The Right to be Right:

The offer:

People who lean towards the “Right,” are perceived as conservative, law-abiding and caring citizens; Citizens who follow the rule of law of both the State and the Bible.

They’re like an exclusive club that anyone can join and find peace and happiness that ultimately we all desire. The appeal to be one of them, as they seduce you with their words of a better world, is beyond the norm. In a world where too often violence and criminality vie for headline space, the longing for peace and stability makes them all the more alluring. They are family-oriented, faithful, God-fearing citizens who strive for better for their family and community members.

The promise:

The men seem hardworking, ambitious individuals who love their wives and children. The wives seem content in their roles as nurturing mothers and No.1 fan of their ambitious husbands. The children play games and seem to have the type of childhood that could compete with a Hollywood bestseller movie.

Crime is dealt with decisively, and swift action is “taken” against the perpetrators.

These people are God-fearing individuals who regularly attend church and can quote verses from the Bible like a child does nursery rhymes.

It’s an idyllic life that is envied by many because it depicts a Utopian life that man strives to attain.

The idealism displayed by the “Right” makes me want to scream like an eager “cheerleader,” “I want in, pick me.” I want to “pack up my bags” and move to a place where there is peace, no racism, no war, no poverty and unemployment and no gender-based violence or discrimination.

Reality sets in:

As I delve deeper into the “Right way of life,” I am faced with hard truths.

I can’t live a life where men make choices about the sanctity of my body; Especially when those choices involve my womb and the choice of whether or not to bear children, even if it means my demise. I could understand if we, as a society, adopted all parentless children or those who are vulnerable due to abuse.

If society looked at children of all races and took care of them and treated them like our own, I could contemplate joining the “Right,” because I could rest assured that no child was “left behind.”

I can’t join because the Bible I read says that God made us in His image and likeness, and nowhere does it say, “God created and only loves white people.” The Bible I read says, “love your neighbour as you love yourself,” not love your neighbour because they are white.

Sadly, even if I believed in the above, the crime that “the Right” focuses on has a Black or Brown face. There are reasons also known as excuses why white people commit a crime, but Black and Brown people are “automatically deemed” bad or guilty even when innocent.

Law and order policing exist “largely” to “keep white people” safe from the “monsters” that look like me, even if they are at the time of being killed, fast asleep in their own homes.

Ironically, they are called “the Right,” as if what they are doing is right.

Criminals such as the late Jeffrey Epstein, a paedophile and sex trafficker, are treated as an “anomaly,” a “one-off.”

Because of this, they can evade the law for years, as too often the victims are silenced by intimidation or discouraged from laying charges. Investigations are “halted” by the unconscious bias of police officers, who fail to believe that white people commit heinous crimes too, or they are intimidated and encouraged to “look the other way.”

Conclusion:

If being “right” means hating Black and Brown people, I choose to be “wrong.”

If being “right” means that children grow up with hate and racism towards people who don’t look like them, I don’t want to be “right.”

I don’t want to be right when Jesus himself was not white, irrespective of how many paintings may portray him in that manner. It’s a lie perpetuated by racists.

The right to be right is open to people who are white and want to occupy all spaces without encountering someone who looks like me, and if, by chance, they do, they want people who look like me to bow down, move out of their path and disappear. They cry oppression whilst oppressing! (The insurrectionists and anti-maskers)

If there’s any chance they open the door to their “right” way of life and invite me in, I would choose the “wrong way; a way that recognizes that we are all beautiful and all deserve to live a life free from racism, violence, oppression and abuse.