Step 4: Inventory
“Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart,” (Psalm 51:6).
There are a few weak sisters, who seem, somehow, stronger in my weakness, who compete with Jesus for my heart. They are, in no particular order, envy, anger and fear. I suppose there could be some logical order to them. Generally, envy comes first. Envy is not jealousy. Jealousy is when you have something I want, but I could acquire it. God calls Himself, in Exodus, a “jealous” God. He is jealous for deserved praise from His people. When my ancestors forsook Him in the Promised Land and began to worship the gods (which were not gods at all and is disgraceful even to refer to them as) of the Canaanites, He was jealous of praise that could be redirected. Perhaps I see a fly shirt you’ve got on and I like it. Perhaps I like it a lot. Perhaps it was expensive, like Iceberg used to be. Perhaps I could not afford one of my own. Perhaps I like it so much that I steal it off of your back. That’s jealousy.
Envy is different. Envy is when you have something I want, but there’s no way for me to acquire it. Envy is being a 5’5 man staring up in wrath at the pro basketball player who just walked away with your, now, ex-girlfriend. Envy is an actress in her early forties staring contemptuously at the newly minted, 22-year-old silver screen vixen just named, “Sexiest Woman Alive,” by People Magazine. Envy is working class men taking up golf. Envy is a woman wishing she was born a man. And vice versa.
And that’s why I hold a great amount of envy for white folks. White supremacists, born of their fear and through violent chicanery, have colluded to cause people of color to live in invisible cages that they’ve conspired never to admit exist. This is why I don’t talk race with white folks. They’re sworn to secrecy, like freemasons. If one steps out of line, they’re promptly dealt with by the community, because the entire house of cards depends upon a lie. I resent, vehemently, that lie. I can’t front though, it’s a brilliant one, because even the woman who wants to be a man can ingest hormones or get an appendage sewed onto herself. She can lop of her hair into a taper fade, tape down her tits and dress heavy. But this leopard can’t change its spots. Ask Mike Jack. Ask Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Ask Lebron. It don’t matter how much money you make as a colored man; a black with a billion don’t rate to a white with a trillion. Your black ass is a stock option, bought and sold short.
And so, all my options are severely truncated in this life, unless I’m willing to play ball. I’m not. I’ve always been more Malcolm than Martin and more Nat than Harriet. You put me on a slave ship, I’m overboard with the sharks on the crests, a white man’s neck pressed between my forearms and chest. But even in my envy, I know better than to want what they’ve got. God says not to envy the oppressor and to choose none of his ways. And I know that those who love and chase money fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition, erring in the faith and piercing themselves with many sorrows. And yes, I’m equating white supremacy with wealth, because the rapacious violence used to acquire it confesses their dependence upon it to build the cage.
But He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision. You see, I’m not bitter about white supremacy, I just envy the ease. How easily the money flows. How quickly the job offers come. How little energy they need expend in working. How little dedication it takes to acquire rare and beautiful things. How habitually they travel. How flippantly they talk to the police. How openly contemptuous they can be towards all who are unlike them, and that without penalty. They can be called racists and not care. They can kill and not be convicted. They can thieve and become titans of industry. They can lie and become leaders of the free world. They can whore and rage and plunder and dominate with an arrogance that is passed down even to their children, whose laughter makes my skin crawl (I ain’t afraid of much, but an uplifted group of white teenage boys makes the cut). They drug without shame. They conceal without guilt. They deceive others into their wicked places before vexing and blackmailing them for their own crimes.
But I don’t resent them; I’m envious of their ease. It’s the impunity that I crave. Yet, even if you offered me their skin, to pass as one of them, I’d cast it back at you with a grin. Because what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul? I’d rather be a doorkeeper in the house of God than dwell in the tents of wickedness. I’d rather be a homeless nomad, suffering in the wilderness, eating locusts and wild honey, living by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, like Jesus, the real Jesus, than own a controlling stake in hell.
But the injustice of it makes me angry. That usually comes second. Not because I want to trade places, as I’ve already said, but because I hate watching wrong win. God’s Word says that He is angry with the wicked every day. It shows in the deterioration of the world they are working so hard to control. The people are languishing. The earth is travailing. The system is collapsing. The occultism is fracturing, letting out slivers of light from their darkness. And if the light in you be darkness, how great it is! They are like a young man, in the vigor of his youthful strength and ingenuity, who pursues with abandon the love of his life, his Jenny, like Forrest did, only to find that, once he has won her, she is ready to die.
And for this you’ve caused such suffering for such millions for such centuries? For these dredges left you’ve cast the dry bones of entire peoples into mass graves and sunk their desolate isles into the depths of the seas? For this resultant wasteland, you’ve put up your own eternal souls as collateral, to be racked and twisted by hateful eyes in unquenchable fire? Surely, they will all marvel at himself who has deceived the whole world. We battle not against flesh and blood, because only satan could vex the souls of men into such foolish endeavors and make them to believe it will be for their good. Only a swift and clever liar could convince a man that he will win the war against God who created him.
I’m angered at the sin, not the men. I’m angered at the needless suffering. I’m angered at the innocent blood, polluting the earth. I’m angered at the earth, hollowed out into a series of sinkholes smoothed over with steel skyscrapers. I’m angered at the newborn albatross trying to swallow a tampon on an island made of trash. I’m angered at evolutionary theory, trying to justify the destruction by calling God’s good creation chaos. I’m angered at the vitriol aimed at those courageous enough to point out the farce. I’m angered at the unarmed men being shot in the back by men driving cars reading “To Protect and Serve.” I’m angered at the people of God holed up inside the church building like it’s a panic room, terrified to engage. I’m angered at the divorce and the illiteracy and the apathy and the nihilism and the despair that we won’t confess because we’re too exhausted trying to make ends that we know won’t meet. I’m angered at the duplicity and the guile that condemns an honest assessment of this tragedy because, “Good Vibes Only.” I’m angered that I’ve gotta wait until my children are old enough to look me in my eye and curse the love between their mother and I for bringing them here.
And, finally, I’m afraid. I’m afraid to even get started on my envy of and anger towards women. And I’m afraid that, after confessing all this, somewhere secret, I’m on the list.
theblackdostoyevsky 
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