unPHILtered: The Way I See It (10 page)

“I’ve tasted better,” he told me.

My mama was so mad. When he left, she said he was the most ungrateful hobo she’d ever met. I’m pretty sure she still fed him the next time he came to our back door.

From the time I was in the seventh grade until the ninth grade during the late 1950s, I worked in the cotton fields every summer for a farmer in Dixie. We started our workdays about six o’clock in the morning and didn’t finish until around six o’clock in the evening. My brothers Tommy, Jimmy Frank, and Harold worked in the cotton fields with me, along with the farmer’s son, who was a good friend. We picked cotton and hoed weeds all day long, often carrying one-hundred-pound bags of cotton more than a quarter mile as we navigated our way through the rows of cotton. It was a long, miserable day in the cotton fields, especially when the hot Louisiana sun was beating on our backs in July and August. About the only thing that distracted us from our miserable work was hearing the beautiful sounds of the African American workers singing hymns as they picked cotton. It’s the prettiest sound you’ll ever hear. We stood shoulder to shoulder with them, lining each row of cotton, and we drank from the same water buckets and worked under the same rules. We made three dollars a day and they were paid three dollars a day. All of the money my brothers and I earned went back to our parents.

The African Americans who worked in the cotton fields with us were some of the strongest and best people I ever ran with on the face of the earth. Their families were intact and they loved God. They loved us and we loved them. I worked with them for
about three summers and they were the salt of the earth. The thing I’ll always remember is that many of the African Americans I knew attended church every Sunday and stayed there for nearly the entire day. There was a small church with a tall steeple on the edge of the cotton field, and they piled in there every Sunday morning. I mean they were there from sunrise to sunset! They often ate lunch and dinner on the church lawn. The reason they worshipped for so long, in my opinion, is that during a time when their civil rights were being trampled, they embraced the one thing that couldn’t be taken away from them—their faith.

Basically, the people who were around us, whether they were black or white, were good people. None of us were rich, but we were content and worked extremely hard for what we had. There was very little mischief, certainly not the kind of stuff we’re dealing with nowadays. Life was slow and easy. It was only ten years or so after World War II, and I think people had a gut full of killing and hate. Like I said earlier, I know there was racism throughout the South when I was a kid, but I never saw it in the little circle where I lived. Maybe I was insulated because I was around so many good people. We simply loved God and one another, worked hard to make a living, and all seemed to get along. I like to think it was because we all had the same kind of morals and values, even though we might have looked different.

Miss Kay and I tried to raise our boys the same way our parents raised us. We welcomed all kinds of people from different backgrounds into our home, fed them, and shared the Good News with them, regardless of their financial status, their faith, or the color of their skin. Some of my boys’ best friends growing up were African Americans. Willie’s best friend in high school, Paul Lewis, was an unbelievable basketball player. He and Willie were nearly inseparable, and before too long Willie and Jase were spending most of their time playing basketball with Paul in a predominantly African American neighborhood in West Monroe, Louisiana. One night, a policeman stopped near the basketball court where they were playing and waved for Willie to come over.

“Boy, what are you doing over here so late?” he asked Willie. “Don’t you know it’s dangerous?”

“Man, I know everybody in this neighborhood,” Willie told him. “I’ll be fine.”

Willie often spent the night at Paul’s house, and Paul spent many nights at our house. After graduating from high school, Paul was given a full scholarship to play college basketball at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond. We all watched Paul play against Shaquille O’Neal and LSU one time, and we were so excited to see him playing on TV. Sadly, Paul was arrested for selling dope and transporting drugs in Texas in 1995. He strayed from how his parents had raised him to be and got involved with the wrong crowd. It was a big mistake, and he
ended up paying a steep price. When Paul was being sentenced in a federal court in Texas, I stood in front of the judge and begged for leniency. I think the judge was surprised to see me in his courtroom.

“Mr. Robertson, are you condoning drug trafficking?” he asked me.

“No, we need to get drugs off our streets,” I told him. “But I’m pleading for mercy in this case. I know this boy and his family. They’re good people. I love him, and we’ll help him turn his life around.”

Despite my pleas, the judge sentenced Paul to fourteen years in prison, which he spent in federal facilities in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas. When Paul was finally released from prison, Willie had him moved to a halfway house in West Monroe. Willie hired Paul at Duck Commander, and he’s now our warehouse manager. We helped him get a truck and moved him into a trailer home on my property. I knew he was a good kid who made a terrible mistake, and I was going to do everything in my power to help him turn his life around. Paul and another one of our Duck Commander employees, Krystle, fell in love and were married by Alan in my yard. Willie was his best man. Our front yard was filled with white people, African Americans, Latinos, and people of other ethnicities. It might have looked like a big bowl of gumbo, but we were laughing, dancing, and singing together. It was one of the best days I can remember in my life.

Race is still an issue in America today. We need to get back
to loving God and loving each other. Jesus commands us to love one another as He loves us (John 13:34). Our focus doesn’t need to be on diversity but on embracing unity. We’re all Americans, folks. In the beginning, each of us came from Adam. We’re all together as the human race, we’re all sinners, and we will all die. However, we can be saved together and get off this earth alive through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But it will never happen if we don’t love each other. Complexion has no bearing on a man’s character. It’s what’s inside a man’s heart and soul that matters, not the color of his skin.

O
ne of the things I’ve never been able to figure out is why sports fans like to riot after their favorite teams lose. We see it all the time. When an NFL team loses the Super Bowl or a college basketball team falls in the Final Four, a bunch of bad apples will gather in the streets, turn over cars, throw bottles, and act like hooligans. Let me get this straight: a team loses a ball game, and then its fans are ready to tear down the very place where they live? Why do they act this way? Do they actually believe their team was entitled to win the game?

You betcha, Jack. Hey, it’s the American way. We are a society without love, a culture without Christ, communities without compassion, streets without self-control, bums with no Bibles,
nerds without knowledge, punks without peace, and rebels without reason. We’re a sorry lot.

Too many Americans believe they are entitled to money they did not earn. Now, I understand why the government needs to help certain people, like the elderly, children, military veterans, the injured, and the gravely ill. Hey, if you lose your job because of a bad economy, I don’t have a problem with the government helping you out until you can find another one. I understand that some people need help learning to stand on their own feet, and that food stamps and assisted housing are sometimes needed for a time. But there is a boatload of Americans who are abusing the system and collecting free money because they’re simply too lazy to work. They’ve become enslaved to this lifestyle and are now entirely dependent on assistance. Why should the hardworking Americans have to pay them to do nothing?

Do you realize how many Americans would react if the U.S. government suddenly declared it was going to stop giving away free money? It would be a free-for-all in the streets! It would be complete chaos. The U.S. government fully understands the chaos that would result if they told the folks who are taking advantage of the system that they weren’t entitled to money simply because they’re Americans. So the government keeps giving them entitlements like welfare, food stamps, and assisted housing, even when they’re fully capable of working. Hey, entitlements are the very reason many of our politicians are even serving in Washington, DC. They promised their constituents
that the free money would keep flowing once they were elected, and they certainly can’t turn their backs on them after the fact.

I’ve never figured out why a segment of the U.S. population feels entitled to the wealth of America on the backs of other people’s hard work. Just once, I’d love to hear a welfare recipient stand up and say, “You know what? Thank y’all for giving us this money and taking care of our children. We really love y’all because of it.” You never hear this kind of thanks because some people actually believe they’re entitled to the money. They believe the world owes them something. Hey, news flash: America doesn’t owe any of us free money, Jack! When America does give it out, it’s a gift—not an entitlement.

In the Declaration of Independence, it says: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Hey, it doesn’t say anything about Americans having unalienable rights to receive reduced rent, government-paid cell phones, and free food. I do realize that some people really can’t get out and work—for all kinds of different reasons—but a lot of people who are getting this assistance
can
work. To them, I say, get off the couch, go to work, and have a little self-respect. If you’re an able-bodied person and the government is sending you free money every month, don’t you think it’s only fair that you should be out looking for a job, or at least cleaning a park or picking up trash on the side of a highway? It seems to me
that you should be doing something productive to repay the free money you receive from someone else.

I’ve never heard anyone in Washington, DC, acknowledge that the backbone of our country’s welfare system is its citizens’ concern for our fellow man. Most of the Americans who can afford to pay taxes—the ones who actually pay for entitlements—truly care about the people they’re helping. Followers of God understand that He expects us to love and help our neighbors who are in need. That’s why we’re helping them out. As it says in 1 John 3:17:
“If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person?”
God expects us to assist the helpless and needy and that’s one of our most important duties as Christians.

Since 1964, our federal and state governments have transferred untold trillions of dollars from the middle class and wealthy to the poor. Today, the federal government is spending more than $900 billion annually on Medicare and Medicaid. Half of American households—one out of every two—are receiving some sort of government assistance. Entitlement spending has grown to be almost 100 percent higher than it was in 1960, and the Congressional Budget Office estimates that entitlement spending will consume every federal tax dollar by 2048. Think about that fact, folks. Within thirty-five years, every single dollar
the government takes from your paycheck for taxes will go toward non-necessities. It
won’t
go toward things like national defense, education, and conservation. Instead, every dollar the government takes in will go toward paying someone else’s bills. And we can’t figure out why we can’t make a dent in the national debt? It’s $17 trillion and counting!

The entitlement problem we face in America is cultural. It’s really that simple. We have positioned our government as an enabler, and by doing so we’ve robbed many people of their own sense of personal responsibility. Many Americans are no longer teaching their children the virtues of hard work, self-reliance, and determination. When I grew up, my brothers and I were expected to carry our weight on the family farm. My family didn’t have much in terms of material possessions and money, but we earned every single dollar we had. My brothers and I tended to the animals, hoed the fields, and helped our mother in the garden, which supplied the food we ate. Every morning, we milked the cows, fed the animals, and cleaned their pens before going to school. We were dirt-poor, and every one of us pitched in and helped out because we knew we wouldn’t eat if we didn’t.

Sadly, it’s not that way in America anymore. For whatever reason, a growing number of Americans don’t believe they have to work. There is a state of mind in this country that makes many of us believe that because we are living on American soil, we are entitled to the American dream without investing anything in it. Many of us believe we are entitled to material things
like nice homes, new cars, summer vacations, computers, flat-screen TVs, and cell phones, even if we aren’t willing to pour in the blood, sweat, and tears to pay for them. Believe it or not, regardless of what you hear on TV or read on the Internet, we’re not even entitled to a college education or job. We have to put in the work and make the necessary decisions to earn a college degree and start a career. We have to work for it.