I'll be 47 years old here in a couple of days. In those 47 years, I have seen and experienced things that have shaped my worldview. My worldview and my heart are not the same, although both things can definitely impact the other. It's important to talk about this, as I think that many people, even those closest to me, seem to think that I have issues of the heart because of my worldview. I'm hoping to do a better job of defining both the separation between the two and how they can inter-mingle without becoming one.
The Worldview:
My worldview is not based on some hyped up bullcrap fed to me by my social media feed or the television. My life experience, the things I have seen and done with my own eyes and hands shape my opinions, which are always shored up with FACTS. This country has been being lied to by the left and the media for decades but when you tell the same lie a thousand times, it will take hold in the minds of those who suckle at the teat producing the lie. So here's the facts:
According to DOJ statistics, American law enforcement had 53.5 million "contacts" in 2015 (the last year I could find data for). 8 million of those were officer initiated (traffic stops, traffic accidents,crime in progress, welfare checks, suspicious parties, etc). The remainder were public initiated (911 calls, flagging an officer down, walking into the police station, etc). Let's do some math here:
53.5 million contacts divided by 12 months equals roughly 4.46 million contacts with the public every month. In the same year, police officers fatally shot 987 people. How many of those people were unarmed black men? Two percent. That's twenty. Now out of that twenty, lets talk about what "unarmed" means. It does NOT mean, innocently sitting at the library reading The Caine Mutiny. It simple means they did not have a weapon. Let's be clear here: I could beat a grown man or woman to death with my bare hands. I could knock a grown man unconscious with one or two well-placed punches. So if I was fighting a cop, he would rightly be concerned that I might access his gun and kill him or others. So if he was losing that fight, he would be completely justified in shooting me. If I was a suspect in a shooting or other violent crime, and ignoring his commands, and suddenly pointed my wallet or phone at him, he would be justified in shooting me because of my actions. So now that THE FACTS are out there...
Lets say, generously, I might add, that 50% of the unarmed black men who were killed by police were truly bad shoots. Like the cop really messed up, or was just a bad cop. So that knocks the number down to ten unarmed black men killed by police that year. Again, statistics do not lie, they clarify. here's the truth: Statistically, that number doesn't even register. You have a better chance of winning the lottery AND getting struck by lighting at the same time, than being an unarmed black man and getting killed by the police. What is the truth? The truth is that American law enforcement is not out there assassinating black people. There is no genocide. There is no war against black people.
Some people would say that I haven't addressed police brutality. True. And I'm sure it occurs. But the statistics on that are similar, in that most police brutality complaints are found to be a direct result of resisting arrest... NOBODY deserves to be beaten, NOBODY deserves to be shot and/or killed, but there are a lot of bad decisions made on the part of the offender. As my old man used to tell me when I was a young criminal myself, "Play stupid games, win stupid prizes", which was a hard truth. He also told me, LOTS OF TIMES, "If you don't hang out in high crime areas, don't hang out with criminals, and generally behave, you have a much better chance of not having to talk to a cop".
So to sum it up, that's my worldview on the matter at hand. Statistically speaking, the American police force is damn near perfect in their correct and righteous application of force, whether lethal or non-lethal. It angers me that the narrative is some sort of targeted assassination, a racist genocide of black men by racist cops.
Now for my "heart view":
The economic inequality in this country is directly responsible for the culture of crime and discord within the black community. Black men are nearly ten times as likely to be arrested by the age of 21 as a white man. 55% of all violent crimes are committed by black men, which consist of less than 7% of the US population. Is this because black people are pre-disposed to crime and violence? Because they are savages, animals, somehow "less than"? NO. EMPHATICALLY, NO.
When you grow up in poverty, in a failed educational system, surrounded by despair and hopelessness, you wish nothing more than to find a way out. How many of us who grew up in a safe suburb, both parents around and working, nothing to worry about, really, can say we understand that life and it's effects on a young man?
You know who doesn't worry in the poorest neighborhoods, about where their next meal is coming from, or whether or not they'll be confronted with violence? The guy all these lost young men see every day. The gangster, the dope dealer, the criminals. "Self-made", driving a badass car, rolling with a posse of dudes for mutual protection, carrying guns, wearing fancy clothes, flashing stacks of cash, etc. Black or white, you take a kid who has never had a damn thing, and let him watch this lifestyle everyday, he's going to choose at some point. Getting paid $50 to run a sack of dope to the guy down the street, or to be a lookout on the corner, that can be a life-changing event. Suddenly, this 14 year-old kid has money. Him and his siblings might have real food tonight instead of no food or crummy food bank food. This kid who's dad was never around and hasn't been taught about how to earn respect, suddenly knows what respect feels like when the gangsters keep him around.
Eventually, in this culture, born in poverty and broken homes, the young man becomes the men his friends and family respected, and feared. The glorification of the gangster, the respect paid to a young man for not being a snitch, getting arrested, committing crimes, it becomes the only thing he has to hold on to. Suddenly, dealing with the cops looks completely different for this kid, than it did for you and I. I always respected cops, and was afraid when I got busted for stuff, because I was a soft kid from the suburbs who didn't want to go to jail. This other kid, he ain't afraid of jail, he knows plenty of dudes from his neighbor hood who are already there, or have been there plenty of times and have prepared him. That first arrest may even be seen as a badge of honor, a rite of passage.
This entire issue isn't about black or white, or criminal versus non-criminal. It's about poverty, and the culture it breeds when openly ignored by the educational and social systems. It's about the way the liberals in this country continue to tell poor people that this is a class war issue, or that they are poor because the "others" aren't doing enough to help them. So they pour money into a welfare system designed to keep people on the dole, as it guarantees votes, and keeps perpetuating the class war the left so desires. And as an added bonus for the left, the violence and unrest generated when their class war breaks out as a black and white, rich and poor, law-abiding versus law-breaking conflict plays right into their desire to see this country divided permanently.
So the heart view SHOULD be, what am I doing, to help bring change and real hope to the poorest in this country? What can I do to be a face of compassion, a benefactor, a comrade in the fight to make real change for those who so desperately need somebody to believe in them and stand beside them? How often did Jesus' own disciples question why He spent so much time with the outcasts, the downtrodden, the "criminals", the sinners? His answer was always the same, although I paraphrase here: "The healthy do not need a doctor, it is the sick who require healing". Those who are most broken, those who have lost all human dignity in the eyes of their society, those are exactly who needs us the most. So maybe stop harping on how bad this behavior we see on the news every night is, maybe stop looking at the other side as animals or traitors, and look at them through the eyes of Jesus. There's a lot of reasons to be angry, I myself am angry. But anger has never solved anything. We have to find it in our hearts to show empathy, sympathy and compassion to those who need it so much, despite our differing socio-political views and beliefs.
Mark 2:17
When Jesus heard this, he told them, "Healthy people don't need a doctor, sick people do. I have to come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners"
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