You all remember Marcus Pittman, don’t you? The rotund face of neo-Calvinism who usurped his demeanour, decorum, and doctrine from Dom DeLuise in the Cannonball Run movies? Well, he’s back in the saddle (or Segway, at least) with another heavy-hitting SJW article.
You can tell Pittman’s really coming up in the world, because the piece was not published on his Gospel Spam site, which appears to be moribund. The latest listing there is for ‘An Open Letter to Charlie Sheen’ from November of 2015. Fortunately, the Web is awash with insipid Reformed pages clamouring for product, and Pittman’s latest was posted on something called ‘The Reformed Collective’, which sends visions of Robert Owen dancing through my head for some reason. Lest we be concerned that this site might not be of the most serious and sober nature, its statement page assures us that each of its contributors subscribes to either the Westminster Standards, Three Forms of Unity, or London Baptist Confession. Thanks for that balm to my conscience, Reformed Collective! Otherwise, if you publish the likes of Marcus I would have a hard time differentiating you from Buzzfeed.
Pittman’s not on yet another ridiculous pop-culture kick this time, though. No, in his newest masterwork he opens doorways into our soul that we daren’t open ourselves, looks us straight in the eye, shakes his head sadly and tells us that #BlackLivesMatter……Matters.
Hey, wouldn’t it have been neat-o had Cotton Mather written this piece whilst atop the Matterhorn? But I guess that’s neither here nor there, so let’s see if what Pittman has to say this time….Matters.
Marcus the Good begins his Maschil with a touching anecdote about the awesome responsibility whites take upon themselves by having black friends. While in Georgia, he heroically awoke at the unheard-of hour of 4 AM to drive his black friend to work. (Just to make sure we never get off track and mistake this fellow for Pittman’s chattel property, he will be referred to as Pittman’s friend no less than eight separate times in the course of this brief story.) They had the following conversation:
He alerted me to something I already knew: my headlight was out.
Of course it is – it always is.
“I really don’t want to be a passenger in your car with that light out,” he said for what seemed like the hundredth time.
“Black people really are afraid of the police.” I joked. “Don’t worry, the police never pull me over for this.”
“That’s because you’re white,” he responded.
We both laughed.
Such levity cannot last long, though, when the forces of fascism rear their ugly heads. Mere moments later, according to Pittman’s description, a white police officer pulls them over and, after procuring Pittman’s license, demands the same of his black friend. Pittman advises Black Friend to not comply. Officer Hitler becomes angry. Really angry, as we see:
The officer forgot I was there and didn’t even pay attention to me. His focus was only on my black passenger. I knew immediately that my real crime was driving with a black person. A DWB. The headlight was just an excuse.
Okay, let’s pause here for a bit. Maybe, just maybe, the basic situation developed as Pittman has described it. How is it that things transpired in a manner so pat Ned Buntline would have dismissed such a plot as too contrived? The civil rights movement has become notorious for the dramatic license, if not outright fabrications, that constitute its key milestones, so it behooves any critical thinker to take any proclamations of ‘injustice’ with a heaping grain of salt. This becomes all the more paramount when the author immediately jumps to an agenda-driven conclusion such as ‘I knew immediately that my real crime was driving with a black person.’ I assume that multicultural carpooling is a phenomenon not unheard of in the metro South. Do the police automatically pull over all such vehicles they encounter? Must make an already hectic rush hour a hundred times more chaotic, that.
An even more obvious question asserts itself. For heaven’s sake, Marcus, why don’t you get your bloody headlight fixed?? Or replace it yourself, for that matter, as that is not the most difficult auto repair job. I realize that you libertarians take great pride in your lack of mechanical competence because that’s a tool of State coercion, but if that other headlight goes out then I myself wouldn’t want to meet you coming from the opposite direction in the middle of the night. But if one never goes around asking for trouble, one wouldn’t encounter remarkably convenient examples of insensitivity that necessitate indignant articles, I suppose.
Anyhow, at this point of Pittman’s socio-judicial awakening Officer Hitler places his hand on his gun and the end appears to be nearing for our Dynamic Duo. But then a deescalation providentially occurs and the cop opts to re-enact a scene from In the Heat of the Night instead:
The officer let me go with a warning, and said some self-congratulatory remarks about how kind he was. Finally, the officer said, “Next time tell your boy I could have arrested him for resisting an officer’s request. Next time get your boy in line.’
‘Boy’ is emphasized in Pittman’s version of the story, and again, I have to wonder. It appears Officer Hitler hasn’t been following the news very closely at all lately, and neither have his superiors at the Atlanta PD. Either at the beginning of an early morning shift or at the end of a late night one, is this cop, on his own initiative yet, likely to instigate an incident that could result in mayhem on the streets of majority-black Atlanta very, very quickly? Pittman here is ascribing much more ambition and guile to cops than I, for one, ever have.
Pittman also gets politically correct bonus points for portraying his black friend as the Voice of Reason, while he himself comes across as an irresponsible buffoon, especially given the closing words of his harrowing homily:
I looked at my friend.
“Now you know why I get upset when you go over the speed limit.”
“No kidding.”
An inadvertent representation, no doubt, but a very telling one nonetheless.
Thus ends the prologue. Pittman next moves onto the meat of his essay….and what a simpering, cringing, quivering, hand-wringing, forelock-tugging, male-lactating lump of syrup-glazed suet that meat turns out to be! You wouldn’t think that one would be able to establish one’s cuckservative credentials on the basis of half a page of text if you had never read the author before, but Pitty manages to pull off this extraordinary feat spectacularly. It requires a rebuttal, paragraph by paragraph, in its entirety.
We begin thus:
We can pretend that the racism between some police officers and black people doesn’t exist. We can ignore it and point to the radical socialists who have latched on to a hashtag as a means to ignore what is happening, but the truth is that our neighbors whom we are called to love are hurting.
Assuming that Pittman is referencing the Gospel accounts of ‘loving thy neighbor’, it should be noted that the Greek word in the New Testament used by Christ is pleison, derived from the root pelas, meaning ‘near’ in both a geographical and familial sense. According to Strong’s, this can take the form of a fellow countryman, Christian, or friend. Hence, it is rather presumptuous to call an entire race not of our own our ‘neighbors’ simply because they might happen to reside in an adjoining area to us. Did Christ say upon encountering the woman of Tyre ‘Behold My neighbor’? And maybe Pittman would be so kind as to show in the Old Testament where one’s ‘neighbor’ and ‘the stranger who dwells among you’ are ever depicted as interchangeable?
We can argue over arrest statistics like evidentialists debating atheists, but this is a debate filled with presuppositions. The black community is so deeply angry at the sheer amount of incarcerations, injustice and murders by the state that they’ve resorted to protesting in the streets and in Dallas, they’ve resorted to war.
White people don’t protest in the streets when victims of nearly 50% tax rates. We don’t riot in the streets when babies are being murdered. We don’t riot in the streets when laws are passed that destroy businesses, or when local governments steal our land for shopping malls.
Notice here how Pittman is careful to note that whites do have legitimate grievances of their own yet, as their lives generally are not in danger from the state (an exceedingly false conclusion, that), there really is no comparison to be made here. Muh white privilege. How could any SJW worthy of the name not fail to get irate and send petitions in to the mayor and write call-to-action letters to the editor and the like?
As for black rage over ‘the sheer amount of incarcerations, injustice and murders by the state’, does Pittman seriously believe they bear no culpability for this state of affairs themselves? If American racism is as virulent as he claims, why are not Orientals subject to similar ‘unfair’ treatment? I tend to get angry when I hit my thumb with a hammer as well. Hence, I make an earnest effort not to do so in the future. Such self-restraint and analytical thought has historically not been present in the black community as a whole, which is why they have ‘resorted’ to rioting and war against Whitey continuously for the past 150 years.
But something is happening in black communities that is so painful and destructive, so routine and regular that they can’t ignore it anymore. They’re ready to start a revolution. The second civil war.
Whether we want to admit it or not, whether we despise the socialism behind it or not, the truth is — #blacklivesmatter matters.
What is this insubstantial ‘something’ that is going to usher in a particularly virulent strain of Pan-Africanism, Marcus, and do you not believe your bleeding-heart mien might have something to do with agitating this latent ferality? In the jungle, the jackal who rolls over and displays his testicles to his enemy gets his throat torn out, not a belly rub. The exact same rules apply in the urban jungle.
Pittman then makes a feeble attempt to get all ‘hard-hitting’ and stuff:
Is there a cultural problem? Absolutely. The black community is filled with heretical churches, a genocidal amount of abortions, fatherless homes, and addictions to drugs and welfare.
Is this a result of sin in the community? Of course it is.
But every major societal problem is the result of sin. No Christian questions that. We don’t stand outside of abortion clinics and whine and complain about adultery. We deal with the matter at hand and rescue the babies. We can discuss those issues later but first there’s a crisis to deal with.
This is merely a ‘cultural’ problem? Pittman would surely concede that whites live in the exact same anti-Christ culture that blacks abide in. Heathen churches, abortions, abandonment, drug abuse, and pogey are not unknown in this community either. Why the vast discrepancy in such percentages between white and black communities? Why doesn’t Pittman admit that the ‘fatherless homes’ he mentions comprises three-quarters of black ‘families’, a statistic so appalling it was the title of a recent documentary? Who is more likely to be employed in some capacity: a meth-addled white man in Appalachia or a crack-addled black man in East Compton? To say ‘every major societal problem is the result of sin’ is a generalization so vague it almost becomes meaningless, particularly if we use the Webster definition of a society: ‘a people in general thought of as living together in organized communities with shared laws, traditions, and values’. Whites and blacks are coerced into sharing the first and have precious little in common as to traditions and values. In using terms like ‘community’ and ‘societal’ in the modern sociological sense, though, Pittman is projecting his acceptance of the Marxist tenet that man is entirely a product of his environment, with a churchian twist that that conditioning necessitates its own brand of sin. These are the words of a Secretary of HUD addressing a Billy Graham crusade, not a man of God.
And if Pittman never brings up adultery when addressing abortion, it’s little wonder his pro-life campaigns are as unfruitful as his Apologia ‘ministry’. If I was bitten by a snake, I would not wait until my arm was gangrenous and ready to fall off before addressing the problem. But who has time for strategic thought?? We have a crisis to deal with!!! Run madly off in all directions!!!
And then he gets especially nauseating:
But for some reason the church doesn’t think the same way about #blacklivesmatter. Instead, we throw up alienating hashtags like middle fingers to the black community: #bluelivesmatter or #alllivesmatter. Salt in the wound to any community, no matter the heart behind it, is wrong.
Meanwhile, the black community is in tears. They are incapable of even gathering in the streets to mourn without an increasingly armed blue life presence standing watch, reminding them who’s in charge.
So, let’s see here. Pittman just got done sorta kinda admitting #blacklivesmatter had been hijacked for a socialist agenda. Yet he immediately berates whites for using ‘alienating hashtags’ like #alllivesmatter…which also happen to be demonstrably true? Oh right, I forgot – truth is no defence against a ‘hateful’ outlook. How does Pittman’s spiel markedly differ from this blat from the Huffington Post, which if nothing else is honest and upfront about its embrace of socialism?
If you subscribe to the premise of “All Lives Matter”, it’s likely that you live in a predominantly white area and the majority of your social group is white.
Don’t you think it’s interesting how I can be so sure that it’s only white people saying “All Lives Matter”? How can I make such sweeping generalizations?
Basic logic. It’s reasonable to expect that if you had to witness the gross injustices committed against those in non-white communities, you would understand why “All Lives Matter” is so harmful. You would understand that it is in fact you who is missing the point…
Here’s the awesome thing. You can totally stop being an ignorant racist right now. This instant. You don’t even have to lift a finger. All you have to do is learn.
This chap even expropriates Pittman’s usual verbal tactic of smug hipster condescension, which the latter chose to forgo this time in place of treacle. In my GMO piece, I mentioned how syllogistic flow is not one of Pittman’s strong suits. It appears he has accumulated an increasing amount of estrogen during his beloved junk food pig-outs.
As for those crypto-racist alternate hashtags being ‘salt in the wound’ – does Pittman fancy himself a kinder, gentler sage than Christ Himself, who said in Mark 9:50, ‘salt (is) good: but if the salt has lost its saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another.’ Besides its tang, salt is the most ancient of preservatives, as well as of antiseptics. What matters a little sting if God’s truth is thereby maintained? And Pitty’s surface-deep empathy I guarantee you will be cast off, as it is not fit for the dunghill.
End of Part II. Part the Last features another beloved Pittman trademark – the awkward, poorly thought-out metaphor. It would seem that he read his previous polemics and realized that maybe it did sound a little too leftist for Reformed tastes. Rather than realize he put pen to paper on the basis of a flawed assumption and scrap the entire thing, as any author of integrity would do, he attempts to conclude with a warning as to what will happen if radical socialists usurp the #blacklivesmatter hosanna:
If your house is on fire, you’re in a state of panic. You scream, “Help! Put the fire out! Please Lord, someone please just put the fire out.” If the arsonist grabs a hose and pretends to be the hero, you’re thankful. You don’t have time to investigate – there are pictures of your family hanging on the wall that need to be extinguished. Meanwhile across the street, other people have figured out the arsonist is extinguishing the fire, and instead of taking the hose from him, you talk about what great firemen the city has.
In this parable, the arsonist is meant to be the socialist who has hijacked the BLM banner. But hold on – Pittman just got done previously getting us into an agitated state because action has to be taken now, now! NOW! Yet we’re supposed to wrestle the hose from him while precious seconds elapse? What happened to ‘We can discuss those issues later but first there’s a crisis to deal with’? And if Pittman is blaming the arsonist for causing the trouble in the first place, doesn’t that equate to BLM being a deceptive, socialist, incendiary movement from its inception and shouldn’t we be resisting it at all costs? Uh, no, because, like, salt in the wound hurts, and blacks are despondent, and stuff. Shouldn’t the person inside the burning house maybe take just a wee bit of responsibility for extracting himself from his situation using the means at his disposal? But, racism prevails and, uh, like, headlights, and, y’know….
Oh hell, the house has collapsed in a raging inferno. Never mind!
And in typical fashion, Pittman ends his plea for African apologetics with some senseless moralizing. He says, ‘[W]e need to help our black brothers and sisters by acknowledging their house is really on fire, that #blacklivesmatter really matters.’ Perhaps it would also be a good idea to take their matches away from them? No, he doesn’t say that. He says, ‘There are many black Reformed preachers who have the gospel. They are great preachers, great authors, and great speakers. But these same people encourage voting for the arsonists. ‘ Then why, precisely, are they ‘great’, Marcus? And why do you automatically presume they ‘have the gospel’? By their fruits ye shall know them – ever read that? No response to any of those questions.
To summarize: I am hard-pressed to explain precisely why anyone should take the oaf Pittman seriously on any topic. I’m sure he’s an expert at cheat codes in the entire Super Mario series, but such ephemeral wisdom is hardly the nucleus of a Christian civilization. And his cringing servility towards blacks is, quite frankly, disgusting. No one respects weakness, and blacks least of all do.
Pasty-faced self-described nerds like Pittman don’t like ‘abrasive’ personality types, but I don’t know how else you’re supposed to have any chance of getting rid of the all-permeating rust that has corroded our once Christian and white lands. Gently massaging it away just won’t cut it, Marcus.
| Tweet |
|
|
|
