Trust Understanding Respect and Love

Thursday, June the 18th, 2020 and I'm sorta late again it is 8:45 a.m.

I'm a little late getting started today because I've been braining my brain about stuff,

No top five today, cuz all of this is gonna take more thought than I thought. Ya, dig?

I agree that we have a race problem in America and would actually extend that sentiment to say it is worldwide, although in every area it is a slightly different issue, slightly different problems and presented in slightly to majorly different ways. In some countries, you will even see it presented as a negative stereo image of what we see here in America. For example, in Zimbabwe, you are the minority if you are white and when your land being taken from you by the state to be reallocated to the majority population, that population is black. Different reasons, different histories, and a complete 180 turn from what happens in America. We are not the only place on Earth where racism is inherent and at the same time, where it is really not the causation, rather like any other problem created by strife and uproar, and it is part of the cause and effect of different societies living under more than one set of rules created by more than one set of authorities.

Our problem is related to racism, but racism is not the root cause. It is one of the symptoms however it is not what causes it. When you seek to define a problem, the problem really cannot be the cause. That would be like saying the reason you have a cold is that you have a cold. That makes no sense. It is more the aftereffect of the cause. Maybe what we really lack is a clear understanding of the cause and maybe it is because it has never been presented clearly to the American people. I'm not really sure that the different entities are interested in explaining it because they do not make money while being clear and concise. They make money by causing uproar and then reporting on it.

I know I have never really seen any media company or politician address it in its true form and you don't see it from entertainers or movies or music at all, so It is hard to understand how you would know what causes it if you never see it exposed. Everyone is too afraid to talk about the double and triple standards that exist for fear of being labeled as the devil and ostracized as a demagogue who is spreading fear and hate-mongering. I just don't see it the way others do I suppose, I just don't see racism the way others do. I know a lot of good people who represent a wide swath of the American way of life, and I just don't see it. Not like the movies and the media and the politicians want you to believe it somehow exists without ever telling you why and how it propagates through our society.

I don't see systemic racism. I do see a systemic lack of respect. I do see a systemic lack of understanding and a clear lack of knowledge. I see a lack of trust and a very clear lack of teaching from one generation to the next. I see a clear lack of leadership on all sides. Maybe Rodney King had the right idea but didn't know how to express it, for getting along is only half the battle. The other half is in bringing yourself and your ideas to the halfway mark and meeting the other side mentally and talking about why it happens and what we can do to fix it. We just don't do that anywhere in our society, let alone in the police department. When the Black, female, Mayor of a large city unilaterally decides that the Police Department acted racially and starts firing police officers without any type of investigation, for example, the largely white, male population of the police department may decide she is acting against the departments best interest, and really who can blame them for she is acting as she accuses them of being. It makes no sense because even if she is right, she has destroyed trust, understanding, and chosen the worst possible way to present it to the rank and file. I just don't see that as effective. It shows a complete lack of understanding of her role as a leader because she acts hastily and undermines due process solely for the choice of political expediency. Now she wonders why they don't support her? Gee, go figure. Gee, wonder out loud why other neighboring departments will not send their officers to help them when they have an issue with their officers reporting for work. One word comes to mind and that word is clueless.

I think racism is in the Police Departments across America in the same way it exists in our society at large. It is in our police departments in the same way it resides in our culture. In our culture, you can see a comedy show and as part of the act within that show, the comedian decries how he is not allowed to use certain class-related words to express a comedic idea. His allocution is that the words are somehow offensive if he says them out loud, or has them referenced in his work as a part of his routines. Then you can hear a white rapper express pretty much the same sentiment and occasionally like that guy Kramer from Seinfeld, a comedian will go off the deep end and use the "N" word in one of his shows and all hell breaks loose, he is ostracized, shows are canceled, and his career is pretty much over. All on the choice of one word, the use of a socially unacceptable word that riled up his audience and then POOF---> the video went viral, he is done. So if you are white what does this say to you? What if you are black? Who is the racist, the one who used it? Or the person who was offended by it?

In the same discussion substitute the entertainer's stage names to people like Katt Williams, or Ludacris or 50 cents. When they use the "N" word in their songs and acts or derivations of the word, are they propagating racism? When they use the "N" word out loud over and over and over does their use of the word have the same impact and are they racist? Why not? If all men are created equal under the law then how can your pigment in your skin excuse you from the boundaries created by society about good behavior and allow you to be crude and have a racial overtone in your work and that not be considered racist? What about the actors who have made their careers and a ton of money acting in a slew of movies where their characters are generally foul-mouthed and also use a plethora of skillfully articulate racially descriptive words? Would you call Samuel L. Jackson a racist because he is rich having made his fortune this way? Why can we ignore some activity and performances that pander to our basest instincts and vilify others in the same breath for doing exactly what we disallow and discourage in others?

Is it not a racial thing at all because Snoop Dog uses it to sell millions of dollars of recordings or It is a racial thing because a white comedian uses it on the floor of a comedy club and only 50 people bought tickets?

Yeah, I get how stupid that sounds.

Is this showing a lack of respect or understanding or self-worth? See I'm not sure where you draw the line. How do you draw that line and more importantly who was appointed to draw that line if someone is for example,  biracial? What percentage of black do you have to be or what percentage of light skin do you have to be to know which side of the line has the inherited allowance to use the class warfare words and is then understandable to either side. In other words who decides this? Turns out that is the question of the day and the answer is pretty stupid because we don't need the decision and don't need the word at all anyhow. It's a dumbass word. Forget it and just stop using it. You don't hear many people using the term "BUTTER UPON BACON" to describe extravagance either anymore, we abandoned that slang from the 1800s and we should abandon this term too.

See, what I am getting at here is that I don't for a second believe that someone actually understands racism when they use the language the defines it. I mean why do we say that "DJango Unchained" was a timeless classic and in the same breath we allow some group of sycophants to put "Gone with the Wind" on the shelf because we need to have a discussion of its historical context. What a bunch of self-righteous baloney. I guess Hattie McDaniel winning an Oscar for her performance in that movie and being the first Black woman to ever win, just wasn't enough context. It makes no sense to say that DJango is fine because it presents the story of slaves in a historically accurate way but Gone with the Wind, made in 1939 somehow glorifies slave ownership and the Confederacy. Who is making these decisions?

We call the Police racists because a black man gets shot and killed and at the same time, in the same breath we purport to understand how a segment of our society can believe that "Snitches get Stitches" is a viable term because of how the black man has been systematically treated at the hands of the white police officer. Statistics don't matter. Reality doesn't matter. Real facts don't matter. You could pull and show every set of facts about black on black crime and how Black police officers are more likely to be the shooter and it just doesn't matter because the narrative is wrong and the police are the bad guys. It just does not make any logical sense. You cannot have it both ways, you cannot say that you need a better police presence in your neighborhoods and then in the same breath say "Kill the 12" or snitches get stitches and refuse to cooperate or believe and deface monuments with A.C.A.B., It just doesn't work that way.

This life is not a video game, you get no points for carjackings.

How can we as Joe the Average American actually be expected to support or believe a movement such as Black Lives Matter when more than half of their story is built on false beliefs and their narrative is laughable and provable false? When it incorporated as an LLC in Delaware and its officers are hidden in legalese. When they ask for donations and you cannot see where your money goes? How is that supposed to work? Please let me in on that secret?

It seems to me that Black lives matter, except when the discussion is black on black crime, they matter except when the subject is black street gangs, it matters until you want to discuss ways to have dual parental involvement in a child of color life or all children's lives? Why it doesn't become a matter of discussion when you want to talk about the whole neighborhood and whole communities where the only race allowed to live there are non-white? I know this is a controversial subject that makes people mad and uncomfortable but you have to ask yourself why this makes you angry? Is it what I said in this post?, Or is it that I am white and I said it out loud? I'm not running for office and have nothing to gain by pointing it out but it seems to me that if you were serious about "your people" Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and others then you would be there 24-7 and not just when someone has a microphone to put in front of your face. You would be there all the time working on real solutions and not trying to raise your public image and selling speeches and books.

Quit looking at the color of someone's skin and watch what they do instead. It's the only reliable indicator of what is coming next., maybe the reason we don't understand it is that we don't really try. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr said "We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools". Somehow I believe he was 100% right. Enough time has passed since the 1940s and the end of WWII so that even if we were carrying the sentiments of our Great Great Grandparents and their unabashed uncivil view of life as it existed in the deep south at that time, and even if that carryover is one of overt and the ugliest racism in its most evil forms, there have been at least 4 or 5 functional generations since then to unlearn that ignorance. It's 2020 and we have the internet, it can teach you anything you want to know in 15 minutes if you look hard enough. In 15 minutes you can learn that all races are genetically similar and we are all related to each other in some way. There is absolutely no scientific basis for believing that any race is any better than any other. The cool thing about science is that it doesn't care if you believe it.

Get over it. Unlearn your stupidity. Face the truth and grow the hell up.

Oh also, Mayor of Atlanta (and every other Politician who thinks being a cop is so easy), Go strap on a gun and a badge and go patrol a few areas for a couple of weeks and then you come back and tell us how easy it is to make split-second life or death decisions and how much better you could have done it than all those officers you have spent time criticizing for not upholding their oaths.

It's not about racism. It's about trust and understanding and respect and love.

BigMike