Ever since the police shooting of Micheal Brown in Ferguson, Mo. confrontations between the policed and African Americans have been highlighted through social media and the media as a whole. The Black Lives Matter movement has highlighted our broken justice system and the fact that police are killing black males at an alarming rate. This is something black people where aware of but now it is captured on video ( remember Rodney King) and cries for justice are making it to the 6:00 pm news. It has reached the point where driving while black is no long just harassment by the police, but can be a death sentence. As has been demonstrated, even doing nothing or the "right" things can get you shot, as police officers claim "fear for their lives" as a defense for the killings.
Now that we are afraid of the police, and they are afraid of us, the outcomes can be expected. Yes there are good cops and then there are bad cops. This is not a cycle that has just occurred but a systemic problem that has been ingrained into our police forces across the country. When you interact with bad people 90% of the time you get trained that everyone should be treated as if they are a criminal and to take appropriate action. They are trained to shoot to kill, not wound, when threatened. They are given the power to impose their wills upon others and respond forcefully to those that don't, even if their commands are not valid. The fact that they are superior and have power over others is paramount in their minds to providing law and order.
Of course the fact that young black males are suffering from both economic and educational deficiencies, which already leads them to a sense of hopelessness, does not help the situation. The abundance of gangs which provides many with a sense of togetherness, and drugs which provides them with capital fans the flames also. Almost any city in America has areas where guns are prevalent, and so are killings and crime. However, the police have now gone over the edge and placed all black men in that category. And some believe that since we are killing each other that we should not care about their killing of us.
I have never been in any trouble with the law, but I have always been nervous when I had to interact with police, particularly when stopped in my car for whatever reason. Now at over 65 years of age I am even more afraid of being stopped, because it could be a deadly encounter. Young, old, big, small, dark or light, it doesn't matter. My wife is afraid to go to the mall and even walking in the park because of the crazy things that people are doing. Guns don't kill people, but people use them a lot to kill people. When we go to the movies my wife will no longer sit in the middle section for fear of a possible shooting or the people behind her. It is crazy but reality.
There is a new term floating around these days called "implicit bias". Another term for racism, so you don't have to call someone a racist. We all have it and it is taught to all of us as we grow up. As far back as preschool. For whites it has always been the same. They are the superior race and everyone else is less than them. Blacks get the bias the opposite way from white to believe that they are inferior. As one scholar once said, it is ridiculous to believe that one human being is less that another just because of the pigment of their skin. We are all one race, the human race, and one ethnic group has divided that race into classes for their benefit.We are not born with this, it is learned. It is so ingrained into America's history and culture that I don't believe it will ever be undone. So we should all be afraid, very afraid that America will implode some day due to this strife.
I am not a strongly religious man, but I believe in God and particularly the "teachings" of the Bible. America's troubles escalated as we moved further and further away from God and our morality. Generations of children no longer follow Christian values. In God We Trust is just a catch phrase these days. Everything is now OK to do, both in entertainment and real life. I "chose" not to live my life in fear like this, and believe that my faith allows me not to be stressed. All things are in God's hands and he is in control.
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