The Bible or the Bullet: Arresting American Lies with Truth

In April of 1964, Malcolm X gave a speech entitled “the Ballot or the Bullet,” in which he gives an ultimatum to the Black community and the white politicians at the time. He insisted that the politicians give the Black community something for their vote instead of empty promises, and he encouraged Blacks to demand what they felt they deserved.

Malcolm emphasized that the speech was not a call to violence, but a warning to white America that if they continued the tricks and games of politics by depriving the Black community of their Civil and Human rights, there are consequences that will come naturally against the country when a people are deprived of their legal and God-given rights.

Malcolm was tired of the violence being committed against young Blacks who were protesting Civil Rights in the south; who marched with Martin Luther King Jr. in the movement but were met with hateful violence from white crowds. He reminded his audience that, “They don't want to hear that "turn the-other-cheek" stuff, no. In Jacksonville, those were teenagers, they were throwing Molotov cocktails. Negroes have never done that before. But it shows you there's a new deal coming in. There's new thinking coming in. There's new strategy coming in. It'll be Molotov cocktails this month, hand grenades next month, and something else next month. It'll be ballots, or it'll be bullets. It'll be liberty, or it will be death.”

Apparently, Malcolm and the Civil Rights leaders had faith and trust in the voting process and even some tolerance for the Democrats in office at the time, but they were losing their grip and the country was heading for a revolution, which it was. “A vote for a Democrat is a vote for a Dixiecrat. That's why, in 1964, it's time now for you and me to become more politically mature and realize what the ballot is for; what we're supposed to get when we cast a ballot; and that if we don't cast a ballot, it's going to end up in a situation where we're going to have to cast a bullet. It's either a ballot or a bullet.”

Today, the same is happening as politicians are suggesting policies that suppress the Black vote through gerrymandering and that drive Black voters from the voting booths through vigilante intimidation and passing throwback Jim Crow laws such as criminalizing handing out water at polling places and sabotaging Blacks with criminal records by telling them they could vote but arrest them when they do, instead of restoring their right to vote after they have served their time. 

They are also discarding Blacks from the voting rolls with rigorous voter ID laws while all the time suspending drivers licenses in heavily policed Black communities. They are closing polling places in Black communities creating long lines while white communities wait as little as ten minutes to vote, in addition to withholding mail-in ballots from certain Black communities. The ballot has become a weapon for Blacks against white political oppression and whites do not like it.

Nevertheless, today’s voting atmosphere is a repeat of the 1964 era but this time the Black community must understand that if the situation is the same today as it was close to sixty years ago, there is no real plan to include Blacks into the election system of this so-called American Democracy. The Democrats have by-passed the voting rights legislation like it was not even there. As Malcolm said; “why does America need Civil Rights legislation if Blacks are true American citizens?”

The Resurrection of white Supremacy

The presidencies of Barack Obama and Donald Trump shifted the political winds of American democracy in profound ways. White America resented the Obama presidency so deeply they organized and devised plans to obstruct his goals and stifle the nation regardless of what the country wanted or needed. As a result, whites voted against their own interest to keep Blacks from gaining what they believed to be a step up with Obama’s policies.

When Trump entered the office, he appealed to white America’s fears and flipped the script of racial progress on its head by dog whistling a promise to revert back to “the Old days,” of Jim Crowism. This awoke a dead spirit of American racism in its most vicious form that led to hate crimes, vigilante movements and more white supremacist groups rising; and they were willing to overthrow the government to get this promise fulfilled. All this came from the conservative Republican side with a dose of Christian nationalism. However, Democrats did not seem to care much as they responded with weak and senile efforts to thwart the rebellion.

In the mist of this rebellion, American Christianity was exposed as a disingenuous religion powered by a shadow and type of American racism all itself. Evangelical preachers and their congregations threw their support behind Trump in massive numbers, claiming Bible prophesy and scriptures that they claimed justified their renewal of white power and religious superiority. With this egregious and numbskull move, their darkness came to light and people could see the hate hiding behind American Christianity.

No longer was the ballot enough to push whites into power, but now the Bible came into play. This was a huge mistake on the part of religious leaders. Simply opening and reading the Bible (which many people began to do) was a way to clearly see the lies behind their claims and the dark hypocrisy they practiced. They proclaimed to high hell that God put Trump in office and that America needed to return to its Christian roots on how it was founded. Yet, that is a lie and the concepts below will prove it to be a lie.

As a Muslim minister, Malcolm himself raised the issue of religion in his speech as he called out America’s most renown Christian preacher at the time, Billy Graham. He said: “I have watched how Billy Graham comes into a city, spreading what he calls the gospel of Christ, which is only white nationalism. That's what he is. Billy Graham is a white nationalist; I'm a black nationalist. Billy Graham comes in preaching the gospel of Christ. He evangelizes the gospel. He stirs everybody up, but he never tries to start a church. If he came in trying to start a church, all the churches would be against him.”

America has always used the Bible to justify their wrong doings and Blacks had little choice but to believe the hypocrisy because they were always kept in the dark of their own history and the history of the rest of the world. But as knowledge increased and Blacks became more educated, they have more knowledge of the roots of American Democracy and the hypocrisy of the white Christian preacher. Now, instead of the Ballot or the Bullet, the below concepts will espouse the need for the Bible or the Bullet.

The power of Black liberation comes more in the words of the Bible instead of the power of man’s political ballot. Knowledge is the key. If the Black mind can understand that lies have always kept them in the dark, then knowing the truth will bring the light and convict the liars. This has been happening over the past century but Blacks have yet to acknowledge that this is the key, and not the ballot. Simply knowing that white America is vulnerable and driven almost insane when faced with the truth will help Blacks rise above any political delusions of life.

The truth being, the policies, legalities, and cultural ways of white America is in direct contradiction of the very Bible they preach from and use to justify their misdeeds. The message will prove this fact using the concepts of the Bible against every area of white America’s worldview; its founding, operation, supremacist ideologies, and their cultural traditions; beginning with the following:

• The political founding of the country
• The economic foundation
• The justice system
• The medical system
• The educational system
• The family and community structures
• The foreign policies

The Political Founding

America was built on the theory of being a Representative Republic, which means the people are represented by chosen leaders who speak for them at the highest level of government. In theory, this is a positive concept that would be supported by biblical doctrine. God always chose the wise among the people to lead the nation as kings and priest; who could judge a matter between citizens and handle everyday situations that came before the judges.

The problem with America and its founding was that the leaders were not all wise men, but they were rich, white men. America was founded for the benefit of wealthy white men to control the country’s politics and maintain power. They were the only ones who could vote when the country first started. This is unbiblical even though the theory of a Representative Republic can be just and fair, it was not by any means just and fair during the founding as practiced by America’s founders.

Currently, America is still run by the wealthiest of white men and all the power is in the hands of the wealthy in Congress and the Senate, and ninety percent of the courts, who give favor to wealthy white men and their children. Therefore, America’s political system is tilted toward them and away from any people of color, immigrants, and women, all who hold only a small minority of power. This is how the political system was designed and is still designed. Though the assemblies seem representative of the people, the wealthy actually hold the power.

The Economic Foundation

America is based on the Capitalist, free market system where most of the wealth end up in the hands of a few people, while the majority of the people share among a small portion of the wealth earned through employment. This system is disguised as a merit-based, personal responsibility system where people survive based on what they know and how they perform. But this is far from the truth when the wealthy can pass along wealth, educational opportunities and business ventures to their children while a large percentage of the population have to earn their way to success through actual work. Favoritism and nepotism work together especially in a country built on white supremacy and privilege.

Many Christian preachers in America draw from the concepts of the Old Testament where it pertains to rules of government, economics and work ethics, but they have erred in their knowledge because the New Testament introduces a new form of social development and organization that works better for a society, yet they consciously ignore these rules in favor of a more traditional form of governing. They refuse to let go of these traditions even to the point of utilizing the Old Testament concept of slavery in an effort to institute and reinstitute the master/slave relationship in the case of Black America. This is an abomination and the root cause of their problems today.

In the New Testament, the Bible teaches a communal-type system where the result of the people’s works guarantees them a level of financial security through the means of community support and liberal and just distribution of the wealth earned by the workers. Everyone works and contributes to society via financial means they can afford and in return everyone receives what they have need of, and no one lacks. In the Bible, rich men are considered spiritually lacking and conditioned for hell if they hoard their wealth for themselves.

American work ethics idolize the wealthy and encourages individual success, yet shames the concept of community support by demonizing it as welfare dependency and government entitlements. America is an individualistic survival of the fittest society where greed is championed over support of others. Politicians write laws to outlaw community support programs for the poor because they would rather ignore the Bible when it says the poor will always be with us. It seems the goal of American politicians is to make the poor suffer for being poor instead of helping them. The irony is that the concepts of American success create more poor people than it does successful people.

Black America knows that racial mechanisms are built into the system on purpose for them to fail instead of succeed. The problem is that the racism in America’s systemic foundations are beginning to effect not only Blacks, but whites also. There are millions of whites who vote against their own interest to spite Blacks just to make them suffer, and who close their eyes to the truth of the matter that the wealthy is hoarding the wealth of the nation by means of the political and economic systems. While the answer for them all is right there in the Bible.

The Justice System

America’s justice system is a two-tier system where the wealthy are regarded as a protected class and the poor are punished for being poor. This fact has become obvious yet is protected through media propaganda to convince the people that employers are fair and good and to keep the people in fear of crime. The wealthy feeds the nation misinformation through multimillion dollar media campaigns that is supposed to make them believe that the problem is not that the wealthy are literally stealing from the working class, but that Blacks and other minority immigrants are the ones who are stealing from them. 

Politicians and Christian preachers demonize social justice movements who fight for fair treatment from the justice system and exploitive employers. They encourage white citizens to stand behind the police who are there to protect and serve them while the police assassinate Blacks on national television. They have convinced white Americans that law and order is the goal of politicians by cracking the heads of Blacks thugs while corporate CEOs and companies exploit them behind their backs and right to their faces. Yet, whites are complacent in these obvious lies and untruths because they have been promised a level of supremacy and privilege through employment and the law.

The Bible is clear on justice and the evils of oppression. It teaches that there is no respect of persons and that all are responsible for their actions whether they are rich or poor. It plainly proclaims that rich men seek to oppress the laborers and draw the people before the judgment seats to protect their wealth. Yet in America, only those who can afford to pay for a lawyer are protected under the justice system and those who cannot are bound to imprisonment. Regardless of what any white preacher teaches his congregation about law and order, justice is divine and all who sow corruption and injustice will reap corruption and injustice.

The Medical System

The same is true for the medical system of America as the justice system. Only those who can afford healthcare and the best medical treatment have a chance at survival and those who cannot are left to slowly suffer and die. Many countries around the world understand that healthy workers produce a productive workforce yet America’s racism prevents them from nationalizing a basic healthcare system for all because they do not want Blacks to have access to decent healthcare. And as a result, whites suffer sicknesses and illnesses also to the shame of America’s politicians.

The Bible teaches through the ministry of Jesus Christ, that healing and good health is a priority with God and no one should suffer illness and disease at the mercy of man. Profit is key above good health in America and the food and drug administrations have compromised the public food and water, and push drugs and chemical-based substances on the population. Instead of researching and developing medicines based on the natural herbs and plants of the earth that God has given to humanity, science has resorted to money-making pills that does not cure, but keeps people barely alive.

Blacks need to realize that faith in the power of God and understanding of all that is natural can help keep the body safe from the illnesses inflicted on a society that has polluted the food and water sources. America does not rely on the knowledge of God where medicine is concerned, they rely on profits, drug dependency, and the ingenuity of the wealthy.

The Educational System

The system of education in America is another system designed for those who can only afford the best. All others are subject to education that prepares them for the work force instead of preparing them for real life. The system has dumbed down the population by limiting knowledge and understanding of the world and its diverse cultures and flooded the school system with the mind-numbing concepts of work, greed, selfishness, and individualism. 

America has fallen behind in math, science, and basic government against the rest of the world. While other nations are teaching their children different languages and appropriate self-discipline, Americans are shaming people who speak different languages while standing in a Starbucks line. Not only is the school system limiting knowledge of the world, but they are taking away needed courses such as Civics, home-economics and trade classes and replacing them with more disadvantageous courses such as sex education, unethical business school practices and distorted history lessons of white American exceptionalism. 

Instead of stifling the child’s mind by subjecting them to indoctrination of what the wealthy want as a workforce, the Bible gives an example of how to teach children by exposing them to more complicated theories of life early on. Children are bored in the classrooms because they are not being challenged at their full intellectual capacity. To supplement this malfunction in learning, children are pushed into sports competitions to occupy their time and then they resort to a homelife of video games, reality television and Internet social media. Children should be introduced to medicine, world cultures, and earth sciences so they can understand how to advance society.

The Family and Community Structures

America’s family unit is broken and being replaced with an alternative family system that is clearly against nature, and this phenomenon is most prevalent in the United States. Beginning with the concept of marriage, the divorce rate in America is half of the marriage rates, giving rise to step families and children conceived out of wedlock. Christian preachers have failed at their jobs to teach marriage the correct way; they themselves partaking in the broken marriage and divorce rates because they do not understand the Bible and its mysteries of marriage.

Homosexuality and gay marriage is law of the nation leading children to accept this distorted form of family and child-rearing. Children are suffering with identity crises and resort to medications that alter their physical and mental state. Politicians and Christian preachers are standing behind this transformation of the family out of ignorance of God’s laws and have created their own laws. The community as a whole suffer because it brings violence against people who choose these alternative lifestyles and local school boards, city councils and the justice system have brought confusion into their jobs because of the chaos.

In an extended form of hate and racism, white politicians, media corporations and Christian preachers have somehow fused homosexuality and alternative family lifestyles with the Black community, so bigoted whites can have someone to blame for the immorality of American society. And it seems to work not only on whites, but on Black minds also. Too many Black people have played into the hands of this delusion believing that they are homosexual and transgender when this lifestyle clearly began from the white race. Thus we have the “woke” culture.

The Bible gives a most simplistic design for the family unit by nature as the male and female populate the earth with children. Families make communities and communities make societies. If the family is dysfunctional so will the community and the society become. When these dysfunctions fuse, children become disobedient to their parents, unthankful for their life and unholy and then resort to sexualized and violent behavior without regard for their own or other human lives.

Foreign Policy

America’s foreign policies are designed to supply the needs of Americans by any means necessary even if it means taking control of other lands and their resources by force instead of having fair trade and respect for other the nation’s people. White Americans from the beginning of its foundation have never respected the culture of other nations. As a child of the imperialist countries of Europe, war and occupation of other lands is an ongoing affair for whites of European and American heritage as they have fought many wars around the world and disrupted and ended the lives of millions of people throughout history.

From the perspective of the New Testament, the Bible teaches that there will always be conflict among the nations of the world and the world will have tribulations, but as individuals, we should seek peace as much as lies within us, and as a collective society we should pray for men in authority that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life. It teaches that the resources of the earth belong to God and not to any one nation. And that humanity is here to replenish the earth as we live here and help it grow and not to pollute and destroy it; because we all need it to sustain life.

Conclusion

America is not perfect but it is definitely contrary to the concepts and teachings of the Bible. The politicians of this country are so deeply imbedded and hunkered down into racism that they have long lost the meaning of biblical compassion and righteousness (although doubtful they ever had it). Black Americans are living witnesses to the evil deeds and hypocrisy of white America and its history. We must learn that if we are to overcome the hate of racism, we must use the power of the Bible because there is no doubt that whites are genocidal and hell bent on eliminating Black lives through whatever power afforded them.

They have used violence against the Black community for centuries and every other means to neutralize us; politically, medically, economically, mentally and more. Blacks have fought American racism unto death in vicious forms yet we have played along with his games of the possibility of equality and acceptance by all those ways and more. Yet to this day, he remains dead-set on tormenting us even to death. Malcolm and Martin used the most peaceful and logical means to gain equality for Blacks; nonviolence and reason, but those have been ignored.

Malcolm said; “Any time you know you're within the law, within your legal rights, within your moral rights, in accord with justice, then die for what you believe in. We need to expand the civil-rights struggle to a higher level -- to the level of human rights. When you expand the civil-rights struggle to the level of human rights, you can then take the case of the black man in this country before the nations in the UN.”

Malcolm was willing to take the matter before the UN to get justice for Blacks and he and Martin both lost their lives for the sake of Black equality and peace in a nation that hates us. The Ballot of politics is apparently not the answer so long as we continue the same fight and have gained nothing more than token seats of government power, not even able to make any positive gains toward our liberation. This war has been fought for too many years and it seems the only solution is to rely on the power of divine truth the Bible offers because this country was definitely built on a lie. 

If that is the case, we should seek freedom from oppression by defeating his lies; not just for liberation in this life, which delivers the mind from the mental slavery and torture, but for the divine justification of God’s peace. We must know in our minds that God and His word is a deliverer and recognize how He has brought that same divine power against the white men who persecute our families.

Other alternatives for a peace of mind are to arm ourselves with guns to war against the hate and violence against us, or to leave this god-forsaken country and go elsewhere (but the white man has trained the world to hate us), or submit to the oppression just to survive. Many have succumbed to submission in the form of assimilation and others have revolted through the use of violence, but to conquer the fear of his hate and evil, the best alternative is to know the truth and use it to fight his lies, and to die in God’s peace even if we have to take a bullet from the hate of white men.

http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/speeches/malcolm_x_ballot.html