I'm Not a Monster - Sometimes Evidence Is Not Required

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00:01

Hi, I'm not a monster. Maybe some of you believe me, some of you don't.

00:07

But I've been thinking lately about why it is that I'm being misinterpreted. I've had people that have called me dismissive about the race issue, or I've seen people that don't understand why

00:20

I feel like evidence and proof is needed. And I've been wondering, why is that so confusing?

00:26

And I think I've kind of figured something out. So here's the thing, in my personal experience, my personal life, if somebody, if a friend of mine or if a random stranger were to come up to me and say that they've just experienced something racist against them,

00:43

I'm not gonna be asking for proof or for them to demonstrate it with evidence. I'm just gonna hear them out and I'm gonna believe them.

00:51

So if you are listening to this and you've experienced racism personally and you've seen it, or maybe it's been against you,

00:59

I believe you, I have no reason not to believe you. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt unless you're saying something outlandish.

01:06

But yeah, I mean, there's no reason to demand evidence in your daily life. If someone says that they've seen something racist, then just believe them, that's okay.

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And so the difference is, though, that once you want something to be done about it, once you want justice to be served in response to this discrimination or racism, at that point, the standard is ratcheted up.

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And so now you need some evidence in racism. So in other words, like let's just say I was walking down the street and a guy comes out, a

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Latino guy comes out of the price chopper and he says, hey man, look, they were so racist towards me in there, man.

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They wouldn't service me, they wouldn't let me buy something and they weren't treating white people like this, they were just treating me and they said you had to get out of the store and this happened and this happened.

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And I would listen to him, I would hear him out and I'd say, man, that really sucks, that's awful. I'm sorry that happened to you, man.

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Not everybody's like that here and that really sucks, it's too bad. And I'd leave it at that,

02:06

I wouldn't ask for evidence, I wouldn't ask him to prove it or anything like that. But if he then said, okay, we need to go do something about this, right?

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We need to confront them in there. At that point, because you wanna take that next step in actually enacting justice, doing something about the wrong that was done to you, at that point, you needed to also take the next step into demonstrating and proving it.

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And so when I saw that article in the Vermont Herald, the Rutland Herald, about how Vermont is systemically racist, if that's all they were saying, that there's racist people in Vermont, I'd believe it,

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I wouldn't care. I wouldn't even have given it a second thought because I'm sure there are racists in Vermont.

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But the article wasn't just saying that, it was saying that the whole state was racist systemically.

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But not only that, but we need to do something about it. We need to change things, we need to have programs, we need to, you know, there's a whole myriad of things that they wanted to do.

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And so once you wanna start spending my money or once you want to start enacting justice using the full force of the law to right these wrongs, you do need to, at that point, demonstrate and prove that it's actually happened.

03:19

You can't just assume it. And that's not my standard, that's a biblical standard. The Lord says that if you are going to accuse someone of wrongdoing in order to enact justice, you need to demonstrate it, you need to prove it.

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The Bible talks about one or more witnesses. And I think personally, that's a standard for evidence. It's not necessarily saying you need to have two, you know, eyewitnesses.

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I think it's saying that you need to have a demonstrable proof that it actually happened in order for us to execute justice.

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And I think that's a good standard. I think that's the foundation of our society. An accusation is not enough in order for us to right a wrong.

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You have to actually demonstrate that your accusation has merit, it has value. That's a biblical standard.

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It's not only an Old Testament standard, but it's a New Testament standard. And so I think that's one reason people think

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I'm being dismissive is because they're kind of mixing up the two. Look, if you've experienced racism, I believe you.

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I have no reason not to. You know, most of you who are watching this have not lied to me. So I have no reason to discount your testimony.

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However, once you want something to be done about it, there is a higher standard, and I think it's an appropriately higher standard.

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And so, guys, I'm not a monster. I'm not a monster. I can listen and believe, just not when the stakes are high.