The news these days is truly depressing. First, they want to erase all reference to people like Washington, Jefferson, Columbus and goodness knows who else. There is no question that some of them had Black slaves. There is also no question that some were misogynists.
But what our rewriters of history fail to understand is that man did not hatch from an egg into a perfect world. The world two thousand years ago was a very different place than today. It reached its present day level of liberty and justice only after horrendous wars. It was hardly a one step process. Many steps had to be taken before we reached present day levels of health and well being.
People who don't understand this really know nothing of history. The earliest Americans came here to free themselves from the religious intolerance and servitude existing in Europe. How we got from there to here is a fascinating story. Suffice it to say it wasn't always easy. But we have achieved a level of property never achieved before.
True, not everyone has shared equally. Why is that so? A couple of reasons. Recent immigrants have the challenge of first having to learn English. Some do it better than others. Some come better educated than others. Some are just luckier than others.
But what about those who have been here for generations? Some come from two parent homes where they are nurtured and supported in their early years to an extent far better than others. Blacks complain that they and fellow Blacks haven't kept up with the good things in life. And that seems to be true. But why do so many blacks who immigrate from Africa or countries in the Caribbean do so much better than Blacks who have been here for generations?
A recent troubling phenomenon is the rise of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) organization, an organization that presumably protests the murder of Black people by the police. But, frankly, it's a political power grab. Police abuse and murder of Blacks is infinitesimal when compared to Blacks murdering fellow Blacks. And, infinitesimal is what it should be. No one wants Blacks abused by the police.
But, it's really not that easy to fix when you review the cases that have come before us. The Blacks murdered by police are generally people with a police record that speaks of violence. To put it another way, we are not talking about J-walkers. It's not a situation where two gun slingers confront one another and the faster gun wins. The officer has a job to do. He represents the society in which we make our home. The officer has a right; indeed, a duty, to check out suspicious activity. That's what he's paid to do. And people whether innocent or guilty must comply.
Even the young lady shot by the police in a no-knock entry was a person who consorted with drug dealers. Her boy friend was with her at the time. When, he heard the police entering the darkened apartment, he fired a shot. He wasn't hit in the return fire but the girl was. Do we expect our police to protect us from drug dealers? This young lady worked in a hospital. Had she never encountered people addicted to drugs?
The BLM has morphed into an organized mob that enters a town and loots and vandalizes businesses; some large, many small, single family owned stores where the proprietor is often Black. Owners have begun hanging signs in their windows reading "BLM" in the hope the mob will spare their store. How different is this from Germany, 1938, when store proprietors hung swastikas in the windows so that the Nazi youth wouldn't break them?
What has become of our country that this is considered appropriate behavior and has the mayor of many towns saying that the solution is a smaller police force? It's the world turned upside down.
