Many of you will not like this. Some will agree, some will folks will never read my writings again.
For many days, I have been thinking about my position on some of the things that have happening over the past few months. Some of you know that my father was a policeman for over 20 years and for 4 years, he was a deputy sheriff in Florida. That gives me a different prospective than many other black people. My father retired as a Detective Lieutenant, and had several other policeman under his command. This inside view let me learn about “Good Cop – Bad Cop”. I have lived for well over 81 years, and have seen and heard about many bad cops, first from my Dad, then in person and on the news.
To me, it seems like the present administration in Washington has encited hate and discontent with many people. Black, brown, white, radicals and conservatives. Mixed with gross mis-management of the Covid-19 Pandemic, things have never been worse in the past 100 years.
Some may say, The Great Depression was worse, or the Jim Crow era, or maybe even World War II and lets not forget the Vietnam War (which I was a part of). I also lived through the Separate-but-Equal era that was anything but equal, but it was very separate.
Let us mention black-on-black crime. Young black males are killing each other at a very, very high rate. A few years ago, it was mostly in the big cities. Now it has spread too small town USA. If Black Lives Matter, lets get our young black males to stop killing each other. The black mothers and fathers are just as much the blame as the ones doing the killing. If Black Lives Matter, lets stop taking our own lives!
I feel the drugs in our neighborhoods are very much the blame for the violence. Most black people do not have the means to import drugs from Central, South America or Mexico. Ships, planes, submarines and most inter-continental methods of getting the drugs into the USA are well above the pocketbooks of 95% of black people. Black people are probably not the largest consumers of the imported drugs, but for some reason, we are hurt most by the drugs.
The systemic inequality that blacks face on a daily bases is a big problem. The unequal treatment of ALL BLACKS in the USA is the root cause. I feel that my family and my kids have been very blessed. But as I look around at many other black people and hear the stories about being held back and passed over, it brings back memories of those same things happening to me.
After I got out of the Navy and went into the business world. In the few short years (20) that I worked for Stone & Webster Engineering, Gulf States Utilities and Entergy Corp., I was passed over, demoted, had my ideas stolen, I received unequal pay for doing the same or better work, and in many other ways mistreated when it came to advancement and not given credit for the things I though of and put in place or for the work that I did.
Gun violence is at its worse. You can’t feel safe in church, the movies, grade school, high school or college. Lets not forget, the mall, Wal-Mart or just walking down the street (drive-by shootings). The Founding Fathers did not mean for the 2nd Amendment to protect radicals and mentally ill people. They never thought we would have zillion round magazine automatic weapons on the streets either. (Maybe I should not fault the Founding Fathers for an amendment, that was a add-on to the Constitution).
When my church has to discuss how to defend itself from a possible shooter, it is bad. When my church has to discuss having a police patrol at our church for each service, it is bad. When my church has to decide who is going to get Concealed Weapons Training, it is bad.
Last but far from the least, we need to get rid of the current Senate Majority Leader, (R-KY) Mitch McConnell, by either having the good people of Kentucky vote Mitch McConnell out, or voting in enough Democratic Senators to take over the Senate.
I have similar feelings about the Supreme Court, but I will let your ears and eyes rest for now. My mother, a teacher, made me do a paper on the Supreme Court when I was in 9th grade. I still remember.