Racism is much more complicated than some kid wearing a MAGA hat.

And and the fix will require more than yelling at each other on Facebook.

Racism looks like my white grandfather refusing to come to my wedding because I was marrying a black woman. And an end to racism looks like my white grandfather wanting to hang out with my black wife when I wasn’t even around.

My grandfather’s heart changed over time. And didn’t happen because of politics, ladies and gentlemen. Too many people are looking to the wrong process to solve problems that ultimately stem from a sickness of the heart.

I don’t wade much into racial politics. I don’t like talking about it. In fact, it drives me crazy. But it’s impossible to avoid the subject in the wake of the incident involving the white Covington Catholic High School student and the Native American activist.

As I said, I generally try to keep my mouth shut when talk turns to racial politics. Neither side of the left-right divide really represents my point of view. Honestly, I’m just over here trying to live my life and get along in this world. And quite frankly, all of you people constantly harping on race aren’t helping.

But it’s gotten to the point that I can’t keep silent. Somebody needs to inject some rational thoughts into the debate that don’t conform to the typical left-right paradigm.

For what it’s worth, here’s one simple observation: there are an awful lot of white people who don’t know jack about black people constantly running their mouths about black people. Seriously, it seems like the vast majority of people screaming at each other about racial issues are white. On one side of the coin, you have people who want to make everything about race (and there are a lot of black people who do this too). Everybody with an opposing political point of view is a racist or a white supremacist or a Nazi. And then on the other side of the coin, you have people claiming racism doesn’t exist, at all, anywhere.

Quite frankly, both sides of this manufactured political divide are whacked.

Honestly, I really wish everybody would just shut the hell up about it and make some honest efforts to get along with the people around them. All of the fingerpointing and yelling and accusing and disparagement and tweeting and righteous indignation and politicking isn’t making the world a better place.

In fact, it’s making the world uglier.

Here’s a truth: racism isn’t political. It’s a matter of the heart and soul. It’s a sin construct. And it’s been around since the fall.

Consider the story of the “Good Samaritan.” One of the factors that made that story so outrageous and shocking to those who heard it at that time was the fact Samaritans and Jews hated each other. It would have been like a white man in Mississippi crossing the road to help an injured, poor black sharecropper in 1870. Things like that just didn’t happen.

But race has become political — like pretty much everything in society — and the politicization of race actually perpetuates racism.

A lot of people on the right complain that Democrats have capitalized on the race issue and created “protected classes” and voter blocks. People in these politically created groups demand (and get) certain benefits based simply on their membership in the “victim class,” whether they were actually victims of anything or not. Supporters of these policies justify them based on constructs such as “white privilege.”

Unsurprisingly, the power and privileges afforded by the beneficiaries of identity politics create a political backlash. Also unsurprisingly, groups not afforded the benefits of the resulting policies become resentful. As one person put it, “The animosity that has been created by creating a protected class is the problem; the ‘racism’ isn’t racism at all.”

On the one hand, he isn’t wrong. On the other hand, his political lens filters out real racism that still exists in society.

And it raises another significant question: what drove the movement to create a protected class in the first place?

It was the institutionalization of racism that relegated black people to “the back of the bus.” A sin construct — an illness of the heart — was supported and perpetuated by the power of the state. The creation of protected classes was a rational and logical response to these policies. It was a backlash. The power of the state was used to oppress an entire race. So, that race has worked to seize the power of the state to rectify that wrong.

The common denominator here is the power of the state. There’s your problem. As long as political mechanisms exist that allow people to exert power over other people, those who want power will use race – among a million other things – to divide and conquer.

I’m becoming less and less interested in political solutions. Politics is evil. It’s an evil that seizes and capitalizes on other evils: racism, greed, vengeance, and the lust for power.

The politicization of race by every side of the political spectrum actually fuels racism.

If you really want to end racism, stop making it a political issue. Stop setting it as a prop in your political theater. Stop using it as an excuse to use coercion, force and violence on other people.

Racism ends when people interact with one another in real life; when they reach across racial and cultural divides and work together. Racism ends when mercy and grace enter the picture. You’ll never vote it away. You’ll never argue it away on Facebook and you’ll never eradicate it with X, Y or Z policy. It will end when we learn to love one another through the power of Christ.

I know, I am being utopian. I know I am being idealistic. But somebody needs to be.