Black Lives Do Matter; Moronic Media On The Other Hand?...The Jury is Still Out.

While running through the airport last week, hoping not to lose my luggage this time, I couldn't help but notice the cover of Time magazine lined up one next to the other across the front of one of those little media stores:

Uh... What?  Did Time just suggest that I am a racist?  Because that is the message that I received.  I mean really, the pronouncement seems to imply that I had no flipping clue that black lives mattered. That me and my fellow "whities" (Caucasians, not underpants) are bust'n a cap in black folks as we stroll down the street reading Mein Kampf and listening to Kenny G (just seems like terribly white music to me).  Today alone, I passed by at least five people of Khoison and/or Bantu origin (two groups we call "black people") and did not attempt to implement some demented form of Aryan final solution upon them (in truth it literally took me 5 minutes to figure out how even to spell the word "Aryan").  Nope, can't say that this scatter gun headline hit the mark here.  I always find this kind of racial pandering... well, racist.

Of course black lives matter... though I am beginning to questions value of stupid folks out there.  Now before all of my liberal readership has a full on conniption that I am denying the existence of racism (my liberal readers?  ***crickets*** ...right...never mind), yes, there are race problems in this country, on both sides of the issue.  However, the purveyors of such headline are every bit as much part of the problem despite posing as the solution.  They are akin to the village fool throwing rocks at the leak in the dike (had to check the spelling on that one too, lest I advocate the stoning of a different group) and claiming that he is saving the town.  Instead all he is doing is making that hole bigger and bigger until some little Dutch town (or Baltimore) gets a bath.

Now my beef, my complaint, my ax to grind with this type of race-bating going on with Time magazine, and ubiquitously throughout the media, is that it creates a climate that puts more lives at risk while posing as the epitome of tolerance.  Their actions have literal and awful negative reactions; ole' Newton was onto something.

Let me lay out my line of logic as to how I see this issue from my protected little seat in honky-suburbia (which doesn't necessarily mean I am wrong).  Let's start with the base statement:

BLACK LIVES MATTER

All in favor?  It looks like we have a majority vote in the affirmative.  The existence of a black president seems to support this vote tally.  Great!  So we agree that we want to do what we can to keep black people (and any race) from being killed - life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  We all good here?  Now who is killing black Americans?  The actual and undeniable truth is other black Americans are killing black American. 93% of black homicide victims were killed by other blacks.  Before you blow a gasket, guess who is killing us white folks... we are.  Yep, 83% of white murder victims were killed by other white people.  So if you are walking down the street one night with your significant other and there is a strange white person and a strange black person walking behind you, who is most likely to kill you?  The stats say it is the person standing right next to you (71% of homicide victim know their assaulter... seems to fit my life experience).  I guess we do hurt the ones we love.

Back to black lives mattering; how do we stop bad black people from killing other black people?  Put police in high crime areas.  But wait?  Aren't the police the ones stopping and harassing and killing the poor black people?  Let's think about this one for a moment.  If the police are trying to stop black people from being killed, 9 out of 10 times they will be confronting, questioning, arresting, etc. a black person who is putting another black person at risk. (in line with the 93% stat above).

Now these are not just any black people the police will be confronting.  The police will be in regular contact with bad, drugged up, thuggish, crazy people, because these are the kind of people (again, regardless of race) that kill other human beings and whom the police SHOULD be stopping.  So should it be any surprise that when stopped by the police crazy folks act... crazy?  What do I mean by crazy?  Take Michael Brown attacking a police officer and trying to take his gun for telling him to get out of the street.  Crazy.  How about pacing around with a knife while talking to yourself and ignoring repeated instructions to drop the knife.  There is some crazy there.  How about refusing to comply with a police officer's request to lay on the ground when his gun is drawn.  Kind of nuts.  What about going all Bruce Jenner when confronted by police (running, not cross-dressing).  Not smart.  There are some of the many flavors of crazy out there.

So when a crazy person acts crazy and ends up shot, why are they suddenly a folk hero?  Isn't that racism or at least a form of social stupidity to revere someone based upon their race regardless of their actions?  Why are some groups so quick to prejudge the police and cry murder before any concrete facts are on the table?  Isn't this crying wolf and making it nearly impossible, at least in the media, to sort out the REAL cases of bad police from the justifiable deadly force or from the cases of tragic error?

Now here is the tragic train of unintended consequences: screaming police murder at the outset causes riots (Missouri and Maryland for example), destroying local (often black) businesses.  In these lawless periods, murders spike.  Once the riots end, the police are on edge after the repeated threats and bad blood.  The police are thus more likely to use force out of fear and self preservation when confronted with a dangerous situation.  Or alternatively, the police will simply disengage from the community and become UN observers to the citizens victimizing each other in the rule-of-law vacuum.  Check the recent crime rates in post race riots Baltimore. So who gets killed?  Who ends up loosing?  If the police pull out of a mostly black community (which will be the result of the Time magazine thinking), it will be mostly black people being killed.  So if black lives matter, why on this green earth are we chasing the police out of their communities?  

Yes there are mistakes made and tough judgment calls in the midst of a police conflict. And if there is a police shooting, sometimes the fault lies with the victim, sometimes it lies with the police, and sometimes it is shared.  But I am quite certain the fault does not belong to the whole community who bare the brunt of lawlessness when the police are chased out by the race baiters, the media, and alleged racial "leaders."  Because once the headlines are gone and their is no spot lights to capture, these snakes slither away leaving that community worse off than they were before.