It’s hard to be a do-gooder. Yes, it’s hard to be a freedom fighter, a freedom writer or a freedom rider!
More often than not, it can be difficult, dangerous and somewhat taxing to stand up, speak out and act in a righteous manner.
From the very beginning of civilized times, someone somewhere has risked everything they had and everything they may have gotten by choosing to do what they should do.
If you have read The Gantt Report columns for any length of time you are fully aware that I believe that all of my heroes have been imprisoned, locked up at some time and jailed for unjust reasons.
I write about that fact at least two or three times a year.
But guess what? Incarceration is not the only thing that happens to men and women that work hard to achieve, equal rights, justice and progress.
The do-gooders in your city, state, nation or country are also persecuted!
Do-gooders are talked about, scorned, shunned, stalked, whipped, hung, beaten, shot, stabbed, fired and even nailed to real and proverbial crosses!
Sometimes people that try to do right, do what is best and do what they should be doing lose a lot when they are facing persecution.
The Bible says a good man named Job faced persecution from Satan. Early in his life, his hard work and steadfast belief, resulted in him getting a good wife, a good family, a good business and a good life.
But Satan changed all of that, Job lost everything, yes everything, he had but he kept his faith. In Job’s later years, God blessed Job with far more than he had in the beginning and Job died a very wealthy and happy man.
Today, it doesn’t take much at all from modern day devils to get your family members , coworkers, classmates, teammates, sorors, fraternity brothers, Masonic brothers, church members and others to snitch on you, turn on you or flip on you like Simone Biles at the drop of a hat!
Men and women that want to do right have to take the right road in the right way. They have to take the correct actions and also have the right attitudes.
Let me explain.
If daddy tells a child to put down the video game get started on their homework assignments. The child may put down the game but if he shrugs his shoulders or says a mumbling word, he still might get popped in the head. If mama says to her daughter put that telephone down and go to bed, if she rolls her eyes, she might get slapped in the face. If you’ve been naughty and grandma tells you to go outside and get her a switch, if you come back with the wrong length or wrong sized switch, she will go get one herself a whip you much longer and harder than she originally planned to!
Even in adulthood, when we do the right things, we still have to do those things with the right attitudes and the right purpose.
The thing about persecution is we all will be persecuted in some way if we live long enough.
You can just be watching the march or the protest but you still might be arrested. You might just be riding in the speeding car and still get shot by the bad cop pursuing the vehicle. You might suck up to, bow down to or do everything a wicked boss or supervisor tells you to do and still get demoted or fired just because of your skin color, religious preference or personal sexual preferences.
African Americans aren’t always victimized because they are young, playing rap music, smoking a blunt or wearing clothing that the devil doesn’t like, many Black men and women are pulled over by police, profiled, refused employment, denied health care, denied justice, face discrimination and experience persecution merely because they are Black!
Well, I’m a God fearing man like Job was. The modern day devil doesn’t scare me. The wicked beast is afraid of me!
I ‘m ready for persecution and I’m ready for revolution if that is what it will take to make a better nation and world.
You should be ready too! (Buy Gantt’s latest book, “Beast Too: Dead Man Writing” onAmazon.com and from bookstores everywhere. Contact Lucius at www.allworldconsultants.net. And, if you want to,“Like” The Gantt Report page on Facebook.)
Lucius is a contributing columnist to NNPA newspapers around the nation, and the author of “Beast Too: Dead Man Writing,” available on Amazon.com and from bookstores everywhere.