Here's Why Even Black Americans Should Be Terrified by Shiloh Hendrix Verdict | Jason Whitlock Harmony

**Jason Whitlock** (0:03)
A woman in Minnesota got into a screaming argument with a grown man in a public park.
She said an ugly, sinful word, and yesterday, the state of Minnesota made her a criminal for it. I'm about to tell you why she is not the one you should be afraid of, the government is.
All right, let's start with the facts because both sides are lying to you about them. Shiloh Hendrix was at a playground in Rochester, Minnesota. She got into it with a young boy over some items. She said he took, and she used a racial slur. It was cruel. It was ugly. By any Christian measure, it was a sin. I'm not here to defend the word. The Book of James calls the tongue a fire, a world of iniquity.
She lit one. A grown man named Charmak Omar, 30 years old, saw it, confronted her, and started filming. The two of them went back and forth. It got heated between two adults. The way arguments in this country have gotten heated since the founding. Take a listen. You call him a n***a, the child?

**SPEAKER_2** (1:24)
Did you call the child the n***a word?

**Jason Whitlock** (1:27)
It is my own business. You call him a n***a.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:30)
Okay, why don't you have the boss to say it right now again?

**SPEAKER_3** (1:32)
F*** you, n***a.

**Jason Whitlock** (1:34)
Okay.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:35)
Alright, that's what you say.

**Shemeka Michelle** (1:41)
Nobody dig into your s***.

**SPEAKER_3** (1:42)
A little f***ing kid just dig you dumb s***.

**Jason Whitlock** (1:44)
That little kid, you call him a s***?

**SPEAKER_2** (1:46)
The little child?

**Virgil Walker** (1:47)
What if he acts like one, he's going to call him.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:49)
Are you about to hit him?

**Jason Whitlock** (1:50)
You chase him here?

**Virgil Walker** (1:51)
He took my son's stuff.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:53)
So that gives you the right to call the child five-year-old and n***a, the n-word?

**Virgil Walker** (1:57)
If that's what he's going to act like. That's what you're going to call him?

**SPEAKER_2** (1:59)
That's what he's going to act like.
You know, that's a hate speech. And you can be...

**Jason Whitlock** (2:05)
That video went viral. Activists demanded a hate crime. The Attorney General of Minnesota wanted a hate crime. And here's what they won't tell you. They couldn't get a hate crime. Because in the United States, there is no criminal law against hateful speech. The First Amendment still stands. So they reach for a disorderly conduct law and watch what the jury actually did. They threw out the count involving the child, found her not guilty on that one. The only count they convicted her on was the argument with the grown man who filmed her.
Sentence, 90 days, suspended, a fine, community service, no cell, no bars. They didn't punish her for what she said to a boy. They punished her for arguing with a man. They didn't need to jail her. They needed to label her. They needed a word and an argument between two adults to become a crime.
Now, here's why I may lose some of you, but stay with me anyway, because I'm not here to talk about Shiloh Hendrix. I'm here to talk about us, black Christians, who we used to be and the sword we used to carry, the one we've laid down and traded for a courtroom. There was a time right out of the House of Bondage when black men in this country were the strongest, most spiritually armed men in America. Not because no one threw words at us, they threw everything at us, chains, the whip, the auction block, and we did not break. Look at Frederick Douglass, born a slave, taught himself to read by candlelight because they made it a crime for him to know his letters. When he stood up to fight the most powerful men in America, what was his weapon? The word. Douglass drew a line between what he called Christianity of Christ and the slaveholders counterfeit religion. And he beat those hypocrites over the head with their own Bible until the nation could not look away. He didn't have an army. He didn't have a statue. He had the truth of God and a voice, and it was enough to shake an empire. Look at Booker T. Washington, born a slave, built Tuskegee up out of the Alabama dirt. And his message to freed men was not go in demand, it was cast down your bucket where you are. Build, work, own, develop your character and your craft until no man can deny your worth. God and grit, faith in your own two hands. That was the creed. That is who we were. A people the whip could not break because our name was written somewhere the whip could not reach. Let me show you something almost nobody knows and it's going to bless you. You've heard the same your whole life. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words would never hurt or harm me. You think it's some old playground rhyme, some white grandmother's advice? No. The first time that saying shows up in print in America, the year is 1862 We are still in chains and it's printed in a newspaper called The Christian Recorder, the paper of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the AME. Church, a black church, paper. Our people, our pulpit, our creed, we wrote that down while slavery was still legal. Black Christians looked at a world that hated them and declared, with the confidence of men who knew their redeemer, words will never harm me. That was not weakness. That is the strongest thing a man can say. It means you do not have the power to define me. My father already did that. And now look at us. We've gone from words will never harm me to words will get you arrested. From the men who wrote the creed of resilience to a people begging the state to protect our feelings. That is not progress. That is a fall. Now, don't misunderstand me. When our forefathers said words will never harm me, they never meant words don't matter. They meant no man's insult could touch a soul anchored in Christ. But the word still defiles the mouth that speaks it. Jesus said it plainly. It is not what goes into a man that defiles him, but what comes out of him. And that is true no matter whose mouth it's coming out of. So let me say something that's going to make everybody uncomfortable, because I'm trying to be consistent and consistency doesn't pick a side. That word, they just convicted this woman over. It is piped into millions of homes every single day. It's in the number one songs on the chart. It's in the earbuds of 12 year old boys on the school bus. It may be the single most repeated word in American popular music.