Five Dead, Seven Wounded in Dallas BLM Shooting

Moments such as these, one wishes you had the magic words that would bring things to normal.

I don’t have those tonight.

Statement from @DPDChief on tonight’s shooting in downtown Dallas pic.twitter.com/22VjuKGkJS

— Robert Wilonsky (@RobertWilonsky) July 8, 2016

Seven families in the span of two days will not have loved ones coming home.  Many more that didn’t make the nightly news will have that same impact.

Something else sobering?  The Military Times reported that there are 20 suicides every day — every day — among U.S. military veterans.  There will be no stories on Facebook, no wild arguments, no impassioned pleas for understanding or ending the scourge of war.  Equivalence?  Perhaps… and perhaps not, folks… perhaps not.

Debates are ongoing about the true extent of police brutality vs. asking law enforcement officers (LEOs) to take on the impossible task of gambling with their lives in the line of duty.

Yet the idea that there is a rash of police violence directed against blacks deserve scrutiny as well.  Of the 509 deaths involving police officers according to the Washington Post, 123 were black — 75 had a firearm; 12 of whom were unarmed, 8 were fleeing the scene.  Missing from the WaPo database?  Why law enforcement was contacted to begin with — domestic violence, traffic stop, robbery, etc.  The numbers in a nation of 320 million with 750,000 law enforcement personnel simply do not bear out this nationwide crisis.  Something else is moving here.

Yet perhaps our national conversation should be whether or not our problems could be fixed not with more government, but with more freedom?  That might be a plausible starting point for conversation, as problems regarding recidivism and imprisonment for petty crimes is a uniquely American problem that disproportionately does imprison more black Americans more than any other racial demographic.

Emotions are high.  Understandably so… but the solution is talking.  Not just with the folks who agree with us, not with witticism, not by denigrating the other… but talking, hearing folks out, and then building a polity that respects the human dignity everyone deserves — not because they are black, white, rich, poor, Protestant, Catholic, or even American — but because they were created in the likeness and image of God and deserve our love and respect.  A moralizing argument, to be sure… but in my mind, the correct one.

These are jumbled thoughts because I have nothing concrete to offer other than one simple observation, and it is this: political power doesn’t come from violence.  My thoughts on this yesterday evening still have not changed:

Look — if this is a civil rights movement, then do it the way every successful civil rights reformer has done it — peacefully and with maximum confidence in the righteousness of one’s cause. Be absolutely unwilling to compromise integrity or conscience. Yes it’s painful, yes it’s slow. Growing always is. But this idea that power is only taken and never given? Folks, they can’t take what you don’t give. It’s bunk… bunk sold by others to control and direct the emotions of others, almost always for narrow and selfish goals. The real secret? The sort of power that endures is *created* — one family, one job, one life, one example at a time. That’s the interest you build so that when the debt comes due, it’s paid the right way.

. . .

Let facts be demonstrated, not propagandized. Believe it or not — despite what the media might tell you — we’re all on the same side. They make money pitting us against one another. Don’t let their cynicism win; we’re all members of the same humanity. Let’s not crack that fundamental solidarity for something short term right now.

Don’t feed the monster hoping it eats you last.

Let’s talk.