The needle barely moves

So a couple nights ago (after I wrote The Torn Curtain, ironically), I got in a big FB dust-up with a friend of a friend who supports the NFL protest thing.  My point is not going to be to rehash the argument or bash the arguer.  No, I've been thinking of how I SHOULD have phrased my opposition to them. 

These guys, at least originally, started this over perceived (not saying false) police brutality, and unequal percentage of blacks in prisons.  So let's just take a side trip to a perfect world...

Where the protests have triggered a groundswell of changed hearts.  All bad cops, all higher ups with bigotry in their veins are weeded out.  All of them. 


Every cop has an equal understanding of what justice really means.  All administrators try to do their job fairly, without bias.


And the judges.  Let's say we weed out all the judges that have played fast and loose with "equal justice under the Law."  Of course, you utopians out there should remember that this would clean out, along with all the Boss Hoggs out there, the activist judges like the ones in the 9th Circuit and Hawaii who are defying the current President despite overwhelming legal precedent and legislation.  Might also take Supreme Court justices who make political comments with the robes off like Ms Bader-Ginsberg.  Weed them all out, until only fair, legal, Constitutional justice is left.

Oh, and let's add in the POTUS acting with dignity, not stirring crap up every few days on the modern Tower of Babel, social media.

Now, we have the perfect world.  Everything's fair.

So why are all these young blacks  STILL being killed?  In Chicago, in Detroit, in Baltimore- in Fort Wayne?

Let's clean out the prisons of everyone who is unfairly sentenced.  Why are there so many blacks still there?


Because you have cured a side-cause of the problem, not the main problem.  You've amputated the foot of the gangrenous diabetic, but they're still guzzling Pepsi (wonder why I thought of that analogy?), and are weeks away from coma.  This was the crux of my argument I referenced at the beginning.

Inner city blacks are disproportionately in one-parent (if lucky) households, members of violent criminal drug selling gangs, dropping out of school whether out of class or in it and just checked out.  They disproportionately have fewer job skills, lower education (don't believe me? In 2015, IPFW here in the Fort graduated a quarter of white, Asian, and Hispanic students, but only around 8% of black students.), crappier life experience.

So why is this?  To hear the media tell it, it's because The Man is holding him down.  So what happens when we eliminate those who would unfairly hold people back because of skin color?

The needle barely moves.

Because the fault isn't there.  It's in kids that are never inspired at home to learn and be productive.  It's men (and I use the term loosely) who feel responsibility ends when the imaginary condom comes off.  It's thugs who believe that "I got the pistols, so I get the pesos" is a universal truth.  Guys who believe their manhood is directly proportional to the caliber of their gun.

The fault is in lack of respect.  They don't respect others, they don't respect themselves. And while it is hammering the African-American community, it sure doesn't stop there.  But let's stay on track.

I caught grief for using "they and them" so much in that argument, so let's just say that there are a lot of African Americans who HAVE that respect, who TEACH those values, and I am not including those people in "they and them."  And there are TOO MANY out there who do fit this mold, and they need to look in the mirror.  And above them all are those who would say I am being "passive racist" for pointing it out, because we live in a climate where you don't dare blame the individual or make them take responsibility.  Somewhere along the rutted road, they are a victim.  Sounds like a certain bitter old white lady I know...

What I am is someone who can see when a little bit of something gets blown into a huge ordeal in the minds of people who lead with their heart and want to strike back in righteous rage.  I get that.  But when it's something like this protest, which could be 100% successful and not solve a damn thing, that's when I try to tell people, you are wasting your time.  My new favorite phrase is, "They're trying to save the burning house by filling the bathroom basin."

I kept trying to find a way to involve the old Charlie Brown joke about doing a good deed is like peeing yourself in black slacks- you get a warm feeling but nobody notices.  But this just isn't like that- EVERYBODY is noticing, everyone's either saying Charlie Brown's a freak 'cause he had an accident, or poor Charlie Brown, lend him your coat or something till he gets home.  And nobody is noticing that the reason he peed himself is he's having a stroke, that's just liable to kill him.