On Police Shootings

There is no doubt racial tensions in our country have increased.  Police are shooting and killing more black men than anyone else.  Meanwhile, some have taken justice into their own hands and have killed or wounded dozens of police in retaliation.  The solution for all this is multifaceted but so far, it looks like neither Clinton or Trump have a clue what to do.  All they can do is say what they hope will be the right words.  So as a public service, I will outline a solution to these problems which involve saying some things which are politically incorrect.

I’ll begin with a question.  Do police officers racially profile black men?  You bet they do.  But why just confine this to the police.  Most Americans do.  An average American walking down the street sees a couple of black dudes coming toward him wearing Hoodies.  I doubt the average American will experience warm fuzzy thoughts.  A lot of white folks, and Hispanic folks, and oriental folks feel uncomfortable when a black male stranger comes near them on the street.  But why stop with non blacks?  If a black dude is walking down the street and he sees three black dudes coming toward him wearing hoodies, and he doesn’t know those guys, he ain’t experiencing warm fuzzy feelings either.

So why do we all racially profile black men?  Are we racists?  Some of us are yes.  But it’s not as simple as that.  The world is not a simple one of good guys versus bad guys.  White folks aren’t like Sylvester the cat who constantly chases Tweety Bird for no other reason than that he’s a bird.  (His real full name, by the way is Sylvester James Pussycat Sr.).  In other words, the vast majority of white folks don’t mindlessly persecute black folks simply because they are black.  I know there are a number of Black Lives Matter advocates who don’t want to hear this.  They want to see white folks as Adolph Hitler types because it’s much easier to formulate a solution to the police killings.  The police are evil.  Simple.

So, what to do?  The first thing our presidential candidates should do is choose one of the following two options.

·         Legalize drugs.

·         Get serious about dealing with the drug epidemic sweeping the nation.

One of the biggest problems is drugs.  Most crime is drug related, and most drugs can be had in poor neighbourhoods, and most of those are populated overwhelmingly by black Americans.  You want to know why you’re profiled?  It’s because most crimes are committed by black men.  Most drug crimes are committed by black men.  Most domestic violence is committed by black men.  That’s another thing Black Lives matter doesn’t want to hear.  And one of the main reasons all of this is true is because of drugs.  But it’s also because of other things such as inequalities in education and opportunities.  But I’ll get to those later.  Let’s focus on drugs now.

There is a good case for legalizing drugs.  Legal drugs mean you don’t have to go to the black market to get them.  You can have supervised drug centers.  There are even supervised ice centers.  There are downsides to this approach of course, but the legalization argument comes down to three words in my opinion.  Prohibition Doesn’t Work.  It has never worked.  It’s the same argument I have against gun control laws.  We have tried prohibition for years and where has this gotten us?

Drugs have created neighbourhoods where most people are afraid to go.  And most of those neighbourhoods are populated by black people.  That is the simple truth and the sooner people like Black Lives Matter admit this, the sooner they will actually provide constructive help to finding a solution to the very real profiling of black men that goes on.

So let’s look at the alternative route.  What do I mean when I speak of getting serious on drugs?  We might consider some of the following.

·         You make meth, you get the death penalty.

·         You push cocaine, heroin, or ice, you get the death penalty.

·         You control prostitutes by drugs, you get the death penalty.

·         Any crime committed while under the influence gets the full penalty regardless of your state of mind.  No insanity plea or “he didn’t know what he was doing” plea.

·         We start a campaign like the anti smoking campaign showing how our demand for drugs causes them to be supplied in the first place.

·         Wage real war on drug dealers in other countries.  Instead of invading Iraq, pound the crap out of areas controlled by drug dealers regardless of whether those countries give us permission or not.  What are they going to do, stop us?  The USA is the baddest nation on planet earth when we set our mind to it.  Let’s see what these drug kingpins do when a drone blows them and their mansions away.

And while we’re waging real war against these drug dealers, we ought to take these celebrities that brag about how much coke they did but survived, and throw them out of the plane ahead of the bombs.  That includes any celebrity who used the term “recreational drugs” while using their latest rehab as a publicity stunt to garner sympathy for their comeback. 

That is what getting serious about drugs looks like.  Either solution gets rid of the main income source for all of these gangs. 

Once that is underway, we can get to the good stuff, the social programs we so desperately need.  We can look at reclaiming our neighbourhoods by actually giving a damn about schools predominantly attended by black people, something we find difficult to do now.  And oh by the way, one reason is because of all the drugs in these schools.  We can run advertising campaigns showing that heroes can be scientists, English teachers and yes, maybe even lawyers.  Not all heroes have to be able to slam dunk from the free-throw line.   For the record, I’d love to be able to slam dunk period.  We can show young black men how to live fulfilling lives by giving them the social workers and hopefully family stability that poverty and crime take away.

Because when you get right down to it, black lives do matter.  They should always matter.  Part of the problem today is that black lives don’t matter to black people.  It is very difficult for young black men trying to do the right thing to walk down the street because their fellow black citizens make everyone afraid.  The police go into these neighbourhoods afraid and tense.  And when that happens, bad things happen.  In short, we need political leaders who are not afraid to address the causes of racial profiling and who are not afraid to implement solutions.  That means they must speak words that a lot of people don’t want to hear, and they must implement solutions a lot of people are afraid to implement.

When Abraham Lincoln declared that slavery was evil, a lot of people certainly did not want to hear that.  His declaration split a nation.  Sadly, our nation is already split and if we’re not careful, the split will become dangerous.  But at the same time, we were split in the 60’s too.  We had shootings and riots and somehow we got through that.  In the 1860’s we had Abraham Lincoln and Harriet Beacher Stowe.  In the 1960’s we had Martin Luther King Junior and Muhammad Ali.  Let’s not wait until the 2060’s before someone else steps up to the plate and says what needs to be said, and does what needs to be done.