The Last White Knight was a documentary that recently aired on the Discovery Channel. The main theme was the interaction of an old member of the Ku Klux klan reconnecting with the Canadian civil rights worker whom he assaulted so many years ago. He continues to believe that Blacks are designed to be beasts of the field and servants while Whites are designated to be rulers and masters. Nevertheless, he admits that he is the last of his family to entertain such thoughts as his children do not share the same opinion.
The documentary featured a segment on Harry Belafonte, a staunch supporter of the civil rights movement, who confessed that he does not trust Mississippi, despite its racial progress, because of its violent past and his personal experiences in that state.
Additionally, there was a story of a young man who does not play soccer anymore because of an incident in Pearl, Mississippi. While playing a game in that town, the only black on his team, after scoring a goal, he heard cries of "Nigger, Nigger” No one, not even the referee, coach or his teammates rose to his defense and he is still bothered by that incident up to this day.
In the same report, a White supremacist lawyer defended the bombing of the church in Birmingham and the subsequent murder of the four little girls as simply an act of defense by the White race protecting its God given homeland, America, from the invading black hordes.
The mother of the Navy Yard shooter in Washington, D.C.recently apologized to the families of the victims of her son, stating that she is relieved that he is in a place where he can no longer hurt anybody. Children sometimes can cause you to bow your head in shame, despair grief and regret.
What connects the above seemingly unrelated incidents?
If you have lived on this earth any length of time or grown into adulthood, it has cost you something. Sometimes that price can be very dear and precious.
If you are reading this column, undoubtedly, you will fall into one or more of the following categories.
To move from one point to another, from childhood to maturity, from sinner to saint, life will exact or extort from you an investment or expenditure of:
trust
desire
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The day we walked out of the garden of Eden, life has been demanding some kind of payment to survive in this world. To do business on this earth has proven to be very costly. Indeed, the very act of birth involves hours and sometimes days in labor and pain. To feed ourselves became a matter of rigorously tilling an accursed ground and nurturing or cajoling seed into fruit by the sweat of our brow.
In the course of a lifetime, you can become very sympathetic to the statement, "dying is easy, living is hard" or the refrain of Job, "why did I not die when I came out of the womb, why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?"
To ensure our continued status as a free nation costs us the lives of our sons and daughters. Hence the expression, freedom is not free.
Even the pursuit of knowledge and education has involved an almost prohibitive levy and extreme risk.
On September 25, 1957, nine black students who had been forced to withdraw from Central High School because of an unruly white mob in Little Rock, Arkansas, had to be escorted to class by army soldiers.
Do you recall the young Pakistani girl who was brutally victimized after speaking out about the plight of girls and education?
We shop with abandon and glee in dollar stores marveling with delight at the bargains, unconcerned about the tremendous cost the hapless, underpaid and exploited human beings in developing countries pay to produce such trinkets.
I appreciate and understand that along the highway of life, sacrifices must be made before you arrive at your desired destination.
Nevertheless, there is a right and wrong price for everything. There are those who seek to uplift the human race, then there are those who seem demonically inspired to tear us down.
At the onset of the journey, you must decide which you will be.
If you really want to make a positive difference or deed a lasting uplifting legacy to the human race, take a page out of the life of Mandela, Joshua, Billy Graham and Jesus.
These individuals decided early on, come what may, I am prepared to declare emphatically, defiantly and plainly to life and its obstacles: "I AM WILLING TO PAY THE RIGHT PRICE.”
V. Knowles is a husband and father with an interest in penning issues that serve to uplift mankind. He melds his love for Classic literature, The Bible and pop culture - as sordid as it may be - into highly relatable columns of truth, faith and justice. Hence the name: Just Thinking. If he's not buried in a book or penning his next column, you may find him pinned to his sectional watching a good old Country and Western flick.
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