By Kerwin Holmes, Jr.

People will often fight to the death for their god if their god commands them to.  When the people become their own god, who can stay their hand?

I am a proud Virginian.  I am Virginia born.  Most likely to the fact, my Indian ancestral land lies in Virginia.  I was born in the Chesapeake, the fateful region where worlds collided and where history was changed forever.  My birthplace was one of the completed circles that God wrought in the unending history of my family.  I was born in the birthplace of several of my black-African ancestors born under bondage, and by all likelihood I was born in the ancient territory of my Indian ancestors as well.

I am a proud Southerner.  I was born and raised in the South.  And I was born in the “royal” state of the American South: Virginia.  Virginia was one of the most powerful colonies in the early years of the British American colonies, and it became the most powerful state of the union of states under the government of the United States of America.  The Virginian dynasty of presidents speaks to this.

I worked at Charlottesville, Virginia as an intern/summer faculty member at the University of Virginia for two months.  I know the city well enough.  I spent a lot of time outside and roaming the city, experiencing its superb restaurants, its rich natural vistas, its scenic routes, and its very deep and overwhelming historical landmarks and legacies.

If anyone were to ask me am I a proud Southerner, I would say yes.  Was this always the case?  Nope.  I used to despise the South and despise the experiences that I lived through because of where I was brought up.  But then something happened.  I traveled.  My family went on trips up North to where my mom is from.  And you know what I saw?

The South is just a neighborhood in a bigger community called the United States, and you can find the same characters anywhere that you go.  Hating your own neighborhood for something that you can find anywhere doesn’t make much sense in the long run.

Proof: Soon after the first presidential victory of Barack Obama, we went up North for another trip.  As we did our Christmas shopping, a white woman kept staring at my sisters and I with a kind of tension in her eyes, as if she was expecting us to give her some show by hooping and hollering in the store about how the White House will now be painted black and how we black Americans won’t have to pay for gas in our cars anymore.  Kinda like this lady did

Originial URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P36x8rTb3jI
[See below for the video.]

After allowing the woman to do her thing for a short time, waiting for her to turn by her own volition, I decided that it was about time for her to go find something else better to do.  By that age, I experienced enough of social interactions to know how, as a male of mahogany skin, to more or less diffuse certain situations.   And there up North, the culture of subtlety often gave way to the culture of blatancy in the South.  I just turned and looked at her, expressionless and emotionless, while my sisters were discussing some blouse.  The woman got the message, and turned and walked away, leaving my sisters and I to enjoy our Christmas shopping.

I got the same looks at school the day after the day Barack Obama won.  That was because nearly half of my school didn’t show up the day immediately after.  The loss cut deep for some people.

As you can see, per my memory of this woman during that time and my memory of the events, I have a pretty clear memory bank as to what was going on during that time 9 years ago.  I remember many things about that time.  Why did I mention that?  You’ll need it for what I’m about to say here because I won’t be referring back to it.  You’ll have to use it for what it is:

What happened in Charlottesville, Virginia on August 12, 2017 was what Malcolm X would call “the chickens coming home to roost.”  Yes, I have already said why I do not write about every Tom-Dick-and-Harry terrorist event (yes, I did use a country/Southern idiom on purpose) because if I did that I’d never stop, and frankly, one only needs to write succinct statements but a few times in order to display the necessary stance and position to deal with terrorism and its consequences.

I would like to expand that now to every racist event.

I don’t write about every single one, and do not look for me to begin to do so.  As long as there are sinful human beings there will be sins committed by ourselves that fall into these categories of actions.  God said the exact same thing about humanity in Genesis 6:5-6 that God later said after the Flood judgment in Genesis 8:21.  I am not holding my breath for the next great sin that plagues our society.  And per my other posts on movies, a vacation, and comics, that is not going to change any time soon.

Life is bigger than just dwelling on life’s miseries.

That stated, a friend of mine who I respect contacted me and asked me what I would say regarding this event.  Indeed, this event has made me very critical of my spaces on social media (again) and has cost me one Facebook friend (yet again, but to be honest I can use not seeing his irresponsible usage of the cleric’s collar on my wall).

Given my respect for my friend who contacted me (shout out to you, I’d rather not give your name and subject you to the flood of criticism that I will garner), and with concern for the erroneous instruction flowing through our intellectual streets today, I write this, my personal response and takeaway from the matter.

First, off, it was immediately apparent to me from the first video that I saw of the events yesterday (I began writing this August 13th) that most of these people were not from Charlottesville, Virginia.  Major news media may have confirmed this.  I do not care to rely upon them.  I will get to the major news media later.

What we see now is what I have been saying for years, and what I now have been saying on this website for over a year’s time concerning the racialized identity-politics of our day.

What Does God Say about Racism?

God Is Just

________ Lives Matter

When the Color Card…gets Overplayed

¿Qué Eres?

Those are all samples of what I have been saying here.   There is a search bar in the menu at the top right-hand side if you want to see all that I have written on racism.  Just type in “racism” and hit the Search button.  Read, read, read away!

So what did we learn this week?  We learned that Antifa, just like in Berkeley, California, is totally okay with being fascists and violent rioters in order to “bash the fash.”  We also learned that real white racism still exists, and that these people (mostly men) have no problem engaging in violence when provoked to do it– and certainly there are some in their ranks who have no problem with murder either (just like the rioters in Charlotte, NC).  We also learned that these instigators will travel miles from wherever they get their social media notifications from in order to turn any city, any city, into their battle royale– the site of the final battle of the American Civil War, the final battle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, or into whatever in the Hell from which their ideas spawn they want.

Charlottesville 2017 meet Charlotte 2016.  Same hatred, different victim (maybe).

But this is only the symptom of a society that has surrendered to the ideas that group-think and whatever a person identifies with have more value than the actual person.

It is a society void of the truth of the imago Dei, that God is our Maker and that we are to reflect His glory alone as human beings.  THAT was what we are made to do, and we had better get to fulfilling that purpose.  Just like this little piece of Hell destroyed the harmony of a Southern city and is destroying the means of dialogue in our nation, that same Hell has the fires that will destroy both the bodies and the very souls of everyone who does not get in line with God’s program.  And that is the truth, whether we be affiliated with Black Lives Matter, Antifa, the Alt-Right, the Alt-Left, Socialists, Fascists, Communists, Republicans, Democrats, republicans, and whoever.

Righteous God takes no prisoners.

This political tirade is a symptom of the tar-and-feather tactics that the major news media have been doing now FOR YEARS.  The major news media for years have used incendiary labels for people just to get ratings and to show how needed they all are to tell us that life is Hell– even when it isn’t.  *The media has caused these many (often college-age, white, and male) Alt-Right protestors to feel as though they have no home and that they are not just the inheritors of the greatest evils of humankind, but that producing such evils extends past their familial/cultural heritage and into their very nature. The media has told all others that they are and ever were and ever will be hapless victims of the white man, and that someday Mr. Charlie may hatch his plan to murder them all because that is just what Mr. Charlie does by nature.* I don’t care to hear what the major news media are saying about this just like I don’t care to hear about the meaning of a house fire from the arsonist pyromaniac who set it.  Peep my blog post about the red kool-aid that I did long before Van Jones opened his mouth to remove all doubt in an undercover video.  (Yes, Van Jones, the black man married to a white woman, whose children he has with her he was referring to when he accused all white Americans of creating a “whitelash” after the 2016 Presidential Elections).  Heck, peep this from Jordan B. Peterson just the other day, a man who I certainly don’t see eye-to-eye with, but who is so respectful that, wow, this was stupid…but typical for the major news media.

Original URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxfFxhERMYY
[See below for the video]

The journalist was called out on being wrong by Dr. Peterson, a man who has spent decades trying to create his career reputation, and the journalist still had the nerve to be snarky about it to the bitter end.

But even Dr. Peterson sees what I clearly do see.

I want to take one more moment and analyze something that I saw from Charlottesville, VA that actually deserves our attention.  I will go ahead and post the video here and describe what I saw and what I encourage you to think about while watching it.  Then I’m going to conclude because this has been long enough.

Original URL: https://youtu.be/TGuYQeN9vp0
[See below for the video. Viewer discretion advised as there is some public nudity.]

Look at the young men discussing in the beginning of this.  Yes, I totally agree with the young black man to the fact that this entire show for Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville, this protest begun by the Alt-Right “Unite the Right” fools, was just a show.  That was it.  A show.  People wanted this show to fail.  You know how you cause a show to fail?

You don’t go to it.  You don’t watch it.  You don’t even advertise for it when the news reaches you.  You just brush it off, let the show happen where and when it does, and in the meantime you watch something else.  You demonstrate that shows like this are not even desired, won’t even be successful even when people make them.  You exercise market capitalism, and you put on your own better show, and you destroy the competition.

These men were able to dialogue because I guarantee you that brother in this video has been through some things that have informed him that this is the way that you discuss social issues with an angry person who has absolved themselves to use the idiocy of bigotry as their modus operandi.  That is the correct way to engage these people.  Now hold this lesson securely because this is critical for the next conversation which forms the screenshot image of this video.

Look at those women bicker.  Just look at them.  Now tell me, who would you say will go home that night and be able to feel and think heartwarming and just generally good thoughts about themselves?  Be honest.  Most of the BLM will be blatantly honest anyways and reach the same conclusions that I do, but then spin that into some racialized excuse to demand more from white people.  Covered that before, the demanding from white people what you shouldn’t expect to be given by white people, go read the “______ Lives Matter” article I posted above via hyperlink.

I tell you the truth, the white woman is going home as peacefully as you saw her leave.  She has the love in her own heart and from those standing in support by her to do so.  What about those other women?  What about them?  They are our sisters too, but I doubt that any of us believes that they will have the same peace of mind in their own hearts from their own selves.   And that should cause us to be angry too.  They should go home peacefully.  But the anger and hatred in their own hearts (not the hatred and anger that they are getting from the racist men and few women) will not allow for that.  Guess what?  These Alt-Right protesters will leave the same way as they do, not satisfied with themselves and still mad as Hell.

They each put into the air what they had in themselves to bring.

In the video, the white woman starts off saying that she believes that the women are not behaving lady-like.  If you listen to her, just listen, when the swarm of women are screaming at her that what the Alt-Right demonstrators were doing was wrong and evil she agreed with them.  Go ahead, give it a listen if you can hear her response over their incessant yelling.  She agreed with them!  But she took issues with their methods, and frankly, I do too.  Had these women taken a moment to listen to this woman, they would have been enlightened.

Have you ever heard a white racist go on tirades about how they feel that black people are inferior?  I have.  You know what often is said about black women?

What racists often say about black women via the experiences of my life:  “They are loud, they are dumb, they don’t listen, all they do is yell until everyone else gets tired because only black women can yell and fight and holler like a wild boar and never cease.  They don’t even know how to dress themselves.  They live like they are still in the jungle.  They have as many kids as any old female dog who isn’t spayed has pups.”

Need I go on?   I’ll stop because just typing that bull crap out infuriates me.  I hold people to a high standard, and this racist jargon lowers that standard to bestial behaviors, and it ticks me off.  This is the vision of our fellow human beings that God destroys people over.  Ask Saul’s sons.

But you know who probably has been around racist white people to hear these things too, and who else has an invested interest and a reason to tell the women who she agrees with that they are going about their methods for protesting against these racist KKK-sympathizing, Neo-Nazi internet site fanboy, hate-filled white nationalists the absolutely wrong way?

This.  White.  Woman.

She starts to yell back at them, but then she quiets down and seeks to reason with them calmly.  You know why?

Remember what you saw from the first conversation between the men in that video, and the lesson we learned from the black man in the beginning of this video?  Remember how calm and collected he was, and how he controlled the conversation that he was having with, not one, not even two, but at one time three Alt-Right protestors?

The proof is in the pudding.  When you continue to watch the video, this woman, wisely, refused to condemn what she did not see.  What she did condemn is what she did see: the wrong reasons for why those people decided to crash Charlottesville, VA.  And she did that after she agreed to the condemnation of the white racists, which she also did see.

And what is the one thing that this white woman said to the one black woman who…by all honesty and on all accounts…would have been better off wearing a shirt?

She said that if she wanted attention (which the woman clearly did not deny in wanting) her face alone would have drawn enough attention from those racist and disaffected men.  She didn’t need to bear her breasts as if she doesn’t know what Western social dress norms are…fulfilling just about every negative stereotype above to the tee.  And, regardless of how the woman wants to identify, just by her native tongue alone, that being English, she is a Western woman.  That will never change just like her skin color won’t.

And she wasn’t helping.  Go read those disgusting views that many white racists have towards black women, and look at how the woman carries herself.  Heck, tell me, would you expect those men to be converted to her ideology even if they had listened to her like schoolchildren on a Monday afternoon?

There is a way to be wise in public that refutes stupidity without you having to say nary a word.  But before this woman opened her mouth to solidify her own ideological defeat against the racial stereotypes she clearly hates as much as I (and the white woman she was talking to) do, the game was already over.

My God, if the white woman and the black man had been able to converse!  But then again, that was not the needed constructive conversation for that day.  They both were/are on the same side.

But this is what happens when we reject God.  Like the italicized statement that I made at the very beginning of this post demonstrates, the core problem is what we will always see and return to once we just sit back in our corners and begin to reason a bit.

Whatever your god is, that is who and what controls you, till death do you part and then some.

It was even true in Robert E. Lee’s time.  I have a letter document that Lee wrote to his wife** concerning the Christian abolitionists.  Take care to look at how he felt able to characterize the Christian conversion of Europe during that time.  Hopefully it makes you challenge your misconceptions of Christianity.  But in that also take care to see how he frames his ideas using his own understanding of the purpose of religion in society.  Believe it or not, that was what I spent years studying.  I wrote my undergraduate thesis on it.  American Southerners and their slavery theology, 1830 to 1861.

You ask me what the God of the Bible says about racism in light of these events, and I’m not going to sugarcoat it for you or turn this into a sermonized lecture to give you a way to interpret the data.

Here, take it What Does God Say about Racism?

You want to ask me about what the God of the Bible says about slavery?  Not even going to hide the verses from you; I needed them to do my research.  Even better, I’ll find them all and tell you to be reading the verses aloud even as I tell you about them.  Better than that, all I’ll do is just help you put them all together so that you can see for yourself, and I’ll even compare what God did in Ancient Israel to what we did here in America.

Here, take it Isn’t Slavery in the Bible? [An Introduction]

I don’t sugarcoat anything here.  I speak with tact (with what imperfect maturity I have at the time of writing) and with love (with whatever maturing love God has graced me with in the moment of maturity) in all that I post here.

And love definitely can be angry.  Ask God and look at Jesus.

You want the solution to what we see here?   You want to affect some positive change in our world today?

Get the Gospel.  Give the Gospel.  Get the Life that God offers to you, and then live that life by sharing Him.  True life gives life, its purposes are not to destroy life.  Give people the correct God to worship instead of the god of themselves.  Give people the God who cares so much that His original purposes for humanity be met, that He became human, showed us how to live, and suffered in our place so that we may be purified by His perfect life to do the good works set before us.

That’s what you do.

⁴ But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love that He had for us, ⁵ made us alive with the Messiah even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace! ⁶ Together with Christ Jesus He also raised us up and seated us in the heavens, ⁷ so that in the coming ages He might display the immeasurable riches of His grace through His kindness to us in Christ Jesus. ⁸ For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift— ⁹ not from works, so that no one can boast. ¹⁰ For we are His creation, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time so that we should walk in them.      -Ephesians 2.4-10  

*UPDATED: October 5, 2017*

**UPDATED: May 24, 2025**