Sid Roth - He Was About to Shoot a White Man. Then This Happens...
His rage was out of control. He hated the white man. One day he took a gun. He just wanted to kill. Next on this edition of “It's Supernatural!”
Sid Roth: Hi. I'm Sid Roth your investigative reporter. I'm here with Ben Kinchlow. What causes a human to take a gun and want to destroy the life of another human? It's rage. What causes rage? It's anger. What causes anger? It's hurts. It's offenses. You can't live in this life without being hurt. Well Ben Kinchlow, what caused that type of anger where you didn't care the consequence, you didn't care that you might die, you didn't care anything. You just had so much rage you wanted to kill that man. And it didn't start there. Where did it start?
Ben Kinchlow: You know, they send people to prison for homicidal acts. They put people in units where they have them confined by virtue of being considered psychologically unfit to inhabit society. And what happens is, barring some kind of chemical problem, it generally results from people who have unmanaged rage. Now I realize that sounds like a psychologist, you know, talking, but the truth of the matter is everyone builds in their life little pockets of rage. And if you don't deal with these little pockets of rage, eventually they get to the point where they spill over and they result in negative actions. Generally speaking, something that tends towards violence.
Sid Roth: I'm going to take you back to a child. Tell me one real hurtful thing that happened to you that might pop into your mind.
Ben Kinchlow: Well if you - you live in a situation where you understand, for some reason that you have nothing to do with, that you have no control over whatsoever. There's something wrong with you, and you don't understand what it is, and nobody can tell you exactly why it's wrong to be where you are. I mean, you have to get off the sidewalk when certain kind of people come. You have to say “Yes sir” and “No sir” to children your own age. People treat you as though you were not there. They talk about you and your people right in front of you as though you weren't - as though you didn't exist. And this is why, you know, a lot of menials - I guess you'd call them servants - learn things about people that they work for that they would never tell anybody else because they talk about you as though you aren't there.
Sid Roth: Now I'm a Jew, and I remember as a child hearing slurs about me because I'm Jewish.
Ben Kinchlow: Yes.
Sid Roth: Did you ever hear - but most of them were never done to my face. That's what you're saying. Did you ever hear things about being black to your face?
Ben Kinchlow: Being black when I was growing up was an insult. I mean, now it's something like, “Well I'm black and I'm proud”, or you know, “Black is beautiful”, and “We’re African-Americans” and that sort of thing. But back when I was a young person growing up, I mean, the worst insult you could call somebody was “black”. I mean, we got called "n _ _ _ _ _ " all the time. “N _ _ _ _ _ " was just part of the vocabulary. I mean, I grew up hearing that, you know. “You know what, you're a ’n _ _ _ _ _ ‘ and I'm not.” That was just part of growing up. It was part of who you are. But if you really wanted to insult somebody you called him a “black n _ _ _ _ _ “, and when you called him “black”, then that was an invitation to fight if it was somebody of your own race. Now if it was somebody else there wasn't much you could do but kind of hang your head and shuffle. One of the things that comes to my mind so clearly and happened to me several years ago was I hated the way that children treated my mother. We were taught, from the time I was old enough to talk, all adults had a Mr. or Mrs. in front of their name. Now we didn't know their last names. We called them "Mrs. Mariah", or "Mr. Coleman" or - and that was their first names. And then I would hear white kids come up and call my mother by her first name. That was extremely irritating and debilitating.
Sid Roth: These things build up, but they really built up when you, your heart's desire was to be on the football team.
Ben Kinchlow: My dad was the number one fan of the Coyotes. That was the name of the team. I wanted to play football for - so I could hear my dad come out and root for me. He was such a fan that they actually gave him a megaphone to stand up and root in the stands. And I wanted to play so my dad could see me play. So when I graduated from high school, from eighth grade, they said, “Where do you want to go to high school?” I told them. They said “You can't go there.” And I said, “Well why not? I graduated here, didn't I?” They said, “You can't go because you're black.” Well suddenly it dawned on me that all these things that had been said about me as a kid had real negative connotations, and that they could actually impact your life. So I went off to a particular denominational school where I learned that even though people were religious in orientation, they really didn't care very much about people unless you looked like them. And that was kind of the way it began to grow. And then I got into the military which is the reason I joined was because that was one of the few places that they couldn't openly discriminate against me; and if they did, then I could do something about it. Plus, in the military they gave you a gun.
Sid Roth: You saw one of your first real racial fights - brawls - in the military. What was that like?
Ben Kinchlow: Cheyenne, Wyoming. It was quite a different thing, you know. It was the first time I had actually been involved in a race riot where there was actual physical violence. I mean, we fought individually. But this was the first time I was involved in a collective racial violent confrontation. And it's a pretty scary thing because, you know, everybody's hand is turned against everybody, and you never know who's going to step out of the shadows with a gun or a knife, or a rope, and that's the end of your life.
Sid Roth: So you come back from the military, conquering hero. And were there any changes in race relations?
Ben Kinchlow: You know man, the worst thing about it, Sid, was when you go overseas and you have promised to defend this country with your life, and you have pledged allegiance to the flag of the United States of America “with liberty and justice for all”, and you get overseas and find out that everything you've been taught most of your life is a lie; I'm not a member of a minority. I got overseas and I found there was more of them than us, and it was over there I got to be treated like a human being. And also we had to kill people who were "enemies" of my country, and the enemies of my country treated me better than my country. I remember sitting watching television in a foreign country when they were having the school desegregation in Arkansas. And here I'm in the military uniform, issued the same kind of weapon that I'm watching on television, keeping my people, my color, out of the schools that I pay taxes to support. I thought, “Something’s got to be done about it.”
Sid Roth: So you get back to this country. You uh, you get –
Ben Kinchlow: I'm standing in a department store and I've got my uniform on. I've got American dollars in my pocket. I've got my little boy who's just been potty trained, and I'm really proud of him. And you know, you're helping him get along here, and I'm standing in line and, you know, he turns to me, pulls on my coat and he says, "Dad, I need to go to potty". Well this is a great victory because now we've got him where he doesn't mess up his pants. He pulling, saying, "I got to go potty". You know, that's “Way to go, son.” I rub him on the head and say, "Just a minute". So I step over, and there's a smile on my face to the lady behind the counter, and I said, "Excuse me, can you tell me where the bathrooms are". And she just looked at me like, what's wrong with you? “We don't have bathrooms for colored in this place.” Now what do you want to do? What do you do? Do you tell the kid, “Shut up; you don't have to go to the bathroom”? “Hold it until you get home”? What do you tell the kid?
Sid Roth: What did you tell him?
Ben Kinchlow: I said, "Come with me, son". I took him outside and let him go up against the wall like a dog.
Sid Roth: How humiliating. You can understand how this anger, this hurt, this rage is building. We'll be right back after this.
Sid Roth: Hello. I'm Sid Roth your investigative reporter. I'm here with Ben Kinchlow, a black man that - he grew up with hurts and anger, and rage. He served the United States of America in military service, and he was treated like a human. He gets back and his son, little son Nigel has to use the bathroom. And at that time in the United States, blacks could not use the same bathrooms that whites use. And this just compounded things. He's... how did you feel?
Ben Kinchlow: Like I wanted to - what every person who's ever been discriminated against long enough, you feel this almost uncontrollable urge to smash something, to burn something. It doesn't make a difference whether you are black or white. You know, there are people of every ethnic group that have been discriminated against by other ethnic groups, and they have the same burning rage down inside of them. This is the real core for revolutions. This is the real core for why you have slaughters. I mean, you find people slaughtered by the tens of thousands. We had thousands of black people killed in this country. But you find the same thing in whatever country you happen to be in. It happens in Japan, China. It happens...
Sid Roth: “Nothing new under the son.”
Ben Kinchlow: “Nothing new under the son.” It all stems from the fact that people refuse to accept another human being. You know the Jewish nation has suffered centuries of oppression. I mean, a whole nation was attempted to be wiped out by this same kind of thing. So this thing builds up in people, and unless there is a way to resolve it, you begin to turn this hatred inside; because if you can't express it outwardly, it turns inside, and you start to hate yourself. Alcoholism begins. Infidelity begins. You know, I didn't feel like anybody loved me.
Sid Roth: In your life was there infidelity?
Ben Kinchlow: Of course.
Sid Roth: Why?
Ben Kinchlow: Because you're looking for somewhere to find love. And even though people say “Well I love you”, your wife says “I love you”, your husband says “I love you”, you don't really feel love because you don't love yourself. You hate yourself. And so when somebody tells you they love you, you cannot accept that as being valid because you don't accept the fact that you are valid; that you - that what is there to love about me? If I was a lovable person, why am I being treated this way? And women oftentimes become promiscuous, and they do all kinds of things in an attempt to validate their own personal self-worth - their own personal value - and as a result of that, infidelity becomes part of it. Now one of the things that happens to a minority group is you tend to see the women of the superior group, you know, of the oppressive group, as being a way that you can A, validate yourself as a valuable person, and B, avenge yourself on your oppressor if you can get one of his women.
Sid Roth: Translate that. What does that mean?
Ben Kinchlow: For a - back in the ‘40s and ‘50s, for a black male to have as his paramour a white female, and most particularly a blond white female, was the epitome of having “arrived”.
Sid Roth: It's the status symbol.
Ben Kinchlow: That was a status symbol just like now it's a Bentley or a Rolls Royce, or you know, whatever, Mercedes, whatever the - a big diamond, or Armani suits or whatever it is; you have status symbols.
Sid Roth: Did you arrive?
Ben Kinchlow: Of course I arrived. You know, I mean, I was an intelligent guy.
Sid Roth: Did you feel great about it?
Ben Kinchlow: Yeah. I mean, I felt like I had arrived. It didn't change what was inside, but at least I felt like I had - was getting some revenge on the man.
Sid Roth: Now tell me about that day that you took a gun. You did not fear the consequence, and all you wanted to do was kill.
Ben Kinchlow: When you reach the stage that you have, you know, "had enough", when it gets to the point where you have done all the things you know how to do to "manage anger", you finally get to the stage where you just don't give a rip. And at that point it's when it boils over, and this is where violence erupts. And I don't care what anybody says. There was no law, there was no concept of well you'll be sent to prison, you know, you might get the death sentence, you know, the police might shoot you. It didn't matter. Somebody was going to die that day, and I had a particular person in mind, because this individual had done what I felt was quite, you know, unforgivable.
Sid Roth: How did you happen to have a gun?
Ben Kinchlow: I bought a gun.
Sid Roth: For that purpose?
Ben Kinchlow: Oh yes. You see, I had already taken karate. I was a trained - like I could do people in with my hands. And the only reason I took karate was because I was going to do people in physically. I wanted to hurt people with my hands. That's why I took karate. And I wanted to teach young black people how to hurt white people with your hands. That's why I took karate. But this thing, I wanted to kill somebody violently, and the gun was of course what everybody associates with violent death.
Sid Roth: So you went to see this guy with the gun. What happened?
Ben Kinchlow: I walked up and knocked on his door. And I already had it planned in my mind. I knew exactly what I was going to do. I had the safety off. It was an 8-shot automatic weapon. When I picked it up I was going to thumb it back, and then as fast as you could pull the trigger, it would eject another shell into the round. And I knew exactly what I was doing. As soon as he opened the door, “Hi”, right; one shot. He would step back. I would follow him in, I would shoot two more shots at him and he would fall on the ground, and then I'd put two on the ground, put the 3rd one, 6th or 7th one to his head.
Sid Roth: You had that all rehearsed in your mind.
Ben Kinchlow: Oh it was all rehearsed in my mind; I knew exactly how it was going to happen. It just so happened - just so happened the guy wasn't home. Just happened that he had been shipped out. He was in the military, and they had shipped him out that day.
Sid Roth: Well what a change in destiny. But the hatred is seething. He's starting to read about black militants, and he has a strategy and a plan to afflict hurt on the white man. We'll be back right after this.
Sid Roth: Hello. I'm Sid Roth your investigative reporter here with Ben Kinchlow. But before we go back to Ben, let's go to the control room with Janie Duvall. Janie, who's our guest next week?
Janie: Sid, did you know that there has been a deliberate cover-up by rabbis so Jewish people would not believe in Jesus?
Sid Roth: I know that as a fact, but how deliberate is it?
Janie: They would take prophecies. This is about, this is a thousand, over a thousand years ago they would take prophecies that were about Jesus that were in the Old Testament, the Tanakh, and they changed some of the words so it would not look like it was Jesus. And the man you're going to interview has the goods.
Sid Roth: There's very few people that know this. I can't wait until next week. Thank you, Janie. And I'm here with Ben Kinchlow. And Ben, the rage that you were going through, it was just a, if you call it “a quirk of fate” or you would have spent the rest of your life in prison or worse, killed, executed.
Ben Kinchlow: This was cold-blooded murder. That was cold-blooded murder. It was not a crime of passion. It was planned. It was cold-blooded murder. So I would have had...
Sid Roth: Now you decide to go the education route. You got yourself educated. You ended up in the “Who's Who” of colleges.
Ben Kinchlow: Well I knew that it's not black power or white power that really makes a difference in the world; it’s green power. If you have money, then it doesn't make a difference who you are, what ethnic group you belong to. If you have enough money you can buy your way out of it. And the way you got money, like I was going into business to make some money.
Sid Roth: What were you going to do with the money? What was the purpose?
Ben Kinchlow: Train revolutionaries. I was going to pay black revolutionaries to go down south and teach what we learned in Vietnam and Korea, fighting America's "enemies" and then I was going to teach these young black hoodlums in these gangs to say, “Why are you fighting yourselves and killing each other, and burning down your own buildings? Go fight the white man. Burn down his buildings and disappear into the countryside. If necessary, we'll ship you to Mississippi and teach you how to live off the countryside. That's who you need to fight. You need to know who your real enemy is. You need to know why he needs to die because he's not going to change. So the only way you can make him change is at the point of a gun. Might makes right.”
Sid Roth: And just as that man wasn't there when you had the gun ready to kill him, another man, we call it in Hebrew, “bashert”; it's a “destiny”; it’s meant “to be”. Another man comes into his life who is a martial arts karate expert. And of course, you're into karate so you become friends over that, but he was taking this friendship, and he's a white man. Why would you even want to be involved with this white man?
Ben Kinchlow: I was teaching a class, and you have to understand that I was the only - like there was three black guys on this campus that I was on, and I was the oldest one; had a black belt in karate, third degree black belt. And when you are - quickly, when you're - once you get your black belt, you can wear an all-black Gi and everybody else has to wear a white Gi with a white belt; and when you come in, you have to bow down to the master of the Dojo, which was me. And if you can imagine a hundred and some-odd white kids coming and bowing down to this big Afro mustached black guy with the black Gi on, it's a power trip.
Sid Roth: That was better than the blond.
Ben Kinchlow: And if you got a blond too, then you got a real power trip going on; that was where, that was going on in my life. And so this guy who was one of my assistants, I could order him around and, you know, so it was like a real power trip going on. But he had something different about this guy. I couldn't figure out what was different about this guy. I remember having lunch at his house. He invited me over to have dinner with my wife and my children, and my mother, and my father. He prepared this - his wife prepared this elaborate dinner, you know. And I'm sitting here with this violent Afro-centric, you know, “Death to the white man”, and pounding on his table. And I looked over here, and this guy has tears running down his check. And I thought, “I got you now”, you know, “cracker”. I mean, “I got you now, you honkey so-and-so”.
Sid Roth: But your family is there. What is this?
Ben Kinchlow: Why. My family is there.
Sid Roth: Why in front of your family?
Ben Kinchlow: My family knew the rage that was going on. I had thrown a man out of my mother's house for walking in without knocking. She - you know, some insurance guy walks into my mother's house, doesn't knock on the door, just walks in and starts going, "Hey Jewel, I'm here”, you know, and I jumped up, man. I was six-five; I had a third degree black belt; I had this huge Afro Fu, Manchu mustache. I had this big old dashiki hanging down around my knees. I jumped up and I told him, "If you don't get out of my house," and he immediately got up. “Don't walk in my mother's house without knocking. That's the ultimate disrespect.” And so this was the rage that everybody knew I had. So you know, it was like, it wasn't like I was polite in front of my family, you know. I mean, that rage - hatred doesn't stay where you aim it. It permeates every aspect of your life, and that's why I was pounding on his table. When I saw this guy crying, I thought "I've got him now".
Sid Roth: Why was he crying?
Ben Kinchlow: Because I was hurting.
Sid Roth: Did it dawn on you?
Ben Kinchlow: Yeah. Suddenly I realized this guy is not crying because I ruined his wife's dinner party or because I've insulted him or because I've done anything. This guy literally is weeping because I'm in pain. And he knew I was in pain; that's what anger is. Anger is a band-aid over pain. It is - that's how real hurt manifests itself.
Sid Roth: But he's a white man. He's your enemy.
Ben Kinchlow: Yeah. And that's why I didn't understand. And so I wanted to know, “What is wrong with you?” “What is wrong with this guy?”, so I asked him.
Sid Roth: What did he say?
Ben Kinchlow: He said, "I have a personal relationship with God". “Come on. How do you have a personal relationship with the first cause? With the ultimate mind? How did - with the universal clock maker? Give me a break! How do you have a personal relationship with God?” He said, "Through Jesus Christ". And I went, "Yeah right. A dead Jew who got himself killed for what he believed, and you're telling me that some dead guy is going to help me out"?
Sid Roth: A few days later something very supernatural happened to you.
Ben Kinchlow: I couldn't argue - I could argue his theology, but I couldn't argue with the fact that there was something different about that guy. So I was driving around in the car, 80 miles an hour, smoking cigarettes, three packs a day, filthy mouth, on my way to commit adultery that very night; wasn't even thinking about that. All of a sudden I heard myself singing some old spiritual, and I thought “I’m losing my mind. I'm losing my mind.”
Sid Roth: Quickly, let me hear a tiny bit of that song.
Ben Kinchlow: “My Heavenly Father watches over me.” That was all that kept coming out of my mind. And I remembered some of the things that had happened. I should have been dead. I was waiting to kill a guy with a knife; he had a gun. Another time I was waiting to kill somebody. Got drunk, fell asleep. Somebody saved my life. Third time, automobile turned over, killed the guy that was driving, bashed up the girl that was with him. I was in the back seat passed out. Got out of the whole thing with just a scar on my arm. “My Heavenly Father watches over me.” And so I just prayed a very simple prayer. "God, if you really are out there, and if this Jesus is who John says he is," I said, “then come into my life and change it.” I said, “But don't give me none of this religious jazz. I got enough of that stuff going on making me miserable. If you're real, and You can do something, change my life.
Sid Roth: What happened?
Ben Kinchlow: He changed my life instantly, dramatically, permanently. Didn't give me religion. Changed my life.
Sid Roth: I am a white Jew. What do you think of me?
Ben Kinchlow: Well if you hadn't had said that, all I would have noticed was that you have a particular shade of blue about your eyes. It doesn't matter. It doesn't bother me. I'm color blind now. It's irrelevant what color you are, you know, what language you speak. It really just doesn't matter anymore because now I know who I am because of who He is. And when He told me - when I found out who He was, and He showed me who I was, then everybody else falls right into place. So white, Jew...
Sid Roth: You love people, don't you?
Ben Kinchlow: Well that's because when you meet this Jesus we're talking about, something supernatural happens.
Sid Roth: Something supernatural happens. Your Heavenly Father is looking over you. Did you know that? Your Heavenly Father is looking over you. It's time that you got close to Him through the Jewish Messiah, Jesus. Pray now. You'll see, He's looking over you. He's right, He's this close to you. He's this close to them.
Ben Kinchlow: He’s closer than that.