Welcome to Ask a Pastor, a podcast from Orchard Hill Church! Have you ever had a question about the Bible, Faith, or Christianity as a whole? Submit your question and one of our pastors will answer on the program. New episodes every Wednesday.

This episode, Dr. Kurt Bjorklund sits down with George Palombo and Gene Boyer to have a conversation about racial tensions in the United States, the death of George Floyd, the concept of racial bias, how we as individuals and a church community can move towards change, and more!

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Podcast Transcript

Kurt Bjorklund: Hey, welcome to Ask a Pastor. Today I'm joined by George Palombo to my right who is a member of our pastoral staff here at Orchard Hill on our Wexford campus. He also has 30 years in law enforcement. And then by Gene Boyer, who is a member, an active participant in our Strip District location, and a newer friend of mine, but somebody I've gotten to know just a little bit. And today we wanted to just talk about race, especially in light of some of the issues that have been happening in our country here in the last little bit. So, Gene, just give us a little bit of your backstory to kind of how you got to where you are today? And then we'd love to jump into this topic. 

Gene Boyer: Sure. First of all, thank you both for allowing me to share the time. And Kurt, thank you for the leadership that you've shown since the service I attended last Sunday morning and everything that's led up to and going through. So, thanks for everything, and I'm happy to be here. I first encountered Orchard Hill in a completely different time in my life. Hard to believe, coming up on 14 years ago now. And a group of men who didn't have to give the slightest hint of a darn about me did more than give me a darn. They loved me until I could love myself again. And one of those guys, Mo Wimbish, who we all have had the privilege of knowing, who's no longer with us, literally refused to let me go. So, I have a long and deep love for this church and a reason for my faith in this church but strengthened faith in God. I reconnected with Orchard Hill in 2017 when I moved back from Virginia. I am a real estate developer and construction manager, a real kind of unexpected transition about 10 years sooner than I thought it would be, but construction, in some essence has been my life's work for the last almost quarter of a century. I grew up in Monroeville, and we moved here in 1972. After the steel building was completed, my dad was plant engineer at Fairless Works, and they consolidate engineering from around the country into so many floors in the US Steel Building that brought us here. And with the exception of a hiatus in Los Angeles in the 90s and three years in Northern Virginia, in the mid-2000s. Pittsburgh has been my home, and I'm proud to be from here. I love this city and bleed black and gold. 

Kurt Bjorklund: It is a great city that people who are not from Pittsburgh do not realize what a great place it is.  

Gene Boyer: No, they do not. It's a great big small town in a lot of ways, but we're a scared, hurting, and broken town right now. And it's conversations like this that are going to be the center piece of any reconciliation that we ultimately have. 

Kurt Bjorklund: So, let's start with maybe the easiest piece of this and that is George Floyd's life was taken from him. And I think it doesn't take a lot to say that's a horrific thing to observe, to watch, to say, from any perspective, that's hard. I think what I hear and see is that is that I haven't heard people try to defend that. I'm sure there are, but I haven't heard a lot of that. But what you often hear is, well, that's isolated or there's other issues, or things like that, that play into it. And what would be interesting, especially with somebody who's in law enforcement, is to help us understand what goes into a stop, and how something could go wrong to the point where somebody maybe is so enraged that they feel the need to use force. 

George Palombo: I would say there are a number of things that could go wrong. First of all, I mean, if something is as simple as a traffic stop for a police officer, automatically puts the police officer in yellow alert. As soon as I begin to pull a motor vehicle over, my sensory perception goes into sort of a yellow mode. You know, because I've been trained, I've seen the videos, and I want to go home at night. So immediately, my guard is up. And I think rightfully so. I don't think that there's anything wrong. I have often heard many trainers in law enforcement say that as police officers you live in yellow mode. And it's probably something I haven't even completely gotten rid of today, which is why I didn't want to be in the middle of you guys. But at any rate, there are a number of things that can go wrong, just in the attitude that you begin to put together as you walk towards a vehicle where you know that there may be a threat on the other side, and you simply don't know what to expect. So, you're looking and you're watching, and if anything, even begins to raise your ire, just a teeny-weeny bit, the police officer's posture changes a little bit. He may begin to turn sideways a little bit as he approaches a vehicle, just because he's being cautious for maybe right reasons or for maybe wrong reasons. You know, he's a human being, and as he approaches that vehicle, it could happen that he could rest his hand on his weapon as he walks over. But in protective mode, there are just innumerable things that could go wrong, and it's about being prepared for all of those things that could potentially happen. 

Kurt Bjorklund: So, one of the things I heard a friend of mine say, who's African American, is he said, you know, I've been able, a lot of times to say, well, maybe something went wrong. When I watched George Floyd, I felt like there was no possible explanation.  

George Palombo: Yeah, I would probably be speaking, I would hope, I pray to god I'm speaking for 100% of law enforcement who watched that video, and they were just aghast at what they saw take place. Just the lack of respect for humanity. 

Gene Boyer: Let me ask you a question. Listen, we've all been through different phases in our lives, right? There was a time when I wasn't all that thrilled to see to police, period, and maybe with some legitimacy in my 20s. In my 40s, as a business owner, invested in my community, I want to see the police. What has been interesting to me though, and I've said it, walking up on a car when you don't know who's inside of it, you don't know what's in the trunk, you don't know if you got 50 kilos of heroin in the trunk of that car that you're transporting for somebody, they may rather square off with you than square off with the guy put that "h" in the back of that truck. Okay, understand all of these things. But when bias, racial bias, further intensifies that yellow state, that's where the problem is. And that's where up until now, in my opinion, we have not been willing to be courageous enough to have those conversations. Because if you are not willing to acknowledge your own bias, and just be willing to deal with the fact that I'm human, I have a bias, here it is, now let's deal with it. How is that not going to end up in some kind of catastrophic outcome as often as not? It just doesn't make sense as logical, thinking people that if we are not willing to face the discomfort of a conversation like this, and shame on us for not doing it 25 years ago after Rodney King, here we are again, guys. And we were all old enough to remember that. I lived through it. I was in Los Angeles when that happened. 

George Palombo: So, I would say that the difficulty in trying to distinguish and parse that out is that it is nearly impossible, if it's not impossible, to just discern when that takes place for an individual police officer. 

Gene Boyer: Okay, fair enough. Then why can't we just go ahead and stipulate to the fact that after a couple of centuries, actually four, of systemic racism in this country that it exists, and let's just work from there. And if you happen to be one of the ones who've evolved above it, God bless you, then you become a leader to your fellow brothers in blue. I don't believe that the majority of police officers support would happen. But the fact still remains that a murder took place on primetime television, three other police officers stood by and were complicit. And I'm going to submit to you that if it was for black police officers, and that was a white person in handcuffs on the side of the road, under the knee of a black cop, I think all four of them be locked up for first degree murder right now. And those are systemic. And, I'm not attacking you, but I'm saying these are the conversations we need to have because this is what your fellow black friends, neighbors, and colleagues are feeling right now. I run a business. I mean, I'm doing a $50 million real estate development project at Uptown. Won it competitively, straight up with our design. Okay, I'm working my tail off, and I'm breaking down every 15 minutes and crying, and all I'm doing is spending time on my knees begging God to make some sense out of this. We're not supposed to be doing this in 2020. And so, then we have to come back to the fact that there's still a problem here. So, we need to deal with the problem rather than parsing. There shouldn't be parsing. We just need to accept some things that aren't comfortable and go from there because as long as we keep trying to step around it, I think we're going to have this conversation a decade from now, a month from now, maybe. 

George Palombo: So, help me to understand, are we to assume immediately that when a white police officer pulls a black man over there, there must be racial profiling?  

Gene Boyer: No, but I think there needs to be an awareness that there's an inherent distrust right now. And it's toxic. And it's proven to be fatal, and it puts the police officer at risk as well. I want that guy to go home too. He has a wife and a kid. I'm going to business where if somebody makes a mistake, eight floors up, I got to go knock on their wife's door and tell them that her husband's not coming home. Okay, I get it. I want that guy to go home. I want to be safe. I'm going to have to sit down and sign the biggest loan I've ever signed in my life sometime later this summer or early fall to move our project forward and I'm fully invested. I mean, I am all in with my life. I don't have a trust fund to fall back on if it goes sideways. That's everything I have. So, I'm invested in it and I get he is too, but I think if we don't understand that, and then it can be quickly dispelled. If that white officer understands, okay, there's an inherent distrust here that I may not have had anything to do with. It just kind of stinks, but it is, what it is. And then maybe you walk up. Now if there's a reason to make a move, you make a move. I'm not saying you're supposed to wait and be nice until you die. I got a good life, and it's terrifying for me when there's a police car behind me. It shouldn't be, not in 2020. 

Kurt Bjorklund: One of the things that I've seen is that as a white man, I probably should have some conversations with my kids about being pulled over by police and how to act. But that isn't top of the mind. 

Gene Boyer: I have godson, and I've been having this conversation with him since he was 10 years old. 

Kurt Bjorklund: And I think that's what you're driving at, in that I don't have the same concern about that interaction, that you have. And because of that, that just shows the systemic distrust that exists. 

Gene Boyer: That's why I'm saying. You shouldn't be put in a position to have to parse it out. That's what I'm saying. That officer shouldn't be put in the position to have to parse that out. We should just be able as adults and as Americans to say, you know what, it's taken a long time to get here and it's going take some time for us to fix it. But right now, let's acknowledge that we're not all on the same page. And let's all just agree that we're going to take a pause, okay. Roll your window down, put both hands on the steering wheel. I just do that instinctively, because I want that guy to feel as comfortable as he possibly can. Because he doesn't have a clue who I am. I get it. But I also grew up in Monroeville. I didn't grow up in Homewood or the Hill district, where the cops were more like stormtroopers than they were like peace officers, baseball coaches, and football reps. I didn't have that experience that those kids have. So, I can't sit here in my relatively comfortable past at this point. It doesn't lessen the rage I feel. It doesn't lessen the fear that I fear. You know, there's a reason I wore Laurel Valley golf shirt to Wexford today. I hate that in 2020. It's my church. I've been coming to this building for over a decade. So, yeah, I don't have all the solutions. But again, I think the fact that you have the courage to sit here, and we have the courage to talk to each other, and we can route that conversation in a respect based in Christ. We're Christians. Nobody wants this to happen. Nobody feels good about this. I have several friends who are police officers. They're good guys. But there's a culture, at least it looks like from the outside and I'd be interested to hear your perspective, it appears that there's a culture of silence and protection. How much does that contribute to some of what's going on?  

George Palombo: No, you're not. And, unfortunately, I would say this goes across any line of work. There are jerks inside of the police department. And I have met the fellow who killed George Floyd, in my past, not personally, but I know that guy. I've met him. I've worked on the street with that guy. But I would add without discounting what you're saying is, I want you to know it's terrifying for a white police officer to work with that white police officer. It's not mitigated. 

Gene Boyer: Oh, I imagine it must be. So then why is that guy forced to keep quiet about that bad apple? 

George Palombo: I'm not forced to quiet about it. I shared with Kurt the other day that I've had incidents. I can think of one particular incident in mind where I was called to go and pick up an inmate at one of our local city places. And when I got there, this white police officer had this young African American in a chair, handcuffed behind his back, and he's trying to solicit some irrelevant information from him. It was nothing crucial. And I knew this, I'm discerning this, as I'm watching as I walk in, and I'm seeing this goes back and forth. And he didn't get what he wanted out of him. And I mean, just hauled off and coldcocked this guy while he was sitting there with his handcuffs on him. I had just walked in. I had no idea of what had transpired in the days or weeks or whatever, beforehand. But I did look at him and say, let me tell you something, if I catch you doing that again to my prisoner, I'm going to arrest you and find out what happened between the two of you later on. And so, I picked him up, I took my guy out. And so, I've met that guy. But let me say, I knew this guy. I knew this cop. And I also know him to have friends who are African American. And one of the things I shared with Kurt was sometimes, it may be through bad timing or bad luck, that it is a is an African American guy who gets the back end of not a racist cop, but a cop who's just a jerk, and would be a jerk under any circumstances when he could wield his power instead of his authority. 

Gene Boyer: And I think that's where the next fundamental shift in our thinking and dialogue as a country needs to be. When you are given a badge and a gun, you are given a sacred responsibility. You are literally given the power of life and death with the benefit of the doubt going with death. Okay. Now when that is what's bestowed upon you, with all due respect, I could not give the slightest hint of a darn about mitigating circumstances. I do expect that individual who is bestowed that kind of power, that kind of finality, to operate higher. Oh, he's human. I'm sorry, that doesn't hold water. Because guess what, if all he has a baton on him, yet it turns into a lawsuit and taxpayers want to beat the lawsuit, but chances are that guy lives through it. The second thing I would ask is, at what point is what transpired prior to relevant at the point where a suspect is restrained and clearly can't defend themselves or be of harm to anybody, including themselves. At what point does what transpire matter?  

George Palombo: It's not so much that it matters in long term. I don't know what happened in the short term. For the same reason that if you had your ire raised because someone came after your family, this is a couple of things that I do have to consider. I don't know what this young man had done to maybe his partner before I got there, maybe took a poke at him. I didn't know the background. But I did know this, which is precisely why I said to him, if I catch you doing that, again, don't ever do that, again, in my presence. This is a guy I could have that conversation with on the back end. 

Gene Boyer: And I get that. I guess what I'm saying is a black citizen, because it happens to us more, a lot more than it happens to guys that look like you and Kurt. What I'm saying is at the point you restrain that prisoner, nothing matters. What I'm saying is until that's codified, and until that's taught from the academy on down. My father's 93 years old. My father enlisted in the army at the end of World War Two. Okay. When Truman desegregated the army, it happened like this. We will be a desegregated fighting force in 90 days, any officer or NCO not willing to go along with that move, I will take your resignation after that. I will bust you to Private. It happened that fast. That's changing the military. My father came back from Korea in charge of 1100 integrated troops. Six stripes are a diamond at 26 years old. Okay, still had to ride on the back of a bus in Alabama. So, my point is, our history is documented this. In my mind as a black man, the point where you have me cuffed and I am no longer a threat, I don't care what I did before that. You don't have a right to strike me and you should be in cuffs. Again, there's a cultural thing there. 

George Palombo: I don’t want you to hear that I justified that police officer's behavior in any way, shape, or form. 

Gene Boyer: Kurt will tell you. He's not known me that long, but he knows people who've known me. If I thought you were justified, trust and believe this would be a very different conversation. 

Kurt Bjorklund: For some context I just looked at, I think it was the FBI released some data from 2019, said that there were 19 white men killed in police custody who are unarmed, 9 black men. And if you do the stats on that, that's about 45% of the deaths are black and about 15% of the population. And so, what that would suggest is that even though people can use that stat to say, well, you know, this happens to everybody, that proportionately, that still is a higher proportion. Now, people would also say, well, you know, that's where people get into the crime stats and start saying, there's more crime and it is just the bad cop theory, not the race that that drives that. And I think that as I've tried to listen, what I hear from people who are African American is that we don't want to hear about the stats because the stories keep coming and it feels as if we are still experiencing significant profiling and prejudice in that arena. And so, the bad cop theory, I hear what you're saying George, and I think that makes sense to me to go yeah, there's some people who are going to be jerks to whoever they pull over. They've got power. It doesn't matter. But I think for a lot of people, they would say there's still a color aspect that's informing that. And that's what feels so desperate in this day. Would that be fair? 

Gene Boyer: I think that's a fair characterization, Kurt, and I appreciate the fact that you're not watering it down either. I got a lot of respect for you, George, I look forward to us talking and praying together, and studying scripture together going forward. I feel that you're a good man. And you're in a difficult position. Again, I understand. I have several friends on the on the Pittsburgh police force. Good guys. They're just trying to take care of their families. They want to go to work, put their eight in and go home. Like I said, just when I say when I send guys up a steel rig, okay, I'm maniacal about safety. I don't care what it cost me. Because if the day God forbid, ever comes where I have to make that visit, I don't know if I come back from that. You know what I mean? So, I understand how serious it is. But I think again, the beginning the movement here, the beginning of real change, is going to be when we can just accept, look, there's an inherent bias. I mean, the country was built that way. I'm not even disrespecting our country's heritage. That's the culture of this country. 

Kurt Bjorklund: So, one of the things, that maybe to some people who hear this conversation say, but wait a second, I get that there has been profiling, race, prejudice, whatever you want to call it toward African American individuals because somebody had an experience somewhere, or they had it portrayed this way, systemic racism, whatever you want to call it, that led to this. But then isn't the same thing being done to the police right now where you take a few bad cops who have taken something and done what they shouldn’t and now painted the entire force a certain way. And, so what would you say to that? I'd be interested in both of your takes on. So, the question is, if prejudice is basically saying, I have one experience, and therefore I paint everybody who is like that person as the same thing. So racially, some people have prejudice, because maybe they had a bad experience or just were taught that they had a certain ability, so they said all people are this way. Then what about the criticism that says, hey, there's some cops that have chosen to act poorly, and now they're prejudiced against all cops?  

George Palombo: I would say and honestly there are a few thin lines to probably parse out. One is, for example, and maybe this is where our faith can even enter into this conversation is, I remember as a young man, when I became a Christian, I was probably 23 or 24 years old, and I will never forget. And I'll get to what you were saying. But I will never forget, when I truly began to understand the gravity of the gospel, and now I had to be able to reconcile that with being a police officer. Because I didn't take a posture of gentleness and respect all the time. I was raised to be a respectful young man. But I knew this was going to be a game changer, because I knew that I was going to be confronted with some of the same scenarios that were violent. And how do I now reconcile acting like a believer inside of some of those violent confrontations that I knew were coming, and so I struggled with that for a number of months. And truthfully, at the end of the day, it wasn't difficult. I made it difficult. I knew what to do. I knew how to act. It was the application of doing what is right that became elusive to me, at least for a small season. So what I would say is probably for an unbeliever, someone who does not know the Lord in any capacity, just maybe a decent guy, the stereotyping of police officers, it puts their teeth on edge because it does make them crawl into their own community and begin to view everything as being an outsider. Nobody understands what we're going through. I don't think that's a fair thing to do. But I think it's a natural thing to do. I think it's natural for a community to say nobody understands where we are coming from. Therefore, we must band together and protect one another at all costs. Do I agree with that? No, my face doesn't allow me to maintain that position, past camaraderie. Does that make sense? 

Gene Boyer: It does. And I appreciate it. It's a very thoughtful and very honest answer. And I appreciate that because those statements resonate with me. A couple of things I'll say around that. I think this goes back to, again, this systemic breakdown in leadership from the top down. You know, with all due respect, I really don't care who's offended by the following statements. The fact that a sitting president is calling on governors to dominate their citizens. I mean, I wasn't a George W. Bush fan, but God knows after 911 he unified this country. I even watched him reach out to Muslim Imams and talk to them because there were good imams who were as horrified as Christians were, it would happen. All I've heard from this president is about none of the people he loves, police officers, National Guardsmen, none of his children are in the line of fire. None of them are being put in harm's way. I'm heartened by the fact that the majority of governors are pushing back. But regardless of what's going on, and I'm not for a second condoning the violence, because I think we all can agree the majority of these protesters are peaceful and they have righteous intentions, there's a handful of bad actors, as long as crossing state lines becomes a federal offense doesn't include people who cross state lines to advance freedom and racial justice, I'm all for it. But from the standpoint of how we move forward, until leadership from the top down, says, okay, we just got to push pause. We do have issues. We're sorry. I may not personally hold those issues, but I get that they're here. So, here's what we're going to do together. We're going to work together, and you know what you're going to find, the black community knows who the bad actors are. They don't want this aggravation. You think I want to look over my shoulder driving around church in Wexford? I mean, come on my girlfriend lives 10 minutes from here. I got to go out of my way, take my mask off, and smile at all her neighbors so somebody doesn't make an unsolicited call to the cops. And I suddenly find myself on the wrong end of a conversation with a terrified cop who's scared of COVID-19, scared of my mask, scared of being there, here's this white lady, oh my god, what do I do? And then a tragedy happens. And we're sitting there saying how did it happen? Because he was a good guy. Yeah, he was a good guy in a bad spot because his own leadership sold him out. 

Kurt Bjorklund: Well and race doesn't know politics. You know, one of the things that we know for sure is that the lady who called the police in Central Park was a big Hillary Rodham Clinton supporter. And so, it's almost too easy of an answer to say, oh, it's this party and not that. I think what I'm saying is it's almost easier in some ways to say I vote a certain way; therefore, I'm enlightened on this issue. She clearly had that agenda.  

Gene Boyer: Sunday was incredibly difficult. Monday was difficult. Today has been difficult, but I've had some friends reach out to me who said, okay, I don't get this. Tell me what's going on? What can I do? How can I help? I'll tell you, sometimes just listening. Being able to admit to somebody who's a friend of mine and I respect, that I sit in my own house afraid. And I'm in the middle of working on a project, and I just break down in tears, and I have to step away from the desk and just sit and cry. You know, being able to express that. I'm hearing things that aren't comfortable. I mean, look, the reality is there is a divide, there's been a divide in this country, the divide exists, the trappings change, but divide still exist. And as soon as we are willing to accept that and then start the dialogue, okay, fine. Now, what do we do moving forward? Then you start making progress. But I also understand that when four centuries of a way of life suddenly comes under attack, it's human nature that you're going to band together to protect it. So, to go to your point about how do you respond when everyone's branded and they get to go? Well, that's the problem of our society right now. So, with all due respect, I'm saying from leadership and us as Christian leaders in our households, of our congregations, of our small groups, of our businesses, if we're involved in business, we have to take that stand. And if someone wants to look for an equivocation or an out, we got to call him on it. There's a couple of realities. You may not personally hold those feelings, but the global world is this and you need to acknowledge that and understand that while it may be for a short time uncomfortable for you, imagine what it's been like living through it for the last four centuries. At the point where that dialogue starts happening in small groups, podcasts like this, at the point where pastors like you have the courage to put something up for their congregation to see and be okay with people walking out at the end of the service. I mean, I watched all that happen. That's why I'm here. And I'm grateful for this because this is the first time, I felt good since Sunday morning when I started finally dealing with what was going on. 

George Palombo: Well, let me make you feel bad for a second. So, here's what can happen sometimes to a police officer and I'm fortunate. I grew up in a predominantly white school district, but I had a father who would have none. He grew up in Aliquippa, and he would have none of being prejudiced. And I remember as a little boy having my mouth smacked by my dad and going, I know I'm not prejudiced. But what does happen is and maybe I can put you in my shoes for a few minutes. So, yesterday morning, it's time to go vote for my wife. And I have two five-year-old little boys and my five-year-old son is just happens to be going through the phase right now of wearing his police costume absolutely everywhere. he goes. And now he wants to go into downtown Ambridge with my wife, and vote. But I'm also familiar with, and I'll divide this out just for the sake of conversation is, I also know what it feels like to be on the streets in a very violent urban community and hearing the words because of what's happening. We are going to kill us a white cop tonight. But here's what here's what I'm allowed to do as a believer is to desperately make every effort to say, this is not a racial issue that's happening here. This is a sin issue that is transpiring right before my eyes, and I know there's nothing that I can possibly say to this group of people that they're going to go, oh, I'm so sorry, we're going to just change our attitude right now because of something you said. There is something deeper that's going on as believers and being able to see that happen from both a law enforcement perspective, and a pastoral perspective is, how do we reconcile those things? What is the thing that can happen that can transform what is happening inside of communities? Because right now we're at a place in our country's history where we talk about having conversations, but we have more ability to have conversations right now than we have ever had. We see on the on the news every night and on every you know, every pundit has a as an opinion, the right, the left, and in between. The more conversation that is happening, it almost seems as though people are becoming more galvanized in their belief system because seldom do you see somebody come onto one of these forums and do that same thing like, oh, I came in here with a prejudgment or a stereotype but now you have convinced me and I am going to go home tonight and transform. Something larger has to happen. 

Gene Boyer: Agreed. And I think that's absolutely where our combined faith comes in. We as a church were fortunate. We already had the technology in place, and literally all we had to do is flip the switch when the world stops spinning. I've read things to said attendance online across the board and churches around the world has gone up some 10 to 20-fold. People are scared and they're leaning on God. There's a lot more believers and good people than there are bad actors. I think we all know it. I think as many people that are galvanizing, those are the cowards, and they were going to be cowards anyway. And we need to call them as cowards. A friend of mine asked me today, what can I do? I said you can have conversations like we're having right now with your family, coworkers, colleagues, and friends, and you have to be prepared to lose some of them. My business partner is half Italian/half Jewish. We are on the phone all day long and we've been having these conversations and if there's an equivocation. I mean my partner pulled the plug on a deal yesterday. They said you know something, with all due respect, I'm not okay with where your heart is and I'm watching my brother Gene suffer daily and be scared to come to my house. He said and I'm not okay doing business with you, and I'm okay if we lose this deal. And it was done. Phone went dead. You know what I mean? And if you don't have the courage to put your comfort at risk, we are going to be having this conversation in 10 years. The people who galvanized, they were going to stay in their lane anyway. But I think there's a lot more of us that recognize that there is something that we can do, and change does have to happen. And it's okay to be uncomfortable because at the end of the day, I think God honors that. 

Kurt Bjorklund: Well, you know, George, I think the point that I heard you make and I think Gene your agreeing with this, is that the social fixes, we need to keep striving for, but they're not the ultimate fix. That there's got to be an awakening to internal sin, all the way around, that allows there to be a humbling, to listen, and to be open to transformation, and to the Spirit of God changing hearts. What's probably challenging is, again, there's been such a history, that it is not easy probably for people who say this has gone on far too long, for me to say where's my sin in anything? And it's not easy for people who have been in a position of privilege or power, for a long time to say, why would I want to admit anything and have to give up anything? And there's a humility that has to come. And that's what's missing in the current political discourse, obviously, is everyone just goes so hard to their side, and they keep having on the same guests. I mean, I try to listen to different news sources and read different sources so that I can hopefully find the truth somewhere in between.  

Gene Boyer: Yeah, exactly, you get enough input that you can pray for discernment and then you can figure out what's what. And I think that's what we all try to do. I think the majority of people in this country are horrified by what's going on. I also think the majority of the people in this country don't have a clue what to do and are scared to ask to because it’s a scary conversation. My prayer is that what's going on right now and what has gone on in the last couple of months is scarier to where a former white cop and a black construction worker can sit in a setting together, coming to each other with some humility and faith that we share, and we can recognize that we have problems. We aren't going to solve this today. We've got to figure this out. 

George Palombo: Let me share something with you. This is personal. I have never shared this before on film or anything like this. But I'm going to use a name. This is not to make this about me. But I really believe that this is the power of the gospel. I was probably 25 years old, and I arrested this African American. His name was Buddy Creach. I'll never forget Buddy for as long as I live. And here's why. I arrest Buddy, and he gets into the back seat of my police car. He didn't give me any problems, but I did begin a conversation with him. And I shared the gospel with him. And in the back seat of my police car, Buddy Creach broke down and became a believer in Jesus Christ. So, I transported him a few times over the next months, and we talked and had conversation about the gospel. And I lost track of Buddy Creach. It was about 10 years later that I got into a head-on collision with a Mack truck. I was in the trauma unit at Allegheny General Hospital. One evening, the second day there, I was coming back from a cat scan or something, and I was being wheeled to my room when I see this figure standing by my window. My family is with me, and they're like, "Excuse me, can we help you?" And, it's Buddy Creach. Buddy Creach was the first person who visited me at the trauma unit at Allegheny General Hospital. And he said these words to my parents, "I want you to know that 10 years ago when I was in trouble, your son was there for me. And when I heard what happened yesterday, I wanted to be here today for him." Now I tell you that not to make that about me or about Buddy Creach, but it is the power of the gospel that began to transform that relationship and make something happen that probably, typically, you would not think would happen in a confines of a police cruiser. 

Gene Boyer: That's an awesome story. And again, I think that's why we are all here. That’s the confidence we do have. I have been breaking down and crying. I've had Christian music on and at times it’s the songs that come with the most hope that bring the emotion out. But at the end of the day, how blessed are we that we can cry out to Jesus. I've felt closer to God over these last days where I've feel completely lost then I have in quite some time because what I know is Christ is feeling that pain with me, and he's right there with me, and he is absorbing that. The fact that today I choose to go to God and go to men like you to talk this stuff through. That's where I can have a voice in where I can do something that matters other than just talk about it. Because if you root your response in Christ then you can't go wrong. 

Kurt Bjorklund: Thank you both for taking the time today. Certainly, our hope is that the days ahead will be better than the days behind. Thank you for spending part of your day with us. Thanks, and have a great day!