The answer to the title question is I have no idea. Nor, do I believe, that the rest of this nation knows what the hell is happening. All this violence. All this incitement to riot. All this balkanization into small groups and the us against them mentality. Remember Lincoln's admonishment that a house divided against itself cannot long stand and take a look around. Our House is divided and if we do not find a way back, some glue, some superglue, then we are in danger, real and severe.
I am no political columnist nor a politician nor anyone with a particular benefit or gain awaiting me should I take sides. The truth is that there are no real sides here, only sheer mulelike stubbornness, heeding only the braying of others who think the same way and all heehawing away to the detriment of all. So here is my take on all this.
I grew up having people of different races and creeds coming into my home. My dad did not see colors nor did he care what people believed or how they prayed. At his funeral there were Arab friends mourning "Baba" or father, and black and brown and blue in the form of police as well and all the rest of friends and family. My father saw people and yet my family also knew that there were troubled people out there. My father and my younger brother were both beaten up by two biased and racist cops when they went to the defense of a black friend who was being beaten up for driving my dad's car!! All turned out well after lots of aggravation and their suit against the city was victorious, but we knew that there were people out there who could and would hurt others. No one group of people were perfect and no one group of people were all bad. It was the individuals we were taught to look towards.
Yet today we are back in a time when people looked at groups. When there was violence all around and when violence was the first response. I do not believe that there is more hatred and prejudice around than in the past few decades. I do not believe that we have lost all progress and returned to the 60's and 70's. We all joke about the music and the ways of life then, but there was lots of bad stuff around then and I cannot believe that we will or have it allowed to return.
People are scared. The different groups of the world, the varied cultures of the world have met and unfortunately clashed more often than not lately and that fear of the "other" has penetrated into our country. Instigators have risen to the surface and found a place for themselves. And yes, there are racist cops just as there are non racist cops and in the middle of the shooting in Dallas these officers ran towards the shooter and towards the people and helped all, color being a non starter. So why can we not progress here, go back to the future?
We cannot because we are overlooking truths, difficult truths, and ones which people are reluctant to state. I gave statistics the other day of police shootings and the number of African Americans in that number and I ask - are they alone? The answer is no, so why the yelling? Why the shouting? Why ? Because some of these were publicized and some of these were undeserved and some of these were also scared cops, not knowing if there was death in the equation for them. As soon as one is seen to be carrying a gun there is a ramping up of the confrontation. What is meant to be with that gun? Why is it being carried? Will they be carried by six soon enough? And hormones of fight or flight take over and while it is easy for us to sit back later and judge - we were not there! Simple as that.
And what is the matter with Texas. At a protest, a peaceful protest, over the shootings, there were people openly carrying AR-15s, assault rifles and for what purpose? What were the officers to think? Why does Texas allow these open carry laws to go so far and why does the NRA push for this? There is no one guilty party here for all share guilt including our oh so esteemed and almost useless Congress who think with their pockets and not with their hearts and minds. And then come the crocodile tears when the next mass shooting occurs but there goes nothing as far as gun control.
Nor can we put aside the state of minds of people. I have long stated my opposition to these types of guns, these long guns, these assault weapons and yet why is my head starting to tell me that perhaps buying one is not such a bad idea for one will be needed should this violence continue, needed for self defense and then I shudder and shake my head and refuse to follow that train of thought.
And why have these black leaders not gone into their own communities and begun programs there to stop the gangs, to stop the gun mentality, to stop the gangster mentalities and the appeals and absorbing of the young into this . Why do they not rail on and against black on black shootings? Because it is not as popular? Or does not have the same political appeal? But it does create an atmosphere of fear for those who live with it, within it and for those who have to patrol it.
We have groups like Black Lives Matter which personally I believe to have become a full blown racist organization itself. Would it not be better to have an organization that states that All Lives Matter. Would that not affect more people, gain their attention and perhaps start a true and deep grass roots movement to control this culture of guns? Anything better than what we now have.
So what is the matter with us? We are human and afraid. We feel caught up in a vortex of events, locally, nationally and worldwide that gives us no outs, no place to turn for help and no off button or answers. We are afraid of being overwhelmed by those others and thus we turn inward and against all others even if they are fellow Americans, fellow people. So the gains we have made, where people do not give even a first glance at a 'mixed" marriage, where friends are chosen by whatever makes people friends, those gains are in danger and the more people shout "gimme mine' and allow hate and noise and violence to deafen all that is good within us, the harder it will be to come back to sanity.
The answer to all this? To shut up, settle down, muzzle those within us who would still call for violence and hate, stop the ranting, give classes to our law officers, counseling, pour people into the gang areas and stop that , Take the Guns Away, put the NRA in their proper place - hard and difficult to do all these things but what is our alternative? There is no one side here that is all good or all bad. We need to remember that and we need to put our house back together. The tornado that came thru only battered us but we need to reinforce and rejoin before the next one comes through. Think people, what is the country we wish to leave behind for our kids and grandkids and what will the rest of the world be like should we collapse in a welter of hate and killings?
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