We talked about how crazy and vindictive the social media world is right now. Just saw a sign in my local town saying "Silence is Violence". Well, that's very productive.
The streets have been a very mixed bag. Depending on what news channel you watch, the entire nation is coming together to stand up for justice and reform, or the entire nation is being burned to the ground by violent protesters.
Which one is right? Well, both.
In my last post, I spoke about the 7,000 or so back homicides in America each year, and asked, who is killing them?
About 90% of blacks being murdered are being murdered by other blacks, according to the FBI Unified Crime Report.
I also touched on the fact that of all these 7,000 or so black homicides last year, 235 were killed by police. Mostly in shootouts of justifiable situations. Of that 7,000, only 9 unarmed black people were killed by the police. Of those 9, it is unclear how many of those were unarmed but attacking an officer. I also said, I'm sure there are some tragedies in these numbers.
I also said that there are plenty of bad cops out, usually protected by their police unions. While we have close to 700,000 uniformed police in America, most of them are outstanding folks. However, even if 1% are racist or just bad cops, that's 7,000 problem officers who could be the spark to set off the next tragedy.
So, how do we actually make things better in our communities? Especially, how do we make our minority communities a better place to live?
I can assure you of one thing; it's not by defunding the police departments in those communities, as some of the more radical groups want to do.
While my last post was written towards mostly white, mostly liberal, mostly middle-upper class folks, especially some of my Christian friends, this one is for everyone.
No matter who you are, and where you live, you can do some things that will actually help. You can be the change you are demanding.
You can volunteer. Your time, not your money.
Sure there are good causes out there that could use some cash. However, many of them spend that money on staff, office rent, cars, meals, and meetings with politicians to get even more money.
Some of them do good very good work, but I'm talking about you making a difference in someone's life. That's a lot harder than just sending $20 here or $100 there.
Now many of you will say, I already am part of a woman's group, men's group, or youth group at my church, and we reach out to everyone. Great, now do more.
Make a real difference in one, or two, or ten people's lives who you would not interact with in your daily life. People who live in the part of your town you don't go into, unless you absolutely have to.
Maybe you live in a city that doesn't have a bad part of town. Go to the nearest high crime city or town, and find a place where they are in need of volunteers. I guarantee you, those places are out there, and they need your help.
Now you might say, well this is about structural racism, and police brutality, can't I just march with my friends and post the right kind of things to my social media? Maybe send $20 to Black Lives Matter, and buy a cool shirt?
You can, but you are not helping solve the real, structural, systemic problem.
The breakdown of the black family, black fatherlessness, high poverty, and very high crime rates inside these communities are why these places are at boiling point.
Don't believe me, some random white guy? Okay, fair enough, how about Barack Obama? Here is some of the Father's Day speech by then Sen. Barack Obama to Apostolic Church of God in Chicago.
But if we are honest with ourselves, we’ll admit that what too many fathers also are is missing — missing from too many lives and too many homes. They have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men. And the foundations of our families are weaker because of it.
You and I know how true this is in the African-American community. We know that more than half of all black children live in single-parent households, a number that has doubled — doubled — since we were children. We know the statistics — that children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime; nine times more likely to drop out of schools and 20 times more likely to end up in prison. They are more likely to have behavioral problems, or run away from home or become teenage parents themselves. And the foundations of our community are weaker because of it.
How many times in the last year has this city lost a child at the hands of another child? How many times have our hearts stopped in the middle of the night with the sound of a gunshot or a siren? How many teenagers have we seen hanging around on street corners when they should be sitting in a classroom? How many are sitting in prison when they should be working, or at least looking for a job? How many in this generation are we willing to lose to poverty or violence or addiction? How many?
Yes, we need more cops on the street. Yes, we need fewer guns in the hands of people who shouldn’t have them. Yes, we need more money for our schools, and more outstanding teachers in the classroom, and more after-school programs for our children. Yes, we need more jobs and more job training and more opportunity in our communities.
But we also need families to raise our children. We need fathers to realize that responsibility does not end at conception. We need them to realize that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child — it’s the courage to raise one.
I did not vote President Obama, and was a huge opponent of most of his political agenda, but he is absolutely, 100% correct here.
I also wonder how his call for more police would go over today in the black community?
Now, I don't want you to think that the problems in the black community are solely caused by the black community itself. They are not. We will get to police reform in a second. However, most of the real change in an individual person's life will come through that person's individual choices.
It's called Agency. Everyone has it, and everyone should embrace it.
Here's how agency works. Making good choices leads to good outcomes. Making bad choices leads to bad outcomes. Sometimes, bad things can just happen to you. How you respond to those situations will make or break you. That is universally true in every person's life.
How do you help someone make better choices? It is really hard, but you can spend your time, and your give of your talent, trying to help them get that method of thinking hard wired into them.
Volunteer, mentor a young person, help tutor at a minority school when you can. Be the change you want to see. You want to see the any community do better? This is how it works; help individuals make better decisions in their lives.
You may not have all the answers, but you can help. Even if it's just mentoring one young person an hour a week, or helping a high school student trying to sign up for job training, or college, or helping a person trying to fill out a job application correctly. You can help.
If the hundreds of thousands of successful, white, young people I saw marching in the streets for change did this, you would see change. If you had successful young people of all colors and views volunteering and mentoring, you would actually see a remarkable difference in the black community in a few years.
You may say; A few years? I want change right now, we demand change right now!
That is not how real change works. Change takes time, it is generational. Individuals can change overnight, society takes much longer.
I know this isn't what you want to hear. I know you want to keep marching with your friends in the nice weather, and posting on social media to make yourself feel like you're doing something, but you're really not doing much at all.
It's a lot like dieting. You want real, lasting results? You must make better choices to get those results.
You hear the commercials for some fad diet pills, where people lost a lot of weight while still eating Double Whoppers, and you buy a bottles of those pills.
They work for a bit, then you gain that weight back, plus a few pounds. In two years the diet company is being sued because the stimulant in the pills gave people heart attacks.
If you want real, lasting, change, you must eat better, and exercise even when you don't want to. You must make better choices. It's hard to do, but it works every time.
What about the police? These police killings of black men are usually what sets off the outrage. Can we, as citizens, make the police force better? I think we can, and we must.
Like I said in my other piece, I have a few friends who are police, and they are great people. I could never do it. I don't have the temperment for it. I'm too soft, too willing to see the good in people. I'd be killed on a traffic stop, thinking everything was fine, and the guy was just reaching for his wallet.
Being a police officer is a dangerous job. Last year, 48 police officers were killed by felonious acts in the line of duty. 41 were killed in accidents.
So, what about the bad cops, how do we get rid of them?
That is not easy. Mainly because of their unions.
Much like bad teachers, and bad public employees, their unions fight for the bad ones along with the good ones. It really takes something like a video of an officer doing something clearly criminal, or against department policy, to have their union not defend them against the police department.
Can that change? Yes, but it's not likely to. Why?
I hate to keep bringing this up, but mainly because most big cities are run by democrats.
Public employee unions are one of the largest political contributors to those democrat's campaigns. These unions have huge political power in democratic cities.
If you look at the news from a few weeks ago you will get an idea of why this is going to be difficult to change.
Look at this video. It's from Minneapolis, the city where George Floyd was killed by the police officer.
The mayor of Minneapolis is Jacob Frey. He is just the kind of mayor most of the protesters would vote for.
He's young, an attorney, very liberal, and when not at an official event, or dancing the Cupid Shuffle with Black Lives Matter folks, dresses like he's going to play frisbee golf with his buddies.
Well, poor Jacob is dealing with huge problems right now. Floyd's death has lead to peaceful protestors, along with rioters looting and burning businesses, and people calling for him to defund the police department. Funny how Blogger won't let me find this Youtube clip from it's links, but check it out.
There is a longer one where Frey is telling this black lives activist that he wants to really change the way the city works with the police union, and their contracts, to make real changes.
That is actually a very courageous stand by a liberal politician. The protestors are not having any of it. They want to defund the police department, and get rid of all police in their communities.
This is one of the most absurd demands in the history of demands.
One of the things that black activist like to call out is 'racial redlining' and other things where minorities have to pay more for the things that white people pay less for. Take insurance.
How do insurance companies price their rates to different people?
Where do you live?
How many burglaries happen there? Where you park your car, how many cars are stolen, or broken into there? What is the rate of insurance claims filed there? That's how those rates are determined.
What do activists think will happen to the crime rates if you abolished the police in your neighborhood? Will it go up or down?
If you think the crime rate goes down, I'm not sure I can help you.
I'd also like to point out that when the criminals and ANTIFA come into your neighborhood and smash windows, loot stores, burn buildings, destroy and overturn cars while 'protesting', this drives up the cost of everything.
Regular folks living there will have to pay more for home insurance, car insurance, renters insurance, along with higher prices for goods and services to cover the costs.
This also makes businesses looking to open stores in those areas reconsider, or move out, taking those jobs with them. Why would they open a new business, or remodel an existing one in an area where they have riots?
If low wages and low job opportunities in your neighborhood lead to worse outcomes for the people who live there, do you think those opportunities will get better when you destroy the businesses there?
What about the schools? Why do they fail to give poor kids a better education?
Well, one part is the public schools are run by teachers unions, and teachers unions have a great deal of power in these cities.
The other is Agency.
If your parents don't give a damn about you doing your homework, and let you play video games and hang with your friends all day, you are not going to succeed in school. There are parents in these communities that do care, they really care, and the teachers that teach at these public schools just don't. They are doing the absolute minimum to get their nice paychecks and wait for retirement.
If you want change, demand your city or county is pro school choice when it come to schools.
If you want to watch a really good documentary about this watch Waiting for Superman.
So, here are the points in a nutshell. Here is what needs to change:
Black inner city communities have very high crime rates.
High crime rates means a much higher police/citizen interaction rate.
This means higher incidents of bad things happening, on both sides.
Black communities have a very high fatherlessness rate.
Fatherless homes have children who drop out of school, get arrested, get involved in drugs, get involved with gangs, and to go to prison at a much higher rate than homes with fathers.
Big cities are run by democrat politicians. They give big money contracts to public employee unions, including police unions, and teachers unions, and those unions are one of the largest campaign donors back to those same democrat politicians.
Changing these contract terms, with public methods of reviewing police activities, easier ability to fire officers who violate these terms, and having substantial community based interaction training will be very difficult. Same with schools. Being able to fire a bad teacher is almost impossible.
Look, like I said before, I used to be one of you.
I used to let emotion carry the day. What I felt about an issue was the most important thing. If I felt I was helping, or doing the right thing, that was all I cared about. I didn't really know how to measure results.
I wanted something done, was that something going to actually help? I didn't know, I just felt right wanting it done.
That was fine was I was a teenager or in my early twenties.
What I learned later was to stop listening to what people and politicians were saying, and started looking at what they were doing.
Once you start asking politicians, why won't you change the systems that obviously don't work, who will not like the answers? If you are voting for the people the police unions and the public teachers unions back, you are voting for the wrong people.
If you are marching to make some kind of change happen, you should be volunteering in the communities you want to see the most change.
If you volunteer there, you will learn the politics of the people in charge, and you will start to understand that most of them just want the title, and the career track to a higher office. They will choose the union money, the big democratic party money, over fighting for the people they are supposed to represent.
I'm not saying vote for Republicans either, I used to be one of them too.
I'm saying vote, back, and walk a few precincts with someone who wants real change over the job.
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