Let me tell you what I know about the Negros.

So said the man pictured above, Cliven Bundy. You may remember this man from when he made the national news by refusing to pay grazing fees for the cattle he raised on US government land in Nevada. The right wing media and right wing politicians swarmed to his ranch and he was given hero status for his opposition to our government.

  Then he made the comment above and went on to elaborate with his racist opinions.  Cliven, however, had not learned to use the dog whistles, which white people have perfected, to tone down his racism.

His comments were so outrageous that even the right wingers had to disown him and Cliven Bundy dropped from national attention.

I have not posted on this website for five years. No real reason. But the racism which is growing uglier during this presidential season has prompted me to renew this blog. Cliven may have gone away but his racism is alive and well.

Let me tell you what I know about the Negros. Unlike Cliven Bundy, there is only one thing I know. Black people have NO interest in hearing what the perpetrators of racism have to say to them.

We ELCA Lutherans have been and remain lily white. Lutheranism is growing in Africa but here in the US, eleven o’clock on Sunday morning remains the most segregated hour of the week.

If we Lutherans want to be relevant in the 21^st century I have a suggestion for us.

We need to shut up for once and LISTEN.

When I hear that we need to begin conversations, I cringe. If we converse with ourselves, we only perpetuate the status quo. If we think we can have a conversation with black people we are fooling ourselves.

Black people started the Black Lives Matter movement. What I hear them saying is, “shut up for once and listen to us!!”

When we white people say, All Lives Matter, we only reinforce the perception of black people that we are incapable of listening.