Equality

In Raymond Arsenault’s biography of John Lewis, he recounts Lewis’s mentors and their shared vision of “the Beloved Community.” Howard Thurman, Martin Luther King Jr., and John Lewis often spoke of “the Beloved Community,” which was “a philosophical theory and a call to service.”

At the successful conclusion of the yearlong boycott in December 1956, King quoted the Book of Matthew and urged the boycotters to “inject a new dimension of love into the veins of our civilization.” “Love your enemies,” he recited, “bless them that curse you, pray for them who despitefully use you, that you may be the children of your Father which is in Heaven.” “We must remember,” King continued, “… that a boycott is not an end within itself; it is merely a means to awaken a sense of shame within the oppressor and challenge his false sense of superiority. But the end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the beloved community.”

Placing the goals of nonviolent direct action on such a high moral plane could be inspiring, drawing Lewis and many people of faith into the movement. But as the historian Mills Thornton has noted, King’s frequent allusions to the “beloved community” as a reachable promised land sometimes had the opposite effect, prompting more practical listeners to “dismiss it as a pipe dream.”

A popular pizza chain known for its snarky ad campaigns has been forced to apologize after a sustained public outcry over its latest special. In early October, D.C.-based &Pizza (pronounced “And Pizza”) announced the addition of “Marion Berry Knots” to its dessert menu, referencing the late former mayor of the District of Columbia Marion Barry. The ads for the new product made extensive references to Barry’s drug use and public drug arrests (“so good, it’s almost a felony”).

Marion Barry was arrested in a drug sting in 1990 and was eventually convicted of a misdemeanor drug charge. After six months in prison, Barry was elected to the city council in 1992, and re-elected mayor in 1994. Despite his death in 2014, the memory of Barry, the district’s first African American mayor, still looms large over residents of Washington, a city with a sizable African American population.

The local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), called the ad campaign “inflammatory, and culturally-insensitive,” calling for its removal. The organization also challenged &Pizza to donate to organizations doing substance abuse prevention as a way to rectify the wrong.

“Candidly, we made a mistake," said &pizza CEO Mike Burns in a statement. “And for that, we sincerely apologize.”

Legal representatives for Barry’s widow Cora Masters Barry and the Barry estate called the apology insufficient, issuing a cease-and-desist notice request that &Pizza refrain from profiting from Barry’s name, image, or likeness.

D.C. restaurant owner Peyton Sherwood said:

Barry’s life was about opportunity, dignity, and equality for everyone in Washington, D.C. To reduce that legacy to a crass ad about his darkest moments is not only offensive it’s cruel. It disregards the immense good Barry did for this city and the battles he fought on behalf of all its people.

Possible Preaching Angle:

A person is more than their failures. Every person is a mixture of good and bad, failures, and successes. We should always look to remove anything in our own eye before we try to remove the speck in other’s eyes (Matt. 7:1-5), even if done in jest.

According to Alyssa Mercante at video game site Kotaku, many gamers today lament what they perceive to be woke culture running amok. According to them, the multiethnic casting of central characters must be a result of diversity consultants forcing racial quotas on otherwise uninterested creators. If not for these overly aggressive interlopers, goes the thinking, the characters would hew more closely to their established norm (which just happens to be mostly male and/or white).

This is especially the case with Sweet Baby, Inc., a creative firm that works with game studios like Remedy Entertainment, publisher of titles like Control, Quantum Break, and Alan Wake 2. Mercante says that there’s a group on Steam, the main PC-gaming marketplace, with 100,000 members, dedicated to detecting which games that Sweet Baby has consulted on. Many such gamers think that Sweet Baby’s influence led to Remedy casting a black actress in one of protagonist roles.

“It’s absolutely not true,” said Kyle Rowley, Remedy game director for Alan Wake 2, when asked on X whether Sweet Baby mandated the casting. And when Mercante spoke to people at both Remedy and Sweet Baby, she found the opposite to be true.

Kim Belair, CEO of Sweet Baby, Inc., said, “Sweet Baby is, at its core, a narrative development company. That means anything from script writing to narrative design to narrative direction, to story reviews. One of the things that we do offer is cultural consultations or authenticity consultations … but the perspective is never that we’re coming in and injecting diversity. For the most part, it’s the reverse. It’s that a company has created a character, and they want to make that character more representative and more interesting.”

Sweet Baby co-founder David Bedard insists that the diversity of representation in video games is a byproduct of developers wanting to make the game better for all players. Blair said, “We are not censors. We have no interest in false diversity or in tokenization. We have an interest in making stories better, and making characters more interesting, and in developing a stronger language around narrative design…Those are the things that we are really passionate about.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

You don’t have to be politically liberal or woke or whatever to consider the needs of others as more important than your own. That’s the kind of life that Jesus modeled and that the Apostle Paul wrote about.

The Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, a pastor in Birmingham, Ala., in the 1950s, was called by the historian Andrew Manis “one of the least known but most impactful figures in the civil rights movement.” He was, by his own estimate, arrested in peaceful protests some 30 to 40 times. His house was bombed with his whole family inside one Christmas Eve. His church was subjected to three different bombing attempts

On September 9, 1957, President Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Act and lawyers sought injunctive relief to force Arkansas to integrate Central High in Little Rock. On that very day, Shuttlesworth organized the integration of Phillips High School in Birmingham, driving his own two children to the school to enroll them.

He was met by a white mob that beat him with baseball bats, chains, and brass knuckles. As he was beginning to lose consciousness, Shuttlesworth recounts that “something” said to him: “You can’t die here. Get up. I have a job for you to do.” In the hospital later that day, a reporter asked Shuttlesworth what he was working for in Birmingham. He responded: “For the day when the man who beat me and my family with chains at Phillips High School can sit down with us as a friend.”

In April 2023, a delegation of Black legislators echoed calls from the local NAACP chapter for the resignation of Martin D. Brown over remarks he made at a training session.

Brown, an African American Republican, was appointed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin as the state’s chief diversity officer. At a mandatory training on April 21st, he proclaimed that “DEI is dead,” referring to the common abbreviation for diversity, equity, and inclusion. Pursuing equity, according to Brown, means “you’re not pursuing merit or excellence or achievement.”

Virginia Senator Lamont Bagby (D-Richmond) called the remarks “appalling,” and said that all 19 members of Virginia Legislative Black Caucus are calling for him to step down from his position as director of the state’s office of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Lawmakers say the remarks were especially infuriating because they were made at the Virginia Military Institute, the nation’s oldest military college. In 2021, a state-mandated investigation revealed “a racist and sexist culture” at the institution, and in early June, the college’s first chief diversity officer Jamaica Love resigned from her post.

Some people think that the claim that human equality comes from Jesus is just biased. But when the British historian Tom Holland set out to write his book, Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World, he was not a Christian. He'd always been far more attracted by the Greek and Roman gods than by the crucified hero of Christianity. But through years of research, he concluded that he, agnostic as he was, held many specifically Christian beliefs. For example, his belief in universal human equality and the need to care for the poor and oppressed.

Holland writes:

That every human being possessed an equal dignity was not remotely a self-evident truth. A Roman would have laughed at it. To campaign against discrimination on the grounds of gender or sexuality, however, was to depend on large numbers of people sharing in a common assumption: that everyone possessed an inherent worth. The origins of this principle—as the philosopher Frederick Nietzsche had contemptuously pointed out—lay not in the French Revolution, nor in the Declaration of Independence, nor in the Enlightenment, but in the Bible.

Top athletes around the region convened in early February for the Cascade Classic, the Northwest Goalball Regional Tournament. If you’ve never seen the sport of goalball in action, you’re not alone. Most of its participants haven’t seen it, either. The Cascade Classic is held at the Washington State School for the Blind.

Eliana Mason, a two-time Paralympic goalball medalist said, “We always say goalball is the coolest sport you’ve never heard of. It’s for blind athletes, but you really have to see it for it to make sense.”

Goalball was invented by occupational therapists working with World War II vets who’d lost their sight in the war. It’s three-on-three, played on a volleyball-sized court, and the object is to roll a basketball-sized ball into an opponent’s goal. And everything about the experience is tailored to the needs of visually impaired people.

All participants wear black-out goggles, so everyone is equally sightless. The lines on the court are raised, making it possible for players to orient themselves. The ball itself has bells inside of it, so players can hear it as it moves around. And spectators are asked to maintain silence, to assist the players in their auditory navigation.

Tournament director Jen Armbruster said, “Instead of hand-eye coordination, it’s hand-ear coordination. Ambruster founded the tournament in 2010 at Portland State University. She said, “My big thing is just getting folks involved in physical activity, competitive or recreation. A lot of times, especially on the visually impaired and blind side, so many of them get pulled out of P.E. They don’t know the adaptations that are out there.”

Mason tried goalball and was never the same. “Jen took us to Florida for a youth tournament, and I fell in love with the sport after I got to compete and just be in the community. For the first time in my life, I didn’t feel like I had to compensate or work through a barrier. I could just be me.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

1) God is pleased when we make accommodations to include all the body of Christ in our activities. “We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. (Rom. 15:1); 2) We should all become experts at being silent and listening to hear God’s voice.

When it comes to countering negative messages about women from social media influencers like former kickboxer Andrew Tate, young men are tapping into underutilized resource--each other.

In an interview with CNN, Ted Bunch affirms that relational conversations are key elements that help neutralize harmful messages linking masculinity with violence. Bunch is the founder of the anti-violence organization A Call to Men.

Bunch says, “(Misogyny) teaches men that aggression, violence, and the domination of others is somehow embedded in their DNA. It’s not. ... Part of the problem is, these men don’t listen to or respect the experiences of women. But they listen to each other. If men speak up, other men will respond to that.”

Bunch also acknowledges that positive messages from influential male celebrities also helps make a difference, citing helpful comments and campaigns from actors Benedict Cumberbatch (equal pay for women) and Justin Baldoni (healthy fatherhood).

“There are more and more men doing this, because men are realizing this way of thinking doesn’t work for us,” Bunch says. “It doesn’t feel good.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

As Christians we are called to treat each other with respect and kindness. When men in our community fall short of that standard, we can help call them to a higher standard.

Football scout Chris Prescott was let go from his scouting position for the Chicago Bears after a quote from one of his media appearances went viral. "He’s a – what would we call it? – Ph.D.? Poor, hungry and desperate. Football is his life. This is this kid’s life. There’s a lot to like about that when you see a guy who’s so passionate about football.”

Prescott was referring to Bears draft pick Jaquan Brisker, a defensive back out of Penn State. Prescott meant it as a compliment, saying afterwards, "it’s how he communicates … you feel a tough, hard-nosed kid."

After his words were quoted on Twitter, an outcry of criticism welled up from people who felt that Prescott’s words were unnecessarily insensitive, bordering on dehumanizing. Mike Freeman of USA Today said, “If Prescott talks about players like this publicly, imagine what he says when out of view.” Freeman, who is African American, says that Prescott and other white NFL staffers and media members often communicate in ways that unintentionally devalue the humanity NFL football players, most of whom are Black.

Freeman said, “There's still a significant swath of the league that sees players as cattle, or worse, as things. What I'm about to say isn't specifically about Prescott. It's more of a general statement. Parts of the NFL see players as things that may have some elements of humanity, but not quite; somewhere between a robot and a shell of a man.”

Many current and former NFL players agree. Seattle Seahawks receiver Doug Baldwin says there are times when he feels like “a zoo animal”:

I don’t know how to put this, but to some people, the NFL is basically modern-day slavery. Don’t get me wrong, we get paid a lot of money. There’s a sense of “shut up and play,” that this is entertainment for other people. Then, when we go out in public, we’re like zoo animals. We’re not human beings. I can’t go to the grocery store and just buy groceries like a normal person. It becomes an issue, a burden and so . . . I haven’t checked my mail in a while.

Possible Preaching Angle:

When we recognize the inherent dignity in everyone, we show them the respect that God intends for everyone.

99-year-old Osceola "Ozzie" Fletcher finally received his Purple Heart. It was awarded in a ceremony at the Fort Hamilton Army base in June of 2021 for wounds he suffered in the Battle of Normandy in 1944. Army officials said that Fletcher was “overlooked” for the medal previously because of racial inequalities. Fletcher said that he was “exhilarated,” when he received the award.

The allied invasion of Normandy, France, also known as D-Day, began on June 6, 1944 and lasted until August. The operation led to the successful invasion of German-occupied Western Europe, and marked the beginning of the end of the European theater in World War II.

According to The New York Post, Fletcher was a 22-year-old private with the 254th Port Battalion during the military operation. He was working as a crane operator when he was hit by a German missile that left him with leg injuries and a head gash, causing a permanent scar.

Gen. James McConville said during the ceremony, “He has spent his entire life giving to those around him whether they were brothers in arms, families, or his community. Well, today it’s Ozzie’s turn to receive.”

The Army conducted a fact-finding mission regarding Fletcher’s overlooked medal and found that he deserved the award after his daughter, Jacqueline Streets, contacted the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Streets said,

My father has a gash in his head that we can still see. And obviously he was doing the job of an American soldier. I do believe he was overlooked. We’re finally looking at all of our soldiers in the same way, America is trying to shift its thinking about culture and about race and I appreciate that. I think we’re acknowledging things that happened in the past and trying to correct them moving forward.

Possible Preaching Angle:

1) Race; Race Relations – Every person who serves their country deserves to be honored, regardless of race or ethnicity (Acts 10:34-35, Rom. 10:12); 2) Reward; Service, reward for - God will never overlook any Christian for the service they have offered to him (Heb. 6:10).

The National Football League has been embroiled in lawsuits for nearly a decade from former players alleging that the league knew that its sport resulted in brain damage but failed to take appropriate action. In response, the NFL has pledged nearly one billion dollars as part of a class-action settlement for former players who’ve experienced brain damage playing pro football.

But there’s a wrinkle in the way individual brain injury claims have been adjudicated, and many former players and/or their families are claiming it results in unfair racial bias. When assessing players’ current capacity for cognitive function, doctors tend to apply a process that neuro­psychologists refer to as “African-American normative corrections.” This is more broadly known as “race-norming.” When these corrections are enacted, many players’ claims are denied on the basis that their lack of cognitive functioning is closer to the baseline readings of African-American players without brain damage. The unstated conclusion is that African-Americans are not as smart as White people.

In June of 2021, the NFL pledged to do away with race-norming as part of its settlement methodology, but plenty of former players and their families say they were unfairly cheated out of settlement money they deserved. Lawyers for those families claim that race-norming is “discriminatory on its face” and that it makes “it harder for Blacks to qualify for the settlement than whites.”

Chris Seeger, the lead attorney for the class of approximately 20,000 former players eligible for money under the settlement, apologized for not picking up on the practice sooner. He said:

I am sorry for the pain this has caused Black former players and their families. While we had fought back against the NFL’s efforts to mandate the use of “race norms,” we failed to appreciate the frequency in which some neuropsychologists were inappropriately applying these adjustments. Ultimately, this settlement only works if former players believe in it, and my goal is to regain their trust and ensure the NFL is fully held to account.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Every human being is made in God's image and deserves dignity and respect. When we fail to offer that, we are liable to succumb to the soft bigotry of low expectations.

For most homeowners in a hot housing market, the value of their property tends to rise dramatically. But not for Carlette Duffy. Her home seemed not to rise in value much at all, and Duffy couldn’t find a satisfactory explanation--that is, until the answer was too obvious to ignore.

Duffy was looking to borrow against its equity when she got an appraisal for her home. She was surprised when the appraised amount was $125,000, which seemed low compared to the findings she’d seen anecdotally from other friends and family. So, she had another appraisal done, and the second came out at just $110,000, just ten thousand more than when she’d bought the place four years prior.

Nagged by her suspicions that the lowball offers were because she was African-American, Duffy again got a third appraisal. But this time, she took pains not to reveal her racial identity, by corresponding via email, and asking a friend’s white husband to stand in during the appraiser’s visit to the home. That appraisal came back at $259,000--more than double the original amount.

The rep who conducted the second appraisal claimed that his work was driven by relevant data. But according to Andre Perry, a researcher who studies housing discrimination, that explanation fails to account for the history of institutional racism in real estate.

Perry said, "It's almost when people see Black neighborhoods, they see twice as much crime than there actually is. They see worse education than there actually is. I think this is what's happening when appraisers, lenders, real estate agents see Blackness. They devalue the asset. They devalue the property."

Duffy has since teamed up with the Fair Housing Center of Central Indiana to file a complaint with the US Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Possible Preaching Angle:

We dishonor the image of God when we are unwilling to treat people of other racial groups equally. We are all God's creative masterpieces, and we should be treated as such.

A legacy sometimes ends up obscuring achievements. Jackie Robinson may have been fearful of this happening to his legacy when he was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962. At that time, Robinson requested that his induction plaque focus exclusively on his statistics and record as a baseball player. He did not want it to make any mention of his role as a historic “first” in Major League Baseball, as the first Black player to cross the league’s color line and begin desegregating the game.

Robinson was right that his legacy is worth celebrating: career batting average of .311, in the top 20 of his era, and six championships in 10 seasons, which still stands as the National League’s record. If he had been anything other than a trailblazer, he’d still be remembered for his impressive talents.

However, in 2008, Hall of Fame President Jeff Idelson announced the decision to update the plaque and include information regarding Robinson’s status as a man who helped change sports and society. He said that Robinson’s “impact is not fully defined without mention of his extreme courage in breaking baseball’s color barrier. The time is right to recognize his contribution to history, not only as a Hall of Fame player, but also as a civil rights pioneer.”

Gretchen Sorin, director of the Cooperstown Graduate Program said, “This is a country that loves to ignore its history of discrimination. People say to me, ‘I had no idea,’ about discrimination that took place, even within their lifetimes.”

Jackie Robinson’s career stands as one of the most powerful testimonials to that history, and something would be amiss if his Hall of Fame citation ignored the racism he faced. Still, the story behind the plaque reveals a more private struggle of Robinson’s: to be seen as a man and not just a message. His current plaque reads a little differently once you know that Robinson never wanted it that way.

In August, the world lost an iconic figure of film and stage. Chadwick Boseman, best known as king T’Challa from Marvel’s Black Panther, died from complications of colon cancer at 43. Because of his quiet and generous nature and the privacy with which he battled his sickness, Boseman’s death reverberated not only across the entertainment community, but throughout the world.

As the tributes continued to roll in from a variety of high-profile Hollywood figures, actor Sienna Miller added her own to the mix. Miller co-starred with Boseman in the action-thriller 21 Bridges, but she says she only ended up in the film because of his generosity.

Miller said, "So, he approached me to do it and it was at a time when I really didn't want to work anymore. I'd been working non-stop and I was exhausted … but I wanted to work with him." She added that she would only do the film “if I were compensated in the right way.” After contacting the studio, however, they balked at the number she had in mind. Apparently, they didn’t think she was worth that much. But Boseman used his leverage to ensure her participation, donating a portion of his salary to ensure she could receive fair pay.

The move surprised Miller greatly.

That kind of thing just doesn't happen. He said, “You're getting paid what you deserve, and what you're worth.” … In the aftermath of this I've told other male actor friends of mine that story and they all go very, very quiet and go home and probably have to sit and think about things for a while.

Possible Preaching Angle:

As Christians, we are instructed to go out of our way to show generosity and respect, especially to those with less power or privilege. This is the way that we stand apart from the crowd.

In spite of our polarized politics, it seems that there has long been bipartisan respect for Abraham Lincoln. Theodore Roosevelt (R) kept a portrait of Lincoln behind his desk and would turn to it in contemplation during difficult times. Franklin Roosevelt (D) made regular trips to the Lincoln Memorial and once wrote to a friend, “I think it is time for us Democrats to claim Lincoln as one of our own.” Both Ronald Reagan (R) and John McCain (R), accepted their party’s nomination for the presidency highlighting their allegiance to “The Party of Lincoln.” And Barack Obama (D) cited Lincoln in his 2008 victory speech, taking his oath of office on the same Bible Lincoln used.

But to claim Lincoln, one must follow his example. In a recent issue of The National Review, Cameron Hilditch offers this advice to those who wish to practice the politics of Lincoln:

To recover it, all we need to do is think seriously, deeply, and regularly about the fact that none of us are, in any intrinsic or objective way, better than the people whose politics we loathe. If you’re interested in practicing the politics of Lincoln, try to bring to mind the person in public life whose views you find the most appalling, and meditate long and hard on the fact that they are your … equal. Our sixteenth president was quite adept at this. On the night that Robert E. Lee surrendered, Lincoln, after four years of being cursed, warred against, and burned in effigy by the soldiers of the South, turned to the White House band and asked them to play “Dixie.”

Sarah Friedmann writes in “Trailblazers”:

In 1957, my parents moved into Levittown, Pennsylvania. It was a brand-new suburban community and these homes were finally at a price that Army veterans could afford. That August, another family moved into Levittown. The father, Bill Myers, had served in the US Army. The mom, Daisy Myers had a bachelor’s degree. And the Myers family, like my family, was growing: they had three young children, and we had two.

When my family moved in, we were greeted by a smiling member of the local Welcome Wagon. When the Myers family moved in, they got a different greeting.

The local newspaper reported: … Small groups of agitated Levittowners are already gathering in front of the Myers home. By midnight, more than 200 shouting men, women and children cluster on the Myers’ front lawn. A group of teens throw rocks through the Myers’ front picture window, and 15 police officers are dispatched to the scene. … Now, with the violence increasing, the sheriff wires the Pennsylvania State Police asking for immediate assistance. His request states, “... the citizens of Levittown are out of control.”

What do we learn from this tale of two families? We learn there are two kinds of racism. The first kind is “personal racism,” like we see in the 200 people who mobbed the Myers’ front lawn. But there is also a second kind of racism, “structural racism.” The kind of legal and financial structures that make sure whites like the Millers get a loan and a home and make sure blacks like the Myers, don’t.

The Levitt Organization had already sold over 15,000 homes in Levittown: and every single one went to a white family. Bill and Daisy Myers bought their home directly from an existing owner, so they were not screened out by the Levitt Organization. But they also had to get around the structural practices of our federal government. The FHA and VA “only subsidized post-war housing, like Levittowns, on the condition that the homes weren’t sold to African Americans.”

It's bizarre that I was raised in a planned community that was carefully designed from its beginning to be all-white, to keep out persons of color. But here’s what’s even more bizarre: We ALL live in Levittown. Every single one of us who lives in America is living in a culture that from its beginning was created for the benefit of white people and for the exclusion of non-white people.

Malone Mukwende was a student at St. George’s Medical School at the University of London. But in his studies, he noticed the lack of representation in clinical teaching materials. Malone said, “We were often taught to look for symptoms, such as rashes, in a way that I knew wouldn't appear on my own skin.”

In response, he wrote his handbook, specifically designed to show doctors how to recognize certain conditions in people with darker skin. It has side-by-side photo comparisons as well as suggestions regarding diagnostic language for “people of color.”

In an interview with British Medical Journal, Mukwende elaborated on what prompted his effort:

The booklet addresses many issues such as families being asked if patients are “pale” or if their lips “turned blue.” These are not useful descriptors for a black patient and, as a result, their care is compromised from the first point of contact … It is essential we begin to educate others so they are aware of such differences and the power of the clinical language we currently use.

Possible Preaching Angle:

We should increase our knowledge to be able to serve all of God's people. If there is something preventing us from understanding the needs of our neighbors, we ought to make every effort to increase our understanding so that no one is excluded from God's blessing.

A tattoo parlor in Kentucky is using ink to unite communities across the country by offering free appointments to anyone who wants to cover up their hate or gang symbol tattoos. Tattoo artists Jeremiah Swift and Ryun King said they decided to offer this service as a way to take a stance amid the protests calling for an end to racial injustice.

King told CNN, “It's definitely a long overdue change. Having anything hate related is completely unacceptable. A lot of people when they were younger just didn't know any better and were left with mistakes on their bodies. We just want to make sure everybody has a chance to change.”

King's first client was Jennifer Tucker, a 36-year-old mother of two who wanted to cover up a small Confederate flag she got tattooed on her ankle when she was 18 years old. Tucker said, “I went to a school where there wasn't a single black person. ... Everyone in my school flew rebel flags and had rebel flag tattoos and I bandwagoned and got the tattoo. It was a horrible thing to do.”

After high school, Tucker became involved in various solidarity movements and peaceful protests aimed at uniting the community and fighting racial injustice against black people. A friend of Tucker's sent her the tattoo shop's Facebook post offering the free coverups, and she immediately messaged the shop asking for an appointment.

On Tuesday, after nearly 20 years of “looking down at the tattoo regretting it,” King covered up the flag with a character from the cartoon Rick and Morty. “It feels so amazing, it's life changing. I knew I had to do it, to be an example for other people who were in the same position. There's not a whole lot I can do, but this is something I can do to spread love, not hate.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

The fresh start that God offers not only changes our outward appearance but goes to the heart of our need by creating a new person within. We are then able to show love and respect to others instead of racism and hate.

The first time you park your car in the vast, cold cavern of the underground garage and step onto the [hospital] elevator, you may feel alien and forsaken. Perhaps you’ll feel that you have been singled out unfairly, plucked from your healthy life and cast into this cruel ordeal [of cancer].

Walking through the lobby with a manila envelope of X-rays under your arm and a folder of lab reports and notes from your previous doctor, you’ll sense the deep tremor of your animal fear, a barely audible uneasiness trickling up from somewhere inside you.

But there is good news, too. As you pass one hallway after another, looking for elevator B, you’ll see that this place is full of people—riding the escalators, reading books and magazines, checking their phones near the coffeepots. And it will dawn on you that most of these people have cancer. In fact, it seems as if the whole world has cancer. With relief and dismay you’ll realize, I’m not special. Everybody here has cancer. The withered old Jewish lefty newspaper editor. The Latino landscape contractor with the stone-roughened hands. The tough lesbian with the bleached-blond crew cut and the black leather jacket. And you will be cushioned and bolstered by the sheer number and variety of your fellows.

This strange country of cancer, it turns out, is the true democracy—one more real than the nation that lies outside these walls and more authentic than the lofty statements of politicians; a democracy more incontrovertible than platitudes or aspiration.

After racial slurs were scrawled outside black students' doors at the US Air Force Academy's preparatory school, Superintendent Lt. Gen. Jay Silveria gathered all 4,000 cadets in a hall. Speaking to a crowd of some 5,500 people that included faculty, coaches, airstrip personnel, and senior officers and staff of the 10th Air Base Wing that includes the academy, Silveria urged them to share his sense of outrage. "This kind of behavior has no place at the prep school," he said, "it has no place at USAFA, and it has no place in the United States Air Force. You should be outraged not only as an airman, but as a human being."

While acknowledging that the academy isn't a perfect institution, Silveria said it would be naive and unjust not to speak about racism. Toward the end of his address, Silveria said:

Just in case you're unclear on where I stand on this topic, I'm going to leave you my most important thought today: If you can't treat someone with dignity and respect, then you need to get out. If you can't treat someone from another gender, whether that's a man or a woman, with dignity and respect, then you need to get out. If you demean someone in any way, then you need to get out. And if you can't treat someone from another race, or different color skin, with dignity and respect, then you need to get out.

To make sure his message was received, Silveria told cadets to get out their phones and record it. Citing the need for the group to have moral courage and protect their institution's values, he then repeated his message: "If you can't treat someone with dignity and respect, then get out."

Editor's Note: A follow up story in the Washington Post was headlined "A black student wrote those racist messages that shook the Air Force Academy, school says." After the additional facts came out Lt. Gen. Jay Silveria said, "Regardless of the circumstances under which those words were written, they were written, and that deserved to be addressed," Silveria told the Colorado Springs Gazette in a Tuesday email. "You can never over-emphasize the need for a culture of dignity and respect—and those who don't understand those concepts aren't welcome here."

Possible Preaching Angles: 1) In the same way, God expresses his outrage and wrath towards everything that bends or twists or distorts his good and holy creation. 2) Racism also has no place in the church where we accept each other as equals in Christ.