The Hypocrisy of Southerners
In March, the Freedom Riders were trying to see the Ten Commandments movie in a theater that doesn’t allow black people in their theater. Anytime someone asks to purchase a ticket they are not allowed to and you see people talk about them while just standing in line. This goes against what the ten commandments actually ask of a person. The ninth commandment states “thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor” yet everyone in line to see the movie judges the black people just because they are black. It is hard to miss the irony of how the white people react and gossip about the protesters when they are supposed to be seeing a movie where one rule they are supposed to follow is to not judge the people around you or make assumptions and gossip. The movie follows Moses freeing his people from slavery and their oppression which is very similar to what the Freedom Riders are having to deal with. Yet white people are the ones who watch this movie and then leave and still treat black people horribly.
Even though everyone who participated in the stand-ins were peaceful, police would show up and scream in their faces. This is similar to how cops dealt with protestors in the BLM movement. When they peacefully protested the police would still aggravate people and try to force them to leave. So much about what is being protested in March is the same as today’s BLM movement. In March they are protesting for abolishment of segregation in the south. The BLM protests are about the mistreatment of black people by the police and both involved peaceful protests that the police would always get in the way of. The people in both instances practice peaceful protests which is a constitutional right as stated by the First Amendment.
I remember being taken to church with my mom while I was growing up every Sunday. It was a tradition my mom felt as though it was a necessary thing for our lives to be raised properly with god. I remember when we first entered covid and we could no longer go to church, the first thought I had was finally now I get Sundays to myself, but then I started missing the kindness, and hospitality of the church or maybe I was just bored at home. I am not surprised that people think that the church is not a place of hospitality, I for a long time time did not believe the church was a good place but then I realized that you should separate the genuine people from the name because the christian hospitality has a bad reputation or rather christian love has been named as comparable to judgment and straight up hate. They way that being a christian can end up with you not being liked for believing in a messiah is actually quite sad because most people who claim religion use it to push their own agenda and spread hate wherever they may go because they don’t like those who don’t conform and are different from them is insane. This is what the people not being allowed to watch the ten commandments reminded me of. The amount of hypocrisy inside the religious community to the point that it comes out to be a visual representation of the hypocrisy is sad. As for the prevalence of southerners being hypocrites, I think it has just always been apart of their culture not saying they’ve always been hypocrites just that christianity has been a root part of their identity just like being more up front about their dislike of differences and by no means is every in the south like that it’s just easier to find an overtly racist or prejudice person in the south where as the north is more subtle in their racism showing their disdain in micro-aggressions.