An Aside

Jesus was Jewish, and Paul played a huge role in bringing what we now call Christianity to non-Jews (there's quite a bit in the Bible about the tensions between Peter, who led many of the Jewish disciples, and Paul. It's part of how our religion evolved so that Christians don't have to follow Jewish practices. Like eating pork.)

Anyways, I brought that up because it means that white Christian Americans (many of whom are Anglo-Saxon) believe in the teachings of a Jewish man. Teachings that were later spread by the Roman Empire.

And while genealogy is complex and a lot of people are inrerralated if you go back far enough, many of us are not descended from Jews or Romans.

Like... People who bring out the best in us can do so regardless of their race or ethnicity, and we all benefit. 

I won't say that's why what happened with Fred Hampton bothers me, but it's definitely one of the lesser reasons why it was a bad call. 

There's a movie out about this now, though I haven't seen it and am not sure if I will - Judas and the Black Messiah. 

And there's something rather awful about people being so threatened by someone doing good (nonviolent social activism, so far as I can tell) that they killed him.

The ones behind it are no different from the Romans who killed Jesus - it's pretty much the exact same reasoning.

But I'll talk about that some other time. Or rather, talk about losing and the fear of losing. Something like that, it's related to my post about how we use free will, and hasn't gelled enough to write.

The idea that all of America lost out, though - 

That if Fred Hampton was as big a deal as they thought, that he could have benefited all of us.

That's something worth reflecting on.