Faded to Gray….

There will be no more trials in the case of the death of Freddie Gray.  The District Attorney has decided not to pursue the last trials, or to retrial the officer in the mistrial.

And so it ends.  Miserably. Unsatisfactorily.

First up, there was no excuse for the riots that Baltimore experienced.  It gained nothing, it proved nothing, it cost only those who had little and caused many to lose what little they had.  The style of leadership and protest that involved large, controlled, articulate demonstrations has been replaced with a mob mentality of loudest voices and physical damage.  King, Abernathy, Young….those were leaders who could march and inspire and lead and articulate.  There seems to be precious little of that anymore.

Second, there are too many questions still unanswered.  Even from my standpoint (suburban white boy), I wonder what happened.  Who made the bad decisions. Who went along them, who knows something but isn’t saying.  Freddie Gray shouldn’t have died as a result of that trip to central booking.  Something went wrong, something that we still can’t clearly identify and be confident in.  He wasn’t a saint, but nothing he did was sufficient to suggest he should die.  And I blame the Baltimore State’s Attorney for those failures, for not only not finding the facts and the truth but for further obfuscating it.  A properly done investigation would have answered many of those questions, perhaps enough to paint a correct picture.  But in a rush to indict, in a rush to center stage, the truth and the facts were forever lost.  As was justice.

The wounds will take a long time to heal, all the way around.  If they can heal.  The community has lost the opportunity to gain confidence in the system; to know what happened to expect the appropriate legal intervention. The police have lost confidence in the system too, to believe that the DA acts as an agent of inquiry and justice.  Now, both the community and the police have no confidence in the prosecutor and the process.

When you find yourself in a deep hole, the first thing to do is to stop digging.  We have yet to figure out how to stop digging deeper holes for ourselves.

 

Convention humor

It struck me today that regardless of politics we all need to appreciate humor.

So I want to see the bumper sticker or button that says “I don’t giveTrump-Pence for the Republicans”.

Just because I love word play 😀

Murdered….unacceptable

The last couple of days have been an incredible roller coaster of news, reaction and emotion.  Even for someone who is normally even-keeled and calm about events (except for Fukushima, which scared the **** out of me) , I have found the last couple of days to be unsettling and unacceptable.

I’ve watched the video from Baton Rouge.  I’ve seen it in slow motion, freeze framed it.  I’ve listened to the sound track, watched the officers, watched the victim.  I’ve tried to put myself in the place of the responding officers, in the churn that occurs during a melee. I watched the struggle cause the car they up against to rock back and forth, watched two officers on top of the victim, watched the victim’s hand stretch out wide.  Watched the officer pull a gun and put it against the victim’s chest.  Watched the gaping, bloody wound and last gurgling gasp on the video. And tried to understand what I saw…

It was murder.

A stop due to a broken tail-light on a car in Minnesota with  a man still in the car, shot and killed as deliberately as the victim in Charleston SC running on foot from a stop for a burned out tail light.

And then Dallas.  Cold blooded, calculated, inexcusable, mass murder. Five police officers ambushed, targeted, murdered.

We are losing our collective minds as a civilized society.  Hate is winning.  Violence is winning.  Racism is winning.

There are no simple answers, no simple solutions. Not even close. NOT. EVEN. CLOSE. Everyone has to get out of their entrenched, dug-in, hardened, unyielding positions on race, police, guns.

Race– Whites do not understand the issues of DWB (driving while black), or of the looks given to any black boy, man-boy, or adult who doesn’t look like us.  They do not understand the inherent bias of much of society that exists despite a black President, Attorney General, former Secretary of State, governors, mayors, judges.  They do not understand disparity in wages, jobs, sentences, that occur when the person is white compared to black.

Blacks do not understand the issues of cultural isolation, thug-life, drug life, basis of stereotypes that they need to own up to and correct.  Blacks do not understand the impact of the double standard between the lack of outrage at black-on-black violence and white-on-black.  They do not understand the impact of calling your homie a nigga when a white is called out on it.  They do not understand that they have a role to play in educating all of society in a civilized way of the issues faced.

Police – The vast, vast majority of police are tremendous, outstanding, public servants.  They give of themselves, down to the last breath of life, protecting the people, the society that we live in – that we ALL live in.  Without them it would truly be a wild west, with the anarchy and bloodshed that exists in the failed country-states of South and Central America, horn of Africa, and Mideast.

Too often they are killed by idiots, thugs and punks in situations where no normal person would expect it…at a restaurant in Hartford County, coming out of the station in Prince George’s County, sitting in a squad car in New York City. At a march in Dallas.  These deaths are unacceptable, indefensible.

The police need to understand that the rule of silence can no longer be tolerated, that those who are racist, violence-loving, power-tripping or just not competent and skilled enough at their job need to be reported, redirected, retrained or removed.  They are not just a blight, they are a massive cancer because the few are truly destroying the reputation of the many.

Guns – We need to end the love affair with guns that is romanticized in movies and music videos.  They aren’t cool, they aren’t hip, they aren’t acceptable except in some specific realms of sport and hunting.  We need to recognize that there is something between banning everything and allowing everything.  More people with them isn’t the answer.  Louisiana is an open carry state, and nothing was done to see if Alton Stirling was legally carrying. Philando Castile had a permit to carry in an open carry state, but was shot dead anyway.  More people carrying guns will cause more problems for the police, and lead to more deaths of innocent people (whether they are totally innocent or innocent of anything close to a capital crime)

I don’t know what the answer is.  But we damn sight need to start working on it.  Why isn’t every police organization in the country revisiting officer training for confronting suspects?  Why isn’t the NRA helping fund officer training for dealing with confrontational situations? Why aren’t the vocal police critics in the film and music industries funding body cameras for major departments?  Why aren’t politicians standing up to the one-issue megaphones who only want to blame police, guns, blacks, whites, etc. How can we get past the them-against-us mentality that keeps us entrenched in our bunker positions?

I need to stop, think, and find my own way to engage with my community (which is very racially diverse but separated), my police, and my government. Even if it is as small a first step as speaking to those of a different race that I pass on my walks. We all need to do something.  We need to stop feeding the fires, and start finding solutions.

Or we will lose civilization.

 

 

 

Light observation

It occurred to me the other week that I have lived in my apartment for a long time.  In fact, I have lived in my 900 sq ft longer than any other single location in my life.  I moved into the apt as part of the “out of the house” separation prior to the divorce.  That means it has been my domicile for ten years.  It has been my home for only four, because it wasn’t until a serious, weeks long illness in 2012 that I “bonded” with the place and learned to be okay, comfortable, even happy (gasp!) with it.  In one sense I’m surprised it has been so long.  In another…..I’ve forgotten much of what other places were like.

With that as background, I had a light thought the other morning.  I was getting ready for work when I noticed that one of the five lights over the vanity was burned out.  Not an unusual thing –except that it was.  You see, in the ten years that I have been in the apt, this is the FIRST time that a light in the bathroom has burned out.  How can I be sure?  Because it is a non-standard bulb, and it’s one I know I have never had to buy before.  In fact, it is such an odd bulb I’m going to ask building management to replace it.

How did this happen?  I have to wonder, because that light is ALWAYS used!  Every morning it comes on while I shower, shave, get dressed.  Every evening I turn it on when I wash and brush.  Any time during the day when I’m home from work, it is on when I use the bathroom.  For ten years.  And now….the first one goes.   What made these so resilient?  Why did they last so long when the lamp bulbs in the living room and the bedroom get changed out every couple of years?

Just something light to think about 🙂

4th and 7

No, this isn’t a football story, although that was clearly in my mind when I came up with the title 🙂 Rather, this is about two things that I wanted to comment on today.

from http://dc.about.com/od/specialevents/a/4thofJuly.htm

First, despite the issues of my regular blogging spot being shut down for renovations, the month of June was exceptionally productive for me as a blogger.  Seven posts, including four that were my thoughts (along with two reblogs and one smile inducing picture set).  Not bad for being out of my routine!

Second, Happy 4th of July.  This country has gone through an awful lot recently –terrorism, politics, unrest, malaise (I dislike the word, but it does work).  We will likely go through a lot more.  And yet, we have survived for 240 years against all odds and enemies, foreign and domestic.  This is still the place to where everyone wants to come (which is its own problem).  Despite this, we persevere.  We have fought long odds, we have fought terrible ideologies and ideologues and demigods.  And will continue to.  But for now, let us realize the good and positive that we still are and still have, and focus on expanding and continuing it. For ourselves and others.

Happy 4th of July.

from https://plus.google.com/117077191734976938755