The Power of Storytelling to Mainstream Hatred and Fuel a "Grievance Industry"

Temptation of Eve by Pierre Jean van der Ouderaa 1841-1915

Storytelling represents one of the most powerful mediums for transmitting both the truth and the lie. Jesus used parables to illustrate powerful truths about the two great Commandments, love of God and love of neighbor.  But demons are powerful storytellers as well. Look at Satan's success in seducing Eve with his forked tongue and poisonous lies in the garden. 

The picture he painted portrayed her and Adam at the center of beauty and power. Imitating the serpent in his deceit Eve then  expanded the damage by re-telling and amplifying the story to Adam and urging him to follow her in rebellion against God. Instead of protecting her and correcting her error, Adam followed her in grievous sin.

But Adam and Eve were created in perfect integrity. They had no inclination to concupiscence. Their intellects were not blinded by sin. How could Satan pervert with such apparent ease?

The demon storytellers always mix lies with the truth. The truth attracts with its beauty; the poisonous sting lies hidden. Remember, Satan can appear disguised as the "angel of light" he once was spinning his sticky web of sin with a honeyed message filled with destruction for the unwary.

We live today in a world of fantasy and storytelling. How many media outlets, either through malice or lazy ignorance, advance false narratives and stories that further divide us as a nation? Think of all the lies about deliberate police brutality. Michael Brown, the thieving thug who reached into a police officer's car, beat him in the face, and tried to take his gun, who assaulted him in the process was called a "gentle giant" by the biased press. They spread the myth of Brown as a victim with arms raised crying mournfully, "Hands up! Don't shoot." And that "assassination" and black victim myth fostered the violent Black Lives Matter movement which has raked in billions of dollars through their lying myths!

What really happened in Ferguson? Officer Darren Wilson saw Brown shortly after his robbery at the convenience store. Driving slowly in his squad car, he engaged in conversation. At some point Brown cursed at the officer, reached into his squad car and assaulted the officer and engaged in a struggle for his gun which went off. Wilson had called for backup and as the teen walked away he called on Brown to stop. As he got out of his squad car, already injured, the teen turned and charged the officer he'd already beaten and fought with over his service weapon. Darren Wilson had every reason to believe his life was in danger. The shooting was later justified by all the information and the videos coming out about the event.

The lie traveled around the world twice before the truth made it out of Ferguson. The officer was treated at the hospital for serious facial injuries inflicted by Brown including a fractured eye socket. How did Wilson's head injuries impact what later happened? 

The media didn't report Brown's attack on the police officer or the "strong arm robbery" he committed prior to the confrontation. They said he was shot in the back which was untrue. They took the myth and magnified it because the truth didn't fit the narrative of evil white cops targeting poor innocent unarmed blacks motivated by "systemic racism." 

Shelby Steele, a Hoover Institute fellow and the grandson of slaves, studies the history of racism in America. His film What Killed Michael Brown explores the truth about Ferguson. He also writes and speaks extensively about the damage of black victimization and white guilt. You can check out his articles and talks here. 

Steele points out that "racial victimization" has become a "cottage industry." He said this in an interview with Breitbart:

“Black Americans, in the last 60 years since the sixties, we have made our racial victimization our primary source of power,” Steele remarked. “If we are victims of racism, then that gives us a moral leverage in society to ask for all sorts of things, to introduce political correctness here, to have diversity programs there, to have affirmative action, public housing extended, well on and on. We can ask for all sorts of things based on the fact that we’re victims of racism.”

Steele continued, “So [with] an event like Michael Brown, the simple actual truth of what happened is irrelevant. It had the look of racism, and therefore it is something that we seized upon, same with George Floyd and Trayvon Martin and Freddie Gray and any number of other instances like that. We seize on them for the power they render up. … It’s a enough power to have changed American universities, and now we see it having an impact in corporate America, where the institution itself changes to accommodate this idea that blacks are victims.”

Truth lovers need to stop accepting the knee-jerk response to events. Wait for the facts and the evidence and remember that even what you see with your eyes can be a lie. I remember the L.A. riots in 1992 because I was in jail in Buffalo during Operation Rescue's Spring of Life. Every night we were deluged with the video of police tazing King and being portrayed as racists. What the biased media never showed was King, who was high on PCP and looked like a charging bull, attacking the police officers. One more propaganda piece of powerful storytelling to advance the left's agenda. 

Be slow to jump on the media's propaganda bandwagon. Take the time to get the facts! Letting ourselves be manipulated by mainstream myths is an act of stupidity and ignorance. It's time to act like grownups! Look at everything as if it's a legal case. Examine the facts and sort out truth from fiction. You can be sure if the narrative is coming from CNN or MSNBC or the major networks who all operate from the same playbook, that you are literally "being played." Stop it!