We should all be outraged by the senseless deaths of human beings. Many of us including me became physically ill when we watched the video of George Floyd being strangled to death by a psychopathic killer while three other fellow policemen stood by and did nothing. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Absolutely. This morning I was equally outraged when I saw a YouTube Video of former St. Louis police Captain David Dorn also a Black man who was videoed in real-time bleeding out on a sidewalk in front of a retail store that he was protecting from violent demonstrators last night. And nobody came to assist him. The demonstrators who you could only hear but not see did nothing. Just like the cowardly policeman. One group of cowards was white, the other group was both white and Black. They all had a responsibility to be “their brother’s keeper”
In my career, I have attended to many hundreds of victims of shootings; several unfortunately died in the ER or on our operating room table. The sense of despair that can easily turn to rage in those situations is the source of nightmares for me many years after the fact. For me, as I wake up in the middle of the night, I remember each link in the chain that proceeded their downward spiral. I remember who my assistant surgeon was and who the OR techs in the room were and even regarding one case what music was playing on the radio. I do not remember their age or the color of their skin though in Norfolk and Jacksonville Florida most of our trauma patients came from the ghetto and were black. In Boise, almost everyone was white or Hispanic. The patients I attended too in the Navy including one Russian sailor crossed ethnicities and races. But they were all people with children and mothers and fathers and family and friends. Those who are left behind feel the pain and grief and that is what we are seeing as family members mourn.
But we are also seeing media and politicians moving onto the stage to leverage a narrative or political agenda and by using the emotion of the moment they fail to look at “the log in their own eye”. Mr. Bob Woodson the head of The Woodson Foundation, said yesterday that today race is being used to take the attention away from leaders in our major cities and Black activist who after 50 years of the LBJ “Great Society” programs and a $12 trillion investment in marginalized communities have failed. Mr. Woodson is himself a Black Man.
Why aren’t the demonstrators facing up to the leaders of their institutions and cities and demonstrating against them? They are the ones who for 50 years have made promises, made themselves richer, and continue to ask for votes from exploited constituents. From 1948-1969 real wages in Black families were rising 7% higher than white families. Blacks graduating from high school increased faster than whites and Blacks graduating from College increased by 30%–twice the rate of whites. Then in 1969 with the implementation of the Great Society, many historical Black Colleges folded or almost folded. Black Cotillion’s and social clubs are today non-existent. Progressives have carried out a relentless battle against charter schools in Black Communities. Black churches and the Black family have suffered the most. “As ye sow, so shall ye reap”?
It doesn’t matter if you are conservative or liberal, black, white, or Hispanic a human being of any age—young and unborn old and close to death everyone has a value given to them by God. For those who are agnostic or don’t believe in God you can at least believe in a “common humanity”. For Christians who believe in the “New Covenant” our value to God has nothing to do with race, or size, or physical stature or anything. A White baby and a black baby are the same in the eyes of our Creator and should be the same in the eyes of The Law. Same with unborn Black and White babies, or 90-year-old men and women who are about to receive Last Rights. Circumlocution a favorite tool of progressives who use terms like “existential”, “institutional” and “systemic” are applied specifically to be vague and evasive. When you hear those words an obfuscation, more likely a lie, is sure to follow.
So let’s take one instance as reviewed in today’s Washington Post and Wall Street Journal by Heather MacDonald in an article entitled “The Myth of Systemic Police Racism”. Referenced in the article is information reported in The Proceedings of The National Academy of Sciences and a review by a Black Harvard Economist Roland J. Fryer Jr. Crime and suspect behavior, not race, have more of an influence on police interactions with the public than any other variable studied.
In 2019 police officers fatally shot 1004 people the overwhelming majority were armed and determined to be dangerous. African Americans were ¼ of those (235). That share of Black victims was lower than what the crime statistics would predict. 53% of homicides are by Blacks and 60% of robberies are blacks with 90% being black on black. Blacks are 13% of the population. Police shot 9 unarmed Blacks and 19 unarmed whites in 2019. In 2019 there were 7407 Black homicides. Those 9 unarmed Blacks represent 0.9% of Black homicides. By contrast, a police officer is 18 ½ more likely to killed by a black male than a Black male is to be killed by a policeman or woman. Over Memorial Day weekend there were 28 shootings in Chicago and 12 deaths from shootings the majority being Black on Black. We need to mourn those deaths also.
So what is the result of this false narrative in the real world? The “Ferguson Affect”. Black and white police officers across the country are being targeted so they back off from policing in those neighborhoods where they are most at risk. So much for community presence in an at-risk community. And what about the 95% of good law-abiding people living in fear in those communities? Mothers afraid to come home from a 2nd shift job or send their kids to school.
There is a reason to protest. We should protest a society that does not value life. We should protest against those on either side of “the blue line” who kill. There should be an outpouring of rage in support of David Dorn, George Floyd, and those murdered on the streets of our major cities every day. There should be prayers for their families and a commitment by those in the media and our politicians to not exploit raw emotions for ratings and votes. And finally, we should demonstrate for the 99% of those in law enforcement who tonight will continue to put themselves in harm’s way to protect us, but will be feeling the ramifications of a senseless and cruel action by a renegade psychopath with the subsequent result of the loss of credibility and trust for what they do for us.
