It’s long been known that every black kid, especially boys get “The Talk” from parents and/or elders when they are old enough to absorb it. It focuses heavily on recognizing potentially difficult and even dangerous situations where the color of their skin along puts them in danger. Special attention is given on how to avoid getting beaten or even killed during what for most of us is a routine encounter (a traffic stop for example) with LE. Well, it seems a belief is out there WHITE kids need a version of “The Talk” only for white kids it’s that they should assume black people are dangerous.
I wish I could say I’m surprised by this article from Mediate but I’m not. It tells us and more importantly shows the ‘pastor’ himself speaking vile and racist ideology. So-called Christian Joel Webbon telling his people they need to have ‘The Talk’ with their children about the dangers of black people is disgusting. But the video of him speaking has gone viral, at least among white Evangelicals and/or Christian Nationalists:
f you’re a Christian, white parent who loves the Lord and loves your children, then you need to have “the talk.” The talk that we’re referencing is the talk that takes your children, according to their maturity, at the proper time, the appropriate time, and says there are certain parts of town that you cannot go and there are certain people that you cannot be around, right? If there is someone who is black in our church, and they’ve been in our church, and we know them and they love the Lord Jesus Christ, great. We’re not talking about that person. But we’re talking about when you go into a crowd of people, if you go into a crowd of strangers, and they’re white strangers, there’s some danger. If they’re black strangers, there is 30 times more danger. Them’s the facts.
The linked article mentions that earlier in the podcast Weddon stated a white person was 31 times more likely to be the victim of a black person’s crime than the other way around. Not that he cited any source for his claim but what the hell. Stone cold racists don’t want or need actual proof to back up their f**ked up beliefs.
Still, that this kind of talk comes from the pulpit (so to speak) is sickening. It’s not like white superiority and power haven’t been preached from the pulpits of racist preachers all my life. I’m in my late sixties now and grew up in the Civil Rights era in southern Illinois. If not for the efforts of the once favorite son of my hometown the region would have split off and become part of the Confederacy! Still, by the time I was born few churches would openly preach such hate.
Hell, I grew up in a traditional whitebread Presbyterian church. About as boring and vanilla as it gets. Yet the events in Selma led our preacher to answer Dr. King’s call. He went down there and joined the march. “Pope” (his name was Lee Pope Ward) as he was called didn’t say much from the pulpit about race and the turmoil in the country (including Vietnam) but rather spoke with his actions.
Now we have social media which allows instant, wide dissemination of bigotry and hatred under the banner of White Nationalist’s version of Christianity. That it runs counter to the actual teachings of the Jesus the profess to worship doesn’t matter to leaders like Webbon. The MONEY they collect from congregations and web audiences is what matters and this is a country where hate sells. Especially when the occupant of the Oval Office and his team spout the same hateful stuff! No wonder Weddpm feels free to spout this filth. Worse, like the late and not at all great Charlie Kirk he doesn’t foam at the mouth but sits there with a calm demeanor that infuriatingly adds a thin veneer of credibility::
Christian nationalist pastor Joel Webbon says white Christian parents need to have "the talk" with their children about avoiding black people: "It is actually a failure of your parental duty … if you lie to them and you say all people and all races of people in our country are… pic.twitter.com/GwUksCJ0aE
— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) September 9, 2025
It’s at times like this I’m reminded of a short but powerful song from the musical South Pacific – You’ve Got To Be Taught:
The hate is out there and has again risen to an alarming level because people like Weddon are making sure it’s ‘carefully taught.’ Our country has with great effort managed to tamp it down in the past. Time will tell if we can do so again.
These people use the Bible the same way they use the Constitution.
Not as writings full of valuable advice to conduct yourself and society through life. but as blocks of words to pick ‘out of context’ quotations to justify their evil.
Perfect song for our situation!
If it were Christmas time I might have used a classic my mom loved, made famous by one of her favorite entertainers. I’m referring to Tennessee Ernie Ford and his rendition of Some Children See Him. Being a singer myself, I’ve considered (at least back when I went to church) performing it in her memory (mom died Christmas, 1975) but even after all these years I know I wouldn’t be able to get through it without breaking down. But all these Trumpy “Christians” should be forced to listen to it on a loop!
Maybe he should put Sly and the Family Stone’s Everyday People on a loop. As a white man from Appalachia, with black children, and a common law black wife of 20 years from Alabama, I understand where they’re coming from. I can hardly stand my own race, and avoid them when I can. Oh..I’m sorry…I thought you were talking about the most dangerous race on earth…us.
Careful Denis, your hypocrisy is showing again. I get it, you’re a leftist, hypocrisy is your middle name. Please share the link where you condemn Barry Hussein’s pastor Jeremiah Wright for his racist & hateful rhetoric. Then Al Sharpton’s…
I’ve never heard of this guy that you reference in this piece but that talk seems tame & realistic compared to the ones I’ve mentioned.
I haven’t heard Wright invoked in years. I did comment and in criticize him back when he was in the news, long before PZ ever existed. But his name came up a lot on Daily Kos which was where I hung out online for a long, long time. How Wright went from being a Navy Corpsman and one highly thought of enough he was part of LBJ’s medical team to that sermon I don’t know. But once the tape of that particular sermon came out (no, the Obama’s weren’t there) some conservatives did a deep dive. While they found other statements in sermons about race that some would consider objectionable nothing was found that came anywhere near the sermon in question.
Being a white guy I haven’t been on the receiving end of systemic racism and sexism. I’ve seen my share of it. In fact, I am the grandson of a card carrying KKK member who tried like hell to indoctrinate me. Actually, ‘card carrying’ is a tad inaccurate. He was so proud of his membership card he didn’t carry it in his wallet as he didn’t want it to get worn or soiled. He rose to the rank of Captain in a decent size Arkansas town’s police dept. before the Klan had to whisk him and the family out of town in the middle of the night. They got him set up as a federal railroad cop in the town where I was born and raised. So he still had a badge he could use/abuse and brag about having done so.
I will carry the shame of sharing the same blood as that vile, despicable man to my own grave someday. I had NO desire to pass it to a new generation and never had children of my own. I still sometimes feel shame over some of the shit he put into my head making me stop and realize I will never be completely free of harboring at least a bit of racial animus. But I do my best to look out for it.
Oh, as for Sharpton I remember some of the stuff from him earlier in his life and career. I view him like Nicole Wallace who flacked for conservatives when she was younger. Both might be working hard to atone for their pasts but I always take it with a grain of salt. Again in part because of part of my own family and so many in my hometown who would hotly deny it hold and even display racist beliefs I know at least a little of it exists within me. I no more think Sharpton has eradicated the worst elements he displayed when younger than I think Wallace has purged all of her conservative traits.
If you say you don’t know about his particular pastor I will take you at your word. I’ll even commend you for not hanging out on forums where you damn well would have heard of him. I did however notice that you didn’t offer any criticism of what he said. Does that mean you were more focused on taking me to task, or that at least in part you agree with him?
I’ll give you your due respect tonight Denis. Thank you for your kind words. I in fact do not go to forums where I would know who that guy is. And if I’m being honest I will admit I was trying to take you to task when I called you a hypocrite. It’s been an incendiary week. I feel like I’ve been defending Kirk, myself & conservatism.
When I read the transcript only I was gonna say that it’s reasonable to warn your children about strangers & dangerous situations. Watching the video of that guy speak gives the necessary perspective. No i don’t agree with him at all. Skin color should not be a factor when having that kind of talk with your children.
You and I argue, sometimes vehemently and even engage in some name calling. Same as I do with so many back in my southern IL hometown or up in the small town in the eastern panhandle of WV that was so much like where I grew up – both the scenery and the people. In so many instances each of us think the other is full of shit. Oh well. What matters is that no matter how intense disagreements get they don’t reach the level of wishing awful things like serious illness or death. We see each other as human beings. Most people on this site including me don’t care one bit for your views. But as moderator IF someone were to threaten or wish for violence on you I’d edit or even delete it. It’s one thing for someone like Sammuel or me who both served to say if the MAGAs come for us we will die in a crowd. We won’t start shit but we’ll damn well make sure we aren’t the only ones bleeding or dead when it’s done. It’s also different to say of some we’d be happy to put on the gloves and have a go if THEY were willing to do so.
However there are lines that shouldn’t be crossed. Kirk was a younger version of Ohio political icon John Kasich who I genuinely feared might one day become President. His views were extreme and dismissve of so many he considered lesser. Skin color, gender, nationality, religious views (or not) don’t make a person good or bad. You can find examples of good and bad in any group of people but generalizations are dangerous. Especially when things are not equal along the way. I freely admit being white and male has given me an advantage MOST of the time in my life. Also, being taller than average (not freakishly so – I’m only 6’4″ unlike my dad who was 6’7″ and a half inches tall. Folks back home didn’t believe the difference unless we stood right next to each other!) and research shows taller people often get deference from others. So before people ever talked with me I had advantages entire groups of people don’t. I don’t think that’s fair.
I also know some people are herded into being deemed not capable from an early age, based on nothing more than the traits (and I suppose others) I listed above. If life were a run around the track, some of us get a head start with two hugely important traits (white skin color and being male) we get a big one. You might not agree but it wasn’t just in the south that black people were shunted into lesser schools. The black kids in my hometown almost all got shunted into a school for the black kids at least in grade school. During first grade when they did the evaluations and testing for the then new “enriched” class a black kid made the cut. If memory serves at first he wasn’t allowed with us but by fourth grade he was. He was a wonderful guy and not just smart but brilliant. And his classroom habits, shaped by the “colored school” made him seem odd but many of us liked him.
Apparently there were some who weren’t welcoming, or at least their parents weren’t. He went back to Douglas for fifth grade but was so far advanced he got advance a grade and moved a year ahead of me in school. I was talking with Coach this spring about him again (he was murdered over ten years ago while travelling by car to see someone he’d worked with who lived in another state. His murder was never solved. “Banks” was 6’3″ himself and third team All-State his senior year in H.S. when we had arguably the best team in southern Illinois and would, unlike the epic team from the year before advance to the Elite Eight in Champagne. The Sectional Final was a tougher game than it should have been – “God” (as I’d learn he was called behind his back when I became a referee myself after college) worked the game and it was always tough for us. I don’t think it was so much he had it in for us as much as our up-tempo play. He literally couldn’t keep up and would call fouls or other violations to stop the action. Three of our starters including our second team All Stater and Banks had fouled out with several minutes left in the fourth quarter and Breese (who had their own all stater) won by a few in ovetime. It was later learned a basket was incorrectly credited to Breese in the third quarter during play in which Banks took a charge from their point guard but got whistles for the foul. Like any savvy player as the collision happpened he flipped the ball towards the basket hoping for two foul shots if the call went his way. It was several feet off the mork but their all state center was swooped in along the baseline and grabbed the ball and dropped it in the basket, just because I guess. Only three people noticed. OUR point guard and the time and official scorer who kept buzzing the horn after “God” told made the sign to count the basket. He ignored it so they eventually gave up.
Oh well. The thing is that was Bank’s last game. He could have played in college but had long had his heart set on becoming an engineer and he got a full academic scholarship to Bradley. Which would have LOVED for him to play for their team I might add. Nope. Banks saw college as the way to get the education he needed for the career he wanted and he retired early with a great penions and benefits as a Vice President with GE. He was a great guy but man, it would have been nice to have had him on the team my senior year like he should have been!
Sorry for getting sidetracked. My point is that once in Jr. High and High School I learned that lots of the black kids could handle school as easily if not better than white kids. Some were nice, and some were not. Some were smart and hard working and some were not. Just like white kids. But I also noticed some teachers who gave them an extra ration of shit, assuming they were stupid and/or lazy. Being a small town and seeing teachers out in the community it was obvious some were racist. I don’t think what I saw growing up is unique to my hometown. It existed all over the country including in Illinois, “The Land of Lincoln.” Salem where a childhood home of Lincoln’s is a historical site (kind of touristy) is only an hour or so away (probably worse now as I understand traffic getting through Carbondale to get to the Interstate is far worse) but my point is that racism, and sexism too is systemic and goes back long before either of us.
To pretend it doesn’t exist, or that a large chunk of professed Christians in this country don’t want to treat non Christians the same way blacks and women have been treated is willful ignorance. I’ve always accepted debating conservative vs. liberal philosophy and policy is part of life. Even a good thing. But I can’t and won’t accept judging people as lesser because they aren’t white, male and Christian – or at least a certain brand of Christian. I hold that kind of thinking in contempt. So I have, and will continue to do call bullshit when I see or hear it. Sometimes more intnensly than I should but I’ve been called some pretty nasty things and had the worst wished upon me from some of the people I grew up with. That’s an even longer story but my point is I’ll sometimes engage with someone I think is full of it. If for no other reason than to gain insight into how they think.
If more of the discourse was like this exchange I doubt many minds would change BUT the temperature could get dialed back down to where it used to be.