In a recent Minneapolis incident, a woman was fatally shot by an ICE agent after she interfered with a federal enforcement operation.
She drove into an active law-enforcement situation, refused to comply with commands to stop, and obstructed officers from doing their job.
That is noncompliance. That is obstruction of justice. That part is not debatable. She was wrong.
Her choices put herself, officers, and others in danger, her actions also left 3 children without their mother. Actions have consequences.
Now here’s the part we still have to get right.
Acknowledging that she was wrong does not mean we celebrate her death. Because death is not a victory. And God does not rejoice in destruction.
The Ethiopian Scriptures, the oldest preserved Biblical canon, make God’s heart toward life very clear. “God did not create death, and He does not delight in the destruction of the living.” Wisdom of Solomon 1:13 Ethiopian Canon
God is not in the business of cheering when someone dies. He is the God of life, mercy, and restoration. The Ethiopian Scriptures also tell us how to treat others, even when we strongly disagree with their actions. “Do not do to anyone what you yourself hate.” Tobit 4:15 Ethiopian Canon
If we would not want our own loved one mocked after a tragedy, we should not mock someone else’s.
The Western Bible later echoes that same ancient wisdom. “Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and do not let your heart be glad when they stumble.” Proverbs 24:17 Not your enemy. Not someone you disagree with. Not someone who made a reckless choice.
You can hold people accountable without celebrating their death. You can support law enforcement without cheering a fatal outcome. You can stand for the law without losing your humanity.
When someone on the right is murdered, people on the left mock it, that’s wrong. When this woman was killed and people on the right mocked it, that is wrong too. Different politics. Same lack of compassion.
God does not want His people clapping over coffins.
The Ethiopian Scriptures teach us that grief is sacred, because every life belongs to God, not to public opinion. Mourning honors the seriousness of life and the weight of loss.
The Western Bible echoes that truth. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Matthew 5:4
Not blessed are those who mock. Not blessed are those who celebrate. Not blessed are those who turn tragedy into a talking point. Children are grieving. Families are hurting. Lives have been permanently changed. This is not the time for jokes. This is not the time for applause. This is the time for restraint, reflection, and compassion.
God calls us to be firm in truth but gentle in spirit, strong in principle but soft toward suffering. Because if we lose compassion, we lose our witness. And no political victory is worth that.
Being Strong Isn’t the Same as Being Called to Everything
There’s a kind of tired that sleep doesn’t fix.
Not physical tired. Not even emotional tired.
It’s the exhaustion that comes from constantly engaging. Constantly responding. Constantly explaining. Constantly standing in fights that don’t actually move your life forward.
Lately, I’ve been sitting with a quiet realization. I’m not tired because I lack strength. I’m tired because I’ve been spending strength where it was never assigned.
And that hits different.
Because strong people are expected to handle everything. We become the voice of reason. The truth-teller. The fixer. The educator. The one who can “take it.”
So we jump into arguments. We correct misinformation. We absorb people’s projections. We carry conversations that were never meant to be ours.
And slowly, our spirit starts to dim.
What makes it heavier is this question I keep turning over in my heart:
If I stop engaging, will people think I’m weak Or scared Or avoiding truth Or backing down
But here’s the truth I’m learning.
Silence is not surrender. Boundaries are not fear. And disengaging from chaos is not the same as abandoning purpose.
When I look at Scripture, I don’t see God applauding constant engagement. I see Him honoring focus.
Nehemiah understood this long before we had comment sections and social media timelines. He had one assignment. Build the wall.
And while he was doing exactly what God called him to do, the noise showed up. Mockery. Distraction. False urgency. Invitations to argue. Invitations to explain. Invitations to come down and address people who had no intention of helping him build anything.
Nehemiah didn’t insult them. He didn’t defend himself. He didn’t debate motives.
He simply said he couldn’t come down because he was doing a great work.
That one sentence carries so much wisdom for today.
Because the moment you step into what God has called you to do, the distractions come dressed as responsibility. As righteousness. As “speaking up.” As “educating.” As “standing your ground.”
But not every fight is a calling.
The Ethiopian texts echo this same truth quietly but powerfully. Baruch, who walked closely with Jeremiah, wasn’t assigned to fix the people’s rebellion or convince everyone to change. His responsibility was to preserve the word. To protect what God placed in his hands.
When Baruch carried that responsibility alone, he grew weary. Not because the assignment was wrong, but because the weight around it was heavy.
And that feels familiar.
We are living in a time where outrage is rewarded. Reaction is expected. And disengagement is misunderstood.
People want your energy on demand. They want you to explain history, politics, race, faith, and morality in a comment box. They want access to your emotional labor without offering respect, curiosity, or growth in return.
And strong people keep showing up.
Until they burn out.
I’ve started to recognize when I’m outside my assignment.
It shows up as constant irritation. A heaviness before I even open an app. The feeling that I’m responding more than creating. That I’m explaining more than building. That I’m defending instead of resting.
That’s not weakness. That’s misalignment.
Purpose energizes. Distraction drains.
Here’s the part that’s uncomfortable but freeing at the same time.
Some people are not meant to understand you in this season. Some conversations are not meant to be resolved. Some arguments are not meant to be won. And some battles exist solely to pull you away from what you’re actually called to do.
Strong people burn out when they fight outside their assignment.
Not because they aren’t strong enough. But because strength was never meant to be used everywhere.
I’m learning that my peace is not optional. My focus is not negotiable. And my assignment deserves protection.
I don’t owe everyone my voice. I don’t need to attend every argument I’m invited to. And I don’t have to prove truth to people who are committed to misunderstanding it.
This isn’t avoidance. It’s wisdom.
This isn’t silence. It’s discernment.
This isn’t stepping back from truth. It’s stepping deeper into purpose.
When I stay in my lane, my strength returns. When I stop fighting unnecessary battles, my clarity sharpens. And when I honor my assignment, exhaustion no longer has the final word.
Strong people don’t burn out because they’re weak. They burn out because they’ve been carrying what was never theirs.
And I’m choosing, intentionally, to stay where I’m assigned.
A friend made a comment that stuck with me. He said, “We need to stop giving money to any university”. I could have kept scrolling, but something in me paused. It bothered me because it made me ask a question I had never asked before. How much money is actually being poured into these institutions. And why is the federal government even involved. His comment sent me down a rabbit hole.
So I started digging.
The deeper I went, the more the picture shifted. Everything we think we know about higher education starts to fall apart once you pull the curtain back.
We assume federal dollars help students. We assume federal dollars support education. We assume federal dollars pay for classrooms, professors, and learning.
That is not the story.
When the federal government first started funding universities, it had nothing to do with student education. It had everything to do with what the government needed. Not what students needed.
During the early 1900s, the government wanted to strengthen agriculture and industrial development, so money went to land grant colleges. After World War Two, the government wanted to reintegrate millions of soldiers, so the GI Bill opened college doors. Then came the Cold War. Suddenly the government needed scientists, engineers, weapons experts, aerospace innovators, medical researchers, and technology creators. So the federal money exploded. Universities were not chosen because of students. Universities were chosen because they had the ability to build what the government wanted.
And just like that, colleges became research partners, government contractors, and innovation hubs. Federal dollars did not go to lower tuition. They did not go to reduce debt. They did not go to help families. They went into research labs, medical centers, engineering buildings, and private industry partnerships.
The entire structure of federal funding was built for national needs, not student needs.
And here is where my perspective shifted. Based on my research and everything I am learning, I now see exactly what my friend meant. No federal dollars should be going to colleges and universities. Pell Grants made sense because tuition was already so high that students needed help. But the moment the federal government started loaning the money directly to students, everything changed. Colleges raised their prices because they knew the government would cover it. Students signed loans they could not escape. And the federal government created a cycle where students spend years paying back money that should never have been borrowed in the first place. This was not a gift. This was a financial trap. A revolving door of money flowing from the government to the universities and from the students back to the government with interest. But I digress. Let’s get back to education.
Once you understand the true purpose of federal funding, the next question is impossible to ignore. If the federal dollars were never meant for students, then what does that say about how this system truly operates. Because while universities were being built into national research engines, Black people were not even allowed into most Predominantly White Institutions. Our ancestors created Historically Black Colleges and Universities because they had no other choice. The doors were closed everywhere else.
And here is the truth that cannot be softened. The government built this divide. The government funded this divide. And the government still protects this divide.
This is why the comment from my friend was so important. When he said that no federal dollars should be funding education, he was one hundred percent correct. If the federal government had never taken control of higher education funding, they would have never been able to create this split to begin with. The opposition, which is the federal government, would never have been able to pit HBCUs against Predominantly White Institutions. This is part of a much larger pattern. Divide people by ethnicity. Divide them by pigmentation. Divide them by who receives access and who receives leftovers.
And look at how they did it. They shut Black people out of the well funded universities, then told us to go build our own. But even when we built HBCUs with brilliance and grit, the federal government refused to level the playing field. They fed money into the institutions we were excluded from and delivered only a fraction to the schools we created. They undereducated our children in elementary, middle, and high school. They withheld equal classroom resources. They controlled which history was taught and which history was erased. And then people wonder why more students from predominantly Black communities don’t attend these heavily funded white institutions even though the doors are now legally open.
Because the divide was never just financial. It was cultural. It was educational. And it was intentional.
So when I look at the money, the access, the curriculum, and the outcomes, the truth becomes impossible to ignore. The system was not built to be fair. It was built to maintain advantage. And it did exactly that.
Let me start with something we forget far too easily.
Just because somebody in authority sets the bar low and their own fear keeps them from raising it does not mean we have to stay chained to their limit. Their ceiling is not your ceiling. Their fear is not your boundary.
We have to stop waiting for people with small vision to define how high we are allowed to climb. If they set the bar low that is their business. Raise yours. And then jump over it.
While I was thinking about that I stumbled across the story of Stephen Bishop. A man I never learned about in school. His story hit me like truth wrapped in fire. Because what he did is the exact picture of what it looks like to refuse someone else’s ceiling.
The Boy The World Tried To Limit
Stephen Bishop was seventeen. Enslaved. Assigned forced labor inside Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave. His life was not built on opportunity. It was built on commands.
Lead the tourists. Stay on the familiar paths. Do not explore. Do not ask questions. Do not dream. Do not become anything more than the box you were placed in.
That was the limit placed on him.
But Stephen Bishop was not built for limits. He was not built for repetition. He was not built for the tiny world he was forced into.
Something in him felt pulled to the darkness of that cave. To the mystery. To the places no one dared to go. And not because it was a job. But because something inside him refused to settle for the boundaries someone else drew around him.
The Part That Shook Me
Stephen did not explore during the day with permission. He explored on his own time. What little time an enslaved teenager even had.
After a full day of labor. After walking tourists through the parts they considered safe. After the master went to sleep.
While everyone else rested, Stephen walked into a pitch black cave at night carrying only an oil lamp and a courage the world still talks about.
Then he reached what everyone else feared. The Bottomless Pit. The end of all known maps. The line where grown men turned back.
But Stephen did not turn back.
He stripped a cedar sapling. Laid it across the chasm. And crossed it.
A teenager balancing above a drop that could have taken his life instantly. And because he crossed it he discovered an entire world scientists did not even know existed.
He doubled the known size of Mammoth Cave. He named chambers after literature he taught himself to read. He mapped the system from memory. Maps that modern explorers still rely on.
He was legally property. But spiritually. Mentally. Intellectually. Uncontainable.
Would A Stephen Bishop Today Stop At The Line
And it made me ask myself.
If a person with a Stephen Bishop spirit lived today and someone tried to limit them or draw lines around them or hand them ceilings…
Would they stop?
Or would they walk past it the same way he crossed that cedar pole in 1838. With purpose. With boldness. With a quiet “watch me” in their spirit.
Because that kind of spirit does not disappear. It shows up in every generation. And it never bows to fear.
Be The Bar Raiser
Stephen Bishop did not wait for permission. He did not bow to ceilings. He did not follow limits set by people who feared what he might discover.
He stepped into darkness and came back carrying light.
So yes. Honor Stephen Bishop. Say his name. Tell his story. But also take the message with you.
You are not required to live under anyone else’s bar. Raise your own. Jump it. Set the standard for yourself.
Be the bar raiser. Be the one who refuses to shrink. Be the one who crosses boundaries fear tried to draw. Be the one who discovers what others never dared to see.
Because God puts a Stephen Bishop spirit in people He calls to do more.
And maybe today that someone is you.
The Biblical Connection
Stephen Bishop’s courage is the same spirit I see in Scripture.
Western Bible: Joshua chapters fourteen and fifteen. Caleb did not stop when fear spoke. He asked for the mountain everyone else avoided. He did not bow to small thinking. He raised the bar.
Ethiopian Canon: The Book of Jubilees. Chapters ten through fifteen. God calls His people higher. He reminds them of who they are. He pushes them beyond fear and into destiny.
God did not create you for small living. He did not design you for ceilings placed by someone else. He calls you higher. He calls you forward. He calls you to territory that fear tries to block.
Stephen Bishop crossed a line that everyone else refused to cross. Caleb climbed a mountain everyone else feared. Jubilees reminds us that God keeps calling His people into more.
Their limits are not your truth. Their fear is not your future. Their ceiling is not your story.
Why I Will Not Shrink for White Liberals or Black Liberals Who Want to Think for Me
Every time I open my mouth as a Black conservative woman, somebody thinks they need to correct me. And let me be clear about something from the jump. Nine times out of ten, the ones trying to “educate” me, shame me, or drag me back into the mental basement are White liberals and Black liberals who have bought into the same script written for them by the Democratic Party.
And here is what people do not want to talk about.
White liberals love to act like they are the referees of Black thought. They want to decide which Black voice is authentic and which one needs “saving.” They show up with their savior complex, convinced I need them to explain my experience to me. They think my beliefs, my convictions, and my political stance must have been handed to me by a White conservative puppet master. Meanwhile they are the ones being spoon fed by mainstream media, hollywierd, the education system, and the politicians on the left telling them what to think about Black people every single day.
And yes, I have had Black liberals come at me too. But overwhelmingly, the racism I have personally experienced throughout my life came from White liberals. In boardrooms. In leadership roles. In committee meetings. In classrooms. The ones who smiled while saying, “You’re one of the good ones.” The ones who told me, “You are not like the others.” The ones who said, “We do not expect people like you to be able to do that.” The ones who insisted that getting an ID or a driver’s license is too hard for Black people, but not for them or their children.
That is racism. Do not sugarcoat it. Do not spiritualize it. Do not dress it up in “progressive language.” It is the same mindset from the plantation, wrapped in a softer tone and marketed as compassion.
Today they are not whipping our backs. They are whipping our minds.
And here is where I need you to think.
During slavery, White liberals controlled Black people through physical force. Today the Democratic Party tries to control us through dependency. They are not selling our children to different plantations anymore, but they are still destroying our families by encouraging a lifestyle that weakens our structure from the inside out. Many having a bunch of babies by many different men. This destroys the Black family structure. They are still lowering the bar, still pushing a curriculum in predominantly Black communities that keeps our children academically behind. They are still normalizing behavior they would never tolerate in their own neighborhoods or from their own children.
They keep pushing this lie that all Black women should care about is being sexy. They act like spirituality is outdated, that being the woman of the house is old fashioned, that marriage is oppression, and motherhood is settling. They want Black women loud, exposed, sexualized, and disconnected from everything that once made us powerful. Because a grounded Black woman is harder to control than a distracted one. A spiritually anchored Black woman will not bow to anyone’s narrative. A Black woman who knows her worth in God cannot be manipulated. They do not want that. They want the version of us they can manage. But a woman who honors her home, her purpose, and her God is unstoppable.
There is no difference in the mindset. Only the method.
So, ask yourself why they work so hard to keep the bar low for us. Why do they celebrate struggle for us but excellence for themselves. Why do they fight so aggressively to maintain the idea that we are incapable unless they step in.
And while we are asking the hard questions, let us ask this one too.
Why were we the only enslaved people in world history who were forbidden to keep our original culture?
Every other enslaved group throughout history kept their identity. Their language. Their names. Their customs. Their spiritual heritage. Their food. Their family lineage.
We are the only people whose culture was systematically erased. That should tell you something. That should make a light come on in your spirit.
Why was it so important to stop us from knowing who we were before slavery?
What were they afraid of?
Because here is the truth that the Democratic Party does not want you to uncover.
We were powerful before the ships. We were brilliant before the chains. We were builders, thinkers, warriors, inventors, scholars, farmers, navigators, mathematicians, spiritual leaders, and architects before anyone ever laid eyes on us. That was who we were in Alkebulan, the original name for the land today called Africa, the cradle of civilization.
And that greatness was not only across the ocean. Many of our ancestors were already here, long before colonization and long before slavery began. That is part of the truth they do not want you to find. Because once you know that not all Black Americans came here chained in the bottom of ships, and that some were already on this land with skills, culture, and civilization, the whole story changes, and you start to wonder, what else did they lie about.
The Democratic Party cannot survive if Black people wake up to who we really are. They need the victim narrative. They need the dependency. They need the power. They need the bar low, so we never look up. They need us stuck on the hamster wheel they built. Because if we ever rise to our original identity, we would leave their plantation of thought overnight, and slavery would truly be over.
And here is what Black people MUST take accountability for.
We got comfortable. We accepted the handouts. We accepted the lowered expectations. We accepted their version of who we are. We let them dictate our worth, our struggle, our future, and our place in this country.
And we forgot that our greatness existed before slavery, before politics, before the Democratic Party existed, before America even became a nation.
So let me say this clearly.
Stop letting people who do not know your history tell you how to think. Stop letting the same people who rewrote your history tell you how to think. Stop letting people who do not want the truth dictate what truth is. Stop letting people who fear your awakening convince you to avoid researching the real history.
Because once you see the truth, you cannot unsee it. Once you know the fullness of our history, you cannot stay in the box they built for you. Once you understand the power in your lineage, you cannot remain dependent on people who benefit from your dependency.
Once you know your true identity, you stop shrinking to fit the expectations of people who do not even know their own identity. You stop letting politics define your worth. You stop lowering yourself to meet the limits someone else placed on you. You stop apologizing for thinking freely. You stop bowing to narratives built to keep you dependent. You stop being afraid of rejection from people who were never rooting for you anyway.
And let me make this clear for everyone reading.
For ALL my brothers and sisters out there regardless of race, Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, Native, and everyone in between. You are not who the Democratic Party says you are. You are not the stereotype they push. You are not the limitations they place on you. You are not the narrative they need you to play out so they can continue to feel superior, powerful, and morally elevated at your expense.
You have a God given identity. You have a God given mind. You have a God given purpose.
And if you do not take the time to research your true history, someone else will hand you a counterfeit version and expect you to live by it.
I am a Christian Black Conservative woman and I am unbothered. Not because everybody agrees with me. Not because I expect them to. But because I refuse to be mentally enslaved by a party that needs me to stay dependent, resentful, uninformed, and small.
I said what I said. And I will keep saying it until we stop living under a story that was never ours to begin with.
Western Bible: King Josiah, 2 Kings Chapters 22 and 23 The people had forgotten who they were. They were living under a story that was not theirs anymore. Their identity had been rewritten. Their faith was mixed with lies. Their history had been hidden. Their truth was buried. Then Josiah found the Book of the Law and said, we will no longer live by someone else’s version of us. He tore down false altars. He restored truth. He restored identity. He restored the foundation that had been lost. He did not shrink back. He rose up.
Ethiopian Canon: Book of Jubilees, Chapters 10 through 15 God reminds the descendants of Abraham who they are, where they came from, and what covenant runs through their bloodline. God brings them back to their roots. He restores what was forgotten. He reclaims what they did not even realize had been lost. That message speaks today. God is calling us to rediscover the truth beneath the lies.
I refuse to be small. And I refuse to let anyone else shrink me. Not White liberals. Not Black liberals. Not anyone who thinks they get to think for me.
Pam's Pulse 