The Power of Illusion

“For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.” 2 Corinthians 10:3-4 NIV


I went to the vigil at LOVE park for Trayvon Martin today. There were a lot of people out there of all races, all outraged by the tragic story of a young man killed by a man who is known but not arrested. I’ve been down to other protests and marches over my lifetime for various reasons. Some when I was younger, I didn’t actually understand, I just knew that something was wrong and followed the crowd who seemed to be marching towards justice. And if it was a racial issues, I was all about it. Being a black female, I can easily look to play the race card if it seems appropriate although I rarely do these days.

Last year I watched a documentary entitled, “Race and the Power of an Illusion”. It was a pretty compelling history of racial relations in America. And it basically gets you to conclude that race is, in fact, an illusion, at least in terms of scientific fact and, I would argue spiritual truth. Yet often in America, we get so hung up on race that we miss some of the power it has over us to disillusion us to other things that may be going on. Focusing exclusively on race will mask more important matters, like law, politics and economics. Because in truth, those are the things that drive everything else in this country. And if I can get you to focus on race, then the people who are in power stay in power. Those who have money, keep it. And those who make the laws, never change it to help more people.

Someone once told me that if you look at many periods of racial tension in American, there is always an economic scandal waiting in the wings that has not yet been given the media’s full attention. I haven’t done the research to find out if that is true in history or not, but I checked a few things out today. The stock market had a great run today with the DOW up over 160 points on the news from Bernanke that the Fed will keep interest rates low. “Wooohooo!”, we might say. Certainly my client’s accounts appreciate this run. And so do I. What recession, right? Certainly there is no reason to be majorly concerned about economic issues when the real trouble seems to be the racial injustices going on in our country right now.

Well, the truth is, the Trayvon Martin issue is actually a legal issue, not a racial issue. The media can easily make it about race because that has more emotional buy-in than legal statistics. Like the fact that in Florida, since the controversial law known as, “Stand Your Ground” was passed in 2005, over 130 people have been shot and 70 percent of them killed (that’s 91 people if you don’t feel like doing the math). Only 19 of them have led to convictions. Most of the people had some type of criminal record, so I guess people didn’t care to fight on their behalf. Maybe they didn’t think a criminal’s life was worth enough to fight for. But innocent 17 year old Trayvon, holding an iced tea and a bag of Skittles, seemed worthy to fight for. So people are fighting. And of course, the tactic is to make it about race because racism sells.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch there is a Wall Street scandal that has not gotten a whole lot of press yet. It has to do with banks manipulating a lending rate called LIBOR. Several major banks have already been investigated and it appears more are to come. The estimated economic scale of this issue is around $90 Trillion, with tentacles that reach other financial issues to the tune of $350 Trillion. Sounds pretty major to me, but I don’t know much about that stuff. What happens when financial investment products that have been sold under false pretenses on a large scale get discovered? Oh yeah, stock market crash! Remember real estate in 2008? We have short memories. What racial issue was prevalent in the days leading up to the stock market crash of 2008? Jena Six. Remember them? We were all up in arms about the events in Louisiana and running on an emotional high. And rightfully so. Meanwhile, the stock market is going up, and the real estate whistle blowers are being ignored. And then the crash.

Please don’t think that I am predicting a crash and take my information as advice. It’s not. It’s an observation. And an observation that when the media is playing up a racial issue, maybe you want to look behind the curtain a bit and find out what legal or economic forces we are up against here. Race is the perfect scapegoat to get people not to think and only to act. We have a terrible history regarding race relations in this country. And we have been conditioned to fear anyone that does not look like us. Foreigners, other races, other cultures, whatever. The prevailing thought process is that if you are not like me then I’m afraid of you, to the point of maybe even needing to defend myself against you.

But as believers, we hold on to the fact that what we are truly wrestling with is not flesh and blood, and our weapons against these forces are not either. We should not simply take in everything the media says as truth. There is an agenda. But God also has an agenda. There is kingdom work going on behind the scenes too. God loves all 130 of those victims of the “Stand Your Ground Law” and they too deserve justice. God knows all about the “free market” and the muck it runs when it is allowed to function without the right oversight. And that, too will be exposed. The question is, how many of us will get so focused on race that we miss the behind the scenes issues. We are still not wrestling against flesh and blood. But if we stay focused on the color of our flesh, we are conceding to the real enemy. And we don’t fight that enemy with the same weapons that we would use to fight a war here. We need to pray, fast, worship and keep our spiritual eyes and ears open to what is going on. There are strongholds that need to be taken down. And we keep falling for the smokescreens. Shame on us. But thank God for revelation, and I hope that we all do better than to simply allow this issue to be one of race. There is more at stake. Maybe there is a spirit of hate that permeates our country at just the right time. But maybe if we stay spiritually connected and focused, we can not let this spirit have its way.

Link to the LIBOR scandal:
http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2012/03/23/the-wall-street-multibillion-scandal-no-one-is-talking-about/