In 1968, Daryl Davis was 10 years old. He carried the American flag in a parade as a part of his Cub Scout troop in Massachusetts. As he was walking, he realized he was getting hit with rocks and pop cans. The adults in the troop came around Daryl and protected him from the things being thrown at him.
As his parents were cleaning him up, he told his parents about the days’ events. As they heard the story, his parents realized they needed to talk to Daryl about racism. Daryl is African American and he was one of two black kids in the troop. The parade was lined with an all-white crowd. As his parents explained what racism was all about, he wondered: how could someone hate me when they don’t know me? It was a question that remained in his head for decades. Over time, he became a musician and had a white man who was impressed with his playing the keyboards. They sat down for drinks and the man was amazed he was talking to Daryl. Daryl wondered why. The man replied that he was a klansman, so the two of them talking and having a drink seemed odd.
That got Daryl thinking. He started to strike up relationships with known klansman. He went to Klan rallies and invited klansmen to his concerts and to his home to meet his diverse friends. In one case, he had a friendship with the Imperial Dragon, the head klansman of the US named Roger Kelly. In a CNN interview, Kelly was glad for the relationship, but he believed his views were cemented. Except they weren’t. Over time, their relationship changed Kelly so much that he left the Klan and gave his Klan outfit to Daryl. Daryl has created friendships with klansmen over and they have been changed, not by being shamed, but simply by having a relationship with an African American man.
The book of Jonah is probably the only book in the Bible that reads like something out of the Simpsons. In its heyday in the 90s, what made the Simpson great was their willingness to talk about social issues by using comedy and if Jonah is anything, it is a comedy. Jonah is a prophet and prophets call the people to repentance. That means they tell people things they don’t want to hear. Jonah was called by God to call the people to repentance, which was as usual. But then God lowers the boom. God wants Jonah to preach repentance, not to his own people, the Israelites, but to the people of Nineveh. Nineveh was the capital of the hated Assyrian Empire, so they were enemies to the Israelites. Jonah didn’t want to preach repentance to those people. That would be like, I don’t know, a black man talking to a Klan leader.