Black Man Thinkin'

Before harming oneself, mental instability or hopelessness compromises a person’s judgment. Before a person so compromised seeks to harm someone else, he links that someone else, rightly or wrongly, with the fact, or reason, that his mind or hope is gone. Such a person is “off”, both in his outlook and demeanor…and ripe for an “intervention”.

Black Americans increasingly have the outlook and demeanor of someone who is “off” (note the person seated second from the right):

The black female pictured is part of the “Black Brunch Civil Rights movement”, which confronts white restaurant patrons over the issue of police brutality, chanting and disrupting the patrons’ dining experience. Organizers claim inspiration from the lunch counter sit-ins of the 1950’s and 1960’s:

However, the pictures show differences between the movement of today and the one a half century ago, which include:

• The 1963 protesters confronted people who infringed their liberty; The 2015 protesters infringe the liberty of people they confront,
• The 1963 protesters knew someone would harm them; the 2015 protesters have no such concerns, and
• The 2015 protesters exclude whites from their ranks; as for the 1963 protesters…look at the picture.

Both protester groups acted on behalf of all blacks, going on the offensive against overwhelming odds. The 1963 protesters confronted unjust people, with a noble grace that attracted others to their cause; the 2015 protesters confront only white people, with an abrasive disrespect that calls their cause into question. While the 1963 lunch counter sit-in made blacks look principled, the 2015 “Black Brunch” makes blacks look mentally unstable, like someone staring blankly at strangers in a restaurant.

Adding to the mentally unstable look is the questionable premise of the “Black Brunch”, “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot”, and the “I Can’t Breathe” protests, across the U.S. and elsewhere: increasing U.S. police brutality.

The U.S. Attorney General says there is inadequate facts to show an increase in police use of force. Indeed, the federal government:

• In 2011, reported 62.9 million police contacts with the public. Of the 26.4 million traffic stops included among those contacts, 1.5% involved threat or use of force,
• In 2008, reported that about 1.4% of the 40 million police contacts with the public involved threat or use of force,
• In 2005, reported that less than 1.6% of the 43.5 million police contacts with the public involved threat or use of force,
• In 2002, reported that about 1.5% of the 45.3 million police contacts with the public involved threat or use of force, and
• In 1999, reported that 1% of the 43.8 million police contacts with the public involved threat or use of force.

Interestingly, one group claimed 313 extrajudicial killings of blacks in 2012, or “one black every 28 hours”, by the police…and by security guards…and by vigilantes…and by whomever else came to mind. They later acknowledged 136 unarmed blacks killed that year, a number in line with the government’s reported average of 133 blacks killed annually by police between 2003 and 2009.

So, police use of force is neither rising nor statistically problematic; anecdotes, not data, drive the narrative of (white) cops hunting black people.

Nevertheless, disruptive protests occurred in Ferguson, Missouri, Boston, Oakland, Durham, San Francisco, New York, and elsewhere, all under the hashtag of: “#BlackLivesMatter”.

People who found movements on false assertions are dishonest, unstable, or both. Using an unobjectionable hashtag to cover their dishonesty is their attempt to infect people an ideology, not to inform them with truth. And it is working, as many have embraced the hashtag and ignore the real message, which is “Blacks (don’t believe their) Lives Matter (enough)”.

Consider crime and population data. Whites outnumber blacks nearly 6 to 1 in America. Nevertheless, in 2013:

• Blacks committed 2,698 single victim/offender murders, just 57 fewer than committed by all those white people,
• More homicide victims were black than white,
• Blacks killed more than 90% of black murder victims, and
• Blacks murdered more than twice as many whites as whites murdered blacks.

These data suggest that not only #BlackLivesMatter, but #AllLivesMatter…more to whites than blacks. If only the harm stopped with crimes…

A people who treats its next generation as optional or disposable is dying, willing neither to sacrifice nor prepare for the future; they seek today’s pleasure, and see tomorrow as without hope. Such was the Russian people’s outlook from 1991 to 2005, when they annually killed more children in the womb than they bore alive. America’s blacks display a similar outlook.

In 2010, black women, only 14% of U.S. females, accounted for 41% of America’s 1.15 million abortions, transferring more than 470,000 black children directly from the womb to the tomb. Black women have the highest abortion rates in America and, in some places, more black children die in the womb than emerge from it. Unfortunately, there is more…

Blacks have legitimate concerns about “Mass Incarceration”. The U.S. has the world’s highest incarceration rate, blacks were 36% of inmates in 2013, and some estimate 1 in 3 black men will go to prison in their lifetime.

However, concern over black “Mass Incarceration” ignores who actually puts blacks behind bars. Many fault a “racist judicial system”; this is mostly anecdotal griping, subject to rebuttal. The statistics on crime and victimization, taken together, do not support a racial bias. The data suggest, not that whites commit crimes for which blacks “take the fall”, not that “phantom crimes” result in blacks going to jail – but that black crime victims turn black criminal perpetrators over to the “racist” judicial system, in numbers that align with black-on-black crime. The resultant prosecutions, convictions, and incarcerations are (and should be) the normal consequences of blacks “dropping a dime” on those who harm them. Yet the complaints continue.

When people complain about what occurs – when it is what should occur – even though they make it occur…someone might question whether those are rational people.

And non-blacks are taking note. Not very long ago, a white man commented on his observations of black people:

“I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro,” he recalled driving past a public-housing project in North Las Vegas, “and in front of that government house the door was usually open and the older people and the kids — and there is always at least a half a dozen people sitting on the porch — they didn’t have nothing to do. They didn’t have nothing for their kids to do. They didn’t have nothing for their young girls to do.

“And because they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do? They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.”

Cliven Bundy is hardly anyone’s perfect sociologist, but if what is amiss with blacks is obvious enough that he can spot it, then it should be obvious enough for blacks to address.

Blacks…we…protest harm brought upon us, then challenge those who’ve done no harm…
Blacks…we…decry violence done to us by others, though we do more to others, and to ourselves…
Blacks…we…say our lives matter, but relentlessly murder ourselves, inside and outside the womb…
Blacks…we…complain about our incarcerated young men, even as we turn them over to their jailors…

and blacks…we…will suffer no one to speak truth to us, and are loathe to speak it to ourselves…

These are the actions of the mentally unstable, of the hopeless…and they should not be the actions of American black people. Therefore blacks…we…need an intervention, while there are still enough among us, and who care for us, that we might return to the senses we once had.