A Very Long Post About a Very Long Week...

It has been an incredibly long, sad, trying week here in America. I have friends who are hurting about the lives lost to police officers, the lives of officers that were lost, and friends who (like me) are hurting from all of it.

In times like this, it is important for us to open up and continue conversations about race, crime, and justice. It is important that we work out our feelings, and make sure that we are standing in the right place. It is important that we step out of our personal comfort zone and ask ourselves questions, so that we develop a centered, rounded view of the world. More importantly, we must do this so we can then ask ourselves the hard questions that are always on my mind and heart these days: "What can *I* do to help? What change can we bring about?"

I am going to try to organize my thoughts, if I can. There is so much swirling in my head and heart that I was unable to express this past week because the 'e' button on my keyboard wasn't working. Too much to type out on a tablet or phone. Now that I've got a functioning keyboard, I will try to see if I can lay it all out in a way that makes sense. 

• Black Lives Matter... This seems to be a threatening statement to some. The rallying answer back is that all lives matter. That is true, but it indicates that we've missed the point.
  
  
  Black Lives Matter is a cry that there is still injustice in the world. 
  
  Instead of taking it this way, too many people take it as 'you are the cause of injustice'. We blame #blm for causing racial division. It might continue racial division in some cases (such as when it is taken wrong on either side of the issue), but I see it as a stark reminder of racism and division that is already alive and well in our country. It is a reminder that apathy from the majority is allowing injustice to continue.
  
  Please notice that I say 'issue' and 'people'. I do not for one minute believe that this is strictly a racial war or problem. The issue is police brutality. The issue is whether race *does* factor into it, and when. The issue is whether or not people are getting fair treatment. There are persons from all races taking sides on all of these issues. It would be crass to think that only one group of people is affected by any one thing.
  
  The violence we have seen this week affects ALL of us. The dialogue about what happens affects all of us. The consequences, the changes in our society... these things affect ALL of us. It is high time we pull our heads out of the sand and recognize this. I'm so sick of qualifying every single word I say, but you kind of have to. It is too easy to be misunderstood in print.  
  Let me also say that I *am* aware that in some cases, people using the BLM banner are advocating for violence. They do not represent the whole, in the same way that bad police officers do not represent the whole. I do not support violence as a solution, or as a way to gain the right kind of attention. Violence does not justify violence. 

• Statistics... this is another big one, so let's get it out of the way. Statistics show that in 2015 more white men were killed by police than not. This is irrefutable fact. There are real references to this, so feel free to use Google to look that up. Fact admitted, no prejudice here.
  
  Now, let's ask more questions. Does that fact somehow excuse police killings? Does that mean that we should accept every death without question? Does that mean that all police killings get a pass? Absolutely not.
  
  
  I am *not* claiming that white men are never the victim of police brutality. It makes me angry that I even have to say that. Recognizing injustice in one area does not have to equal ignoring it in others. I am not claiming that every person to ever get shot during an encounter with police has deserved it or did not deserve it.
  
  
  However, this still does not negate the fact that police brutality *is* real. It *is* a problem. It *does* exist. The ONLY solution to this is for good officers to call out bad officers. Beyond that, it is the duty of humanity to check into all instances in case of wrongdoing. This is why internal investigation bureaus exist in the first place. Accountability is a good and healthy thing. It is necessary.
  
  By far, there are more good officers than bad. Those officers need to protect themselves and their reputation by actively weeding out corrupt cops. I know that can be hard to do when corruption often goes higher up the ladder, but this is a real problem and needs to be addressed. 
  
  
• Black on black crime rates are higher than white on black... this is another point made as loudly and frequently as possible. It is usually either made as a distraction or a justification of officer killings. 
  
  
  Again, we come back to the question, does that somehow validate police brutality? Does that somehow validate racism where it *does* exist? The answer is a resounding, "NO". You cannot seriously ask this question in support of our police officers because they are sworn to a higher standard. They are not sworn to the level of same-race crime of any race. They are sworn to bring criminals into custody where the law can be spoken over them by a judge and/or jury as often as and if at all possible.
  
  
• Police Brutality... I am posting this for single-minded people who are so vehement in supporting police that they will and do overlook any and all wrong-doing. Please read this very clearly: admitting that there is a problem with police brutality in this country does not mean I do not or cannot fully support my local law enforcement, or honorable officers everywhere.
  
  What it does mean is that our eyes are open. Changes cannot be made without making changes. That almost seems too simple/common sense to even have to verbalize. I love police officers. I want my children to know that they can talk to an officer to ask for help if they need it, and find that help if they need it. I was raised that you support your local authorities. My mom would bake goods and take us to deliver them. My parents taught us to have respect for the law. They taught us that police, fire, EMT... all of these are people worthy of respect and admiration because they put the ultimate treasure on the line for our safety... their lives.
  
  This is why I have said before and will say a thousand times again, weeding out bad officers can only help good officers. It is like churches and priests or other staff members who perpetrate sexual abuse. Hiding the abusers only serves to damage the whole of religion - any religion. Exposing those who are evil and who have ill intent is the ONLY way to save the reputation of the greater majority. We all like the Burke quote, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." That is, we like it until it is pointed in our direction. 
  
  
• He deserved it... I am also very sick of seeing this attitude. It piles up immediately after we learn of another police killing. We've all seen it. Article upon article, reminding you why someone who has been killed ultimately wasn't deserving of the life he lived in the first place. Oh, he had a rap sheet. Oh, he did not comply with officers. Oh, he was committing a crime. I'm going to rub my temples while you read this:

THOUSANDS of people commit crime daily. THOUSANDS, who happen to make it into custody or home safely. Death is not always the fault of the person being arrested. Too many videos of too many deaths raise too many questions for anyone to believe that is 100% true.  

Let's look at Alton Sterling, for example. Police were called to come to the scene because of a gun. Thus, they arrived on heightened alert. I get that. He was tased and wrestled to the ground with two men on top of him. That was hard to watch, but if they were on heightened alert, I can even try to understand that. 

He struggled. I get that, too. It seems like once a black man is on the ground in this country, he is dead. (It may or may not *be* that way, but you have to admit it sure seems that way.) I probably would have struggled too. 

Half of the online mob says he reached for his gun. Half say that he was struggling but had no way to reach for his gun because it was, after all, still holstered, and he did have two men over him. I fall into the latter half because I did not see any attempt for the gun from two angles of the shooting. It seems pretty clear that his arms were already pinned down.

The store owner, who knew him and was watching, did not see that. He *should* be considered a reliable witness. People standing there watching did not see him reach for a gun. What is that thing we pretend we believe in this country? Evidence? Well, from the evidence, it doesn't appear that he'd have been able to reach for his gun.

What I *did* see was someone 'discover' the gun they already knew he was carrying, and that discovery used as an excuse for murder. 

Wait, wait!!! It isn't murder! They were doing their jobs! Again, I beg to differ. 

• Even if you believe that he deserved to be tased and tackled to the ground for not responding in the literal split second they gave him to respond to the command to get down on the ground before the taser went off...
• Even if you believe that he was wildly out of his rights to ask what this was about (which he wasn't)...
• Even if you believe that these officers had his name and his criminal record pulled by the time they arrived on the scene and came ready to disarm a known criminal...
• Even if you believe that the hardly-able-to-move struggling he was doing while being subdued by two men (and completely under one) was enough to endanger them...
• Even if you believe that a man fully straddling/sitting on him left him free enough to grab that gun without them having the ability to control his arm (unlikely)...
• Even if you believe that they were afraid for their lives while visibly in complete control of this entire situation...
• Even if you believe that simply identifying that he had a gun (someone yells "GUN!!") - a fact that they already KNEW when they got there - was a reason to draw their own weapon...
• Even if you think that a gun pointed straight into his heart was not motivation enough...
• Even if you think (my soul in Heaven, HOW could you think this) that shooting him was justified...

HOW COULD YOU EVER THINK FOR A MINUTE THAT MULTIPLE SHOTS FIRED INTO HIS HEART/CHEST AREA AND BACK WERE JUSTIFIED???

Because, see... you can't. Because if witnesses are to be believed, if video is to be believed, if your own eyes are to be believed, Alton Sterling was already subdued. He was already unable to reach his gun. If he *did* reach his gun with his arm pinned against him, he couldn't have unholstered it. If he could have shot it, he'd only have shot himself.

A grown man was sitting on top of him. He was pinned down. The officer who pulled the gun promised to shoot him if he so much as moved. Think about that, okay?

"If you move, I swear to God...!"

And. He. Did. What you saw, what we all saw, is an officer shooting a man - not even just one time, but really, truly murdering him - for moving.

Alton - scared, confused, overwhelmed - moved... and he was killed for it. Can you say that you would not have moved? Can you say that moving was justification for one shot? Can you say that moving was justification for two shots? Can you say that moving was justification for so many shots at point-blank range into a man's chest?

If that were your spouse, could you still say it? If that were your son, could you? If that were you laying there on the ground, could you say that wriggling was worth your life? Can you say that Alton *really* had a choice? Do you think that he would be alive if he had laid still as a ghost? Does an officer have the right to shoot you to death after you are subdued for wriggling? Do you still really believe that it was justified after all of that?

If so, why? Did they not have other alternatives? Yes. Smack, punch, handcuff, taser, billy club (not that I want to see a man already down get beaten, because I don't)... police officers are trained how to get a person down SO THEY CAN BE BROUGHT IN TO ANSWER TO THE LAW.

See, this is what I think people are forgetting. We get all defensive about how loyal, selfless, and serving police officers are. For good reason - they really are! There are a million great men and women serving on the force. 

However, we forget some of their official title: Law ENFORCEMENT officers. They are not, in themselves, the law. 

When it comes down to a shootout, yes - shoot back! Always, shoot back!

When it comes down to someone coming after you with a gun, shoot! Always shoot!

When it comes down to saving a life - SHOOT! Yes, shoot!

But when it comes down to someone you are sitting on top of, whose arms are not free... use other methods! Draw on your police training, and for the love of humanity, save a life! Because here is the thing, we trust them to serve and protect. We trust them to draw on their training to get everyone safely to the station. We trust them to fight past their adrenaline and find a way to assess the situation they are in. 

RACISM IS NOT REAL! HE DESERVED IT! THE MEDIA ARE MAKING ALL OF THIS UP AND ANYONE WHO AGREES IS EITHER RACE-BAITING OR FALLING DIRECTLY FOR THE BAIT!!!

Okay, so you still don't believe there is a problem. Your anger is boiling over reading my words and how wrong, wrong, wrong I am in my thinking. You are okay sleeping at night knowing that men are being murdered for things like wiggling under a police officer. Fine. Let's look at another case that brought agony to so many this week, shall we?

Philando Castile... This was a man you cannot line up the usual 'he deserved it' diatribe against. Not only that, but this was the kind of man who should be the hero of a lot of my friends. He was a great dad, a great guy, a philanthropist to the children he worked around, and a certified concealed carrier. He was down the line everything you swear to defend, the very definition of an innocent. Philando was gunned down in his own car in front of his girlfriend, and worse - his beautiful baby girl. Why? Because he had 'flared nostrils' and he and his wife might have resembled someone from a robbery based on those 'flared nostrils'. (I am not kidding. Look it up. It should make you sick.)

Now, you who are reading this and are so righteously angry, you tell me exactly how little racism remains in the world. You tell me how police shootings are not a sign of epidemic police brutality taken to the ultimate conclusion. You tell me how well your father, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, parent who is a good person in uniform is represented by someone who actually DOES commit murder while wearing the uniform?

But the thing is, you can't and you won't! What you will do is tell me this: 

ONE BAD COP DOES NOT MEAN ALL COPS ARE BAD!!

And you would be exactly right. I would stand up and applaud. I would agree 100% to this. This is an undeniable fact. One bad cop does not represent all cops. 

Now, take a breath and remember to extend the same courtesy to your fellow man. Not every black man who is gunned down by a police officer deserved it. Not every white man, hispanic man, asian man... not every person who is killed by a police officer deserves it. 

So, why is it important to remember that black lives matter? Why is this one group, from the perspective of too many, getting 'special attention' for crying out against the death of fathers, sons, uncles? Why is the media perpetuating this 'race war' "against" white people? 

Because it did not start here. This whole mess started years ago with slavery. It was ugly and obvious with segregation after freeing the slaves. It continued with backlash against desegregation and relegating people to poverty-stricken ghettos. It continued, in the shutting down of pools and parks so that desegregation wouldn't allow children to play together. It continues still, more subtly as time went on, in the form of 'white' people being upset at things such as black pride etc. 

When I first learned about white privilege, I had a load of white guilt. I'm not even kidding. Then I learned about white guilt and got offended. I mean, for crying out loud, I'm not even white! Nobody is! Nobody is "purely" anything! Our dna has been mixing for thousands of years! Oh, I was SO sick and tired of 'whites' being blamed for all of this 'black' misery. I didn't get it, and I said so... quietly... in the company of my family... maybe once at a half-whisper. *sigh*

The thing is, no... we were not there to create slavery. (Again, I can hear the racist mental whisperings about black-on-black slavery... again, I say you are missing the point.) No, we were not there to protest desegregation. Maybe our ancestors weren't even here/there for any of that. (Mine weren't.) But the other thing is this... we are here NOW.

We are in the present, living a life that can affect or stall change. We are raising the next generation who will either affect or hinder change. Apathy... by any person of any race... is exactly the problem. You may not have a full-on streak of racism, but you could be part of a greater, more subtle racism. You may only get annoyed or upset that black people are 'whining' about these dead men and boys who 'deserved' what they got. You may only get tired of race-baiters like myself who care a load too much to see straight. But it is there, and it is halting progress. 

The murders that happened this week were sickening. Philando and Alton, the police officers in Dallas, and the killings of other innocents were unacceptable. Surely on this much we can agree. Not every black man who is killed by a police officer deserved it. We can agree on that, as well. Police brutality - against any race at any time in any location - is dead wrong. We agree. It *does* exist. 

Acknowledging these things is not race-baiting. Acknowledging them is not falling into the trap of the government to continue to oppress us. It only becomes that if we continue to be divided. The important questions are still left to us, and we MUST answer them. We must answer them, or lose ourselves in the fighting. 

What can be done?

What can I personally do?

What is my responsibility toward my fellow man?

How can I live up to that responsibility?

How can I show good to them who do good?

How can we bring down those who are found to be unjust?

How can we embrace, support, and comfort the families of the deceased? 

I don't just mean the families of fallen police officers. God knows, they will need the love and support of their communities. They need my love and support, and they have it. Their nation grieves along with them. We are angry, and we want justice for the cowards who set out to kill them.

I also mean the families of the men who 'deserved' it. Because, see, when the wife or mother of a fallen man cries into the camera that her husband/son did not deserve to die... she is right. With no rap sheet at all - like Philando - or with a record - like Alton - the woman is speaking the truth. This man was somebody's father. This man was somebody's lover. This man was somebody's child. This man was a sentient, living, human being, and his life mattered.