Blue-Colored Glasses

We’ve all seen this. We, as a nation, have been here before.

You notice a Twitter post or a news headline about a man being killed by police. The testimony is that he was made to crawl like a dog and that he was unarmed. Or perhaps the testimony was that his hands were in the air. Or maybe he was already detained and the police were still choking him. Of course, many will want to see video footage and rightfully so. Not every account of police brutality is true.

And then, thankfully, some bodycam or iPhone footage is released. As it turns out, it does seem like the account we heard about. But the released footage doesn’t show everything. Maybe not even the shooting itself. We need more.

Maybe we should give the esteemed professionals even more benefits of a doubt. Maybe there’s a longer video that tells the whole story. Maybe something happened to justify the shooting. Maybe some act justified keeping a knee on his throat. Maybe something happened just off-camera to cause the police to “fear for their lives.” Maybe the iPhone video is cleverly edited.

So perhaps other videos may be released. Perhaps a longer bodycam video is released that shows the death and the entire incident. All the videos and all the testimonies confirm what most of us already know. The shooting was unjustified. The killing was not justified. It was murder, by any Biblical and just definition. By any rational standard.

This should be a closed case. This should be easy. But then something very peculiar happens. Although we have multiple eyewitness testimonies, and although we have video evidence, not just a few, many, will “stand with the blue” and support the police who committed this murder. There will assuredly be talking about not having “the full story.” There will be talk about “not having all the facts.” There will certainly be talk about how the victim wasn’t a good man with a good reputation. Someone will go digging around the internet to find a screencap of something bad he said on Facebook. Perhaps the victim was a criminal or had a record and this will be paraded about as if a police record justifies being executed.

To be sure, the topic of police brutality is a controversial one, but I believe that most should be able to recognize the blindness that some have regarding even the clearest cases of injustice. Certainly, many unclear cases can result in much debate, but the clear cases are, well, clear. What is going on? How can so many watch a video and not see what everyone else sees? How can so much evidence be ignored? How can reality be twisted so blatantly?

The reason is simple. These police apologists wear blue-colored glasses in which a man with a badge can do no wrong. They have already made up their mind. When faced with contrary evidence, these otherwise rational individuals will twist facts and give an endless line of excuses. They esteem a certain class of men to the point they are unable to see any wrong in them, even when the evidence is hard and numerous. They presuppose that their highly-esteemed government official is above reproach and all narratives must fit that presupposition. When offered evidence to the contrary, they will only ask for more evidence. Nothing is conclusive that doesn’t match the presupposition.

This is a result of sin. This type of scenario is rather common, yet, tens of thousands will demand required bodycams for police. Bodycams won’t completely fix this, and this phenomenon is not at all restricted to the reality of police brutality. The “fix” is seen as simply having more available evidence. But we have the evidence. We do not have merely “two or three” witnesses. We often have much more.

Wherever there are fanboys, sycophants, and man worshipers, there will be a stubborn denial of facts. Evidence be damned. This is nothing short of idolatry. Truth, which belongs to God, is sacrificed on the altar of prejudice and partiality. Whenever you esteem certain men, institutions, or ideas to the point that you are unable to see any error when that error is presented, you have created an idol. You’ve been blinded. 

No matter what is done or said, such people run the evidence through a filter that forces it into the desired narrative. The standard of evidence is an ever-moving goal post, never reaching the conclusion that isn’t desired. The demand for more evidence, more context, more witnesses, and so on do not end. I cannot emphasize enough that this is a sin problem. We can spend countless hours and hundreds of thousands of words debating police policy or whether or not there should even be public police institutions, but when the clearest cases of police brutality and outright murder are still justified, we’ve moved beyond theory and into sinful idolatry.

This is the same dynamic when someone esteemed is quoted in such a way that makes them look bad. 

*someone writes something blatantly and obviously racist*

“Well, have you looked at the context?”

*posts paragraph. Still racist.*

“Well, have you read the entire book? You know, for context?”

*Reads entire book and posts PDF. Still racist.*

“Well, that book was part of a series. You have to read the series for the context.”

*You have read more of this author than the fanboy. Still racist.*

“Honestly, you should read everything he has written to really understand the context.”

And on and on and on...

Are you more concerned about an agenda than facts? Are your loyalties to a man-made institution or to biblically-prescribed justice? If you care at all about justice and order, even if you have a “thin blue line” American flag decal on your truck, you may need to repent and take off those blue-colored glasses.

Whether your partiality is towards police institutions, politicians, Christian celebrities, people who look like you, or against people who don’t look like you, it is all condemned before God. Ultimately impartiality is more than about how we view police, but how we view truth.

We all come to different situations with our own unique set of presuppositions and prejudices. For many, the prejudice is in favor of institutions of power (like the police). For others, the prejudice is against racial minorities. And yes, for some of us our prejudices are against institutions like law enforcement. Whatever our predisposition or prejudice, we are called to impartiality and truth; not abiding by the tribal choice or whatever narrative suits our politics. Blue-colored glasses is a sin or partiality and idolatry, but it is not the only shade of sinful glasses. Whether it is blue-colored glasses, rose-colored glasses, Republican-colored glasses, Democrat-colored glasses, or [insert favorite theologian]-colored glasses, it’s time we take these glasses off as best we can. For starters, it’s time to acknowledge that we’re wearing them.