetrators cases were not investigated well. Often innocents were arrested and convicted to give the impression that white communities were safe. I remember on tv news, night after night seeing the brutality of how rioters were treated in 1967 in Detroit. Images of injustice like these were deeply etched in my mind when I entered seminary and in my years of ministry.
John,
I could not have phrased it better. As a gay, white man, I have had the luxury of being able to fly under the radar. Nothing to see here! I always knew how 'lucky' I was. It shouldn't be that way. Not if all of these 'Christians ' believed their Savior. But it's all an act. A straight, white play.
As a 72 white female Catholic Christian it boggles my mind to realize that these right wing Christian nationalists believe Christ was white and spoke their language. I pray that someday they truly educate themselves to the true nature and woke meds of Jesus Christ. Thanks John fir always schooling is on the truth
Your comment reminds me of a joke circulating decades ago among more progressive Baptist churches about their fundamentalist brethren's rejection of all modern Bible translations: "If the King James version was good enough for Paul and Silas, it's good enough for me!"
Boy howdy, talk about not having one's histories and timelines straight! Hilarious!
Sorry. meant wokeness
Disrupt always! Our white privilege can be used for better and to raise up all no matter race, religion, gender, all deserve to be heard and to matter! I pray every day we as a nation will wake up! Woke is a great four letter word!
John thank you for the effort you put into your daily posts. I look forward to them every day and feel they are a little (lot actually) bit of sanity in what is becoming a chaotic world. Peace be with you.