BALTIMORE - WHY OH WHY?

Sooner or later a Baltimore had to happen.  Another African American male death, 25 year old Freddie Gray, linked to the police screamed its way into the headlines and all hell, literally, broke loose. These high profile deaths are not isolated incidences that only hit the communities they tragically occur in. Each one evokes a response which is additive to the others and finally the dam burst. Once again the temptation is to analyze the incident in one dimension - so sucks to all those who yelled police brutality at every previous incident can't those pinkos see “What the police are dealing with”. 

But before Jay H. Ell goes any further he needs to make it quite clear that the looting, arson, battery, and violence perpetrated opportunistically is reprehensible and needs to be prosecuted to the fullest possible extent. The reason the mayhem was able to take root beyond the few agitators that started it was as a result of all that the precedents in the past nine months making it easy to whip up the mob. In addition the presumption that individual police have done wrong in the death of Mr. Gray is just that, a presumption. (Already there is inappropriate trial by the media about evidence as to whether the deceased fatal injury was self inflicted or not). Having made those observations it is still reasonable to assume that there is something fundamentally amiss when there are serial deaths of black men at the hands of police. 

It is also about time there was an honest discussion of the perceptions of those who ascribe to the simplistic narrative that it is either police brutality or African American lawlessness that is at fault.

WHAT THESE INCIDENTS ARE NOT INDICATIVE OF

These incidents are handled on an ad hoc basis like the mass shootings that also punctuate space - time with monotonous regularity, like they are anomalies to an otherwise normal situation. There is a temporary deep soul searching, finger pointing, exhaustive analysis of the specific incident and its sequelae with usually an unsatisfactory outcome because even where there is, in the eyes of the layman obvious indications of a homicide an acquittal follows as the law is generally designed to assume that the police are the experts when it comes to the use of force or not. The broad sweeping assumption of the civil liberty defenders then follows that we are that we are dealing with widespread police brutality. An argument that is countered by the 335,000 strong Fraternal Order of Police who steadfastly maintain that they do not support rotten apples. As Jay H. Ell has repeatedly blogged this is not a merely a police problem but a societal one. The police are at the fault line between the frustrated and angry African American community and the law and order society and are merely carrying out what society expects them to do. (Blog; The NCPD Shooting and the Supporting Culture).

Also the African American community in every incident, as a whole, have condemned these obscene gratuitous acts of violence and plunder. Lead usually by the victims’ families and community and church leaders there are pleas to desist from violence as they rightly point out that this behavior detracts from the martyrdom  and memory of the departed and will not help remedy the situation. 

It has been argued that the police and the area leadership being unrepresentative of the community they serve is the root cause of the problem. An exhaustive op ed piece in the Wall Street Journal of April 29, 2015 effectively puts paid to that. The contributor, James L. Riley points out that Baltimore with 63 percent of its residents black, have an African American Mayor, President of the City Council and Chief of Police in addition to 40 percent of its police force being black. So that doesn’t cut it. The problem is deeper than representation although it obviously doesn’t help if the community isn’t represented.

WHAT IS IT THEN?

The irresistible inference is if this is not a community representation or a police problem is that the African American community is inherently bad and intellectually handicapped. The supporters of this theory are careful not to phrase it quite like that but whatever they argue it is code for the bald statement that these guys are lazy, good for nothing, mentally challenged, immoral and rapping hoodied criminal elements. They would argue that the fact that the black community has the highest unemployment rate, highest incarceration rate, the highest poverty rate and highest mortality rate is because their behavior warrants it. They are subject to the same laws as everyone else, have the same opportunities to achieve the American dream but they squander it all. They point to the fact that America as the land of the immigrant sees penniless refugees rise to the top. Why cannot these descendants of liberated slaves, who have been afforded the voting right, been assisted by Affirmative Action and have been showered with countless assistance programs get their act together?

Where does this argument fall down?

Immigrants to the USA are different from all other Americans from the second generation onwards. Anyone who comes to America has had to jump through a million hoops and humiliations to get here  - even those immigrants the Americans actually need. They are by definition “exceptional” people who have come here for a reason and are motivated to succeed. They are not moaning about the system, at least not in the beginning, and expect to work like lunatics. Often they have been toughened up by political oppression or come from a society that offers them little hope or future and are seizing every opportunity with both hands. An immigrant has many disadvantages besides not being able to run for the Presidency not the least of which he or she does not know the system and has to learn the culture. So you cannot compare any group of even second generation Americans to the immigrants.

The argument that the African Americans are somehow different intellectually and otherwise to the white and Asian groups is belied by the fact that so many rise to the top of their fields. Why we even have an African American President! In the professions, armed forces, business, academia, trades and in the entertainment and the sports arena there are endless standard bearers from this so called “challenged” group. There just seems to be a massive gap between those that make it and those that don’t. A gap incidentally that is slowly but surely materializing in the other groups in America.

Having said all that it must be made clear that the African American historically has been discriminated against in America. Lest we forget just 50 short years ago the Civil Rights leaders effected the most incredible disciplined campaign to gain their constitutional voting rights. This campaign was lead by one of the key intellects and leaders of the twentieth century, Martin Luther King. To jump to today, just one pertinent example where discrimination still is rampant, is their profiling by the police. They are far more likely to get jail time and even be arrested for the same crime as other racial groups and on and on. They live in areas where the schools are worse, facilities scarcer where unemployment is higher and often where the best and easiest employment opportunities are in the illicit drug industry with its accompanying crime and violence. The unemployment rate of black male youth in Baltimore is estimated between thirty and fifty percent. In short a large body of African Americans are caught up in the cycle of poverty and cannot seem to escape it. If six of you share a room and are not really getting enough to eat and are trying to study it has to be an uphill battle.

So what is the answer to break this poverty cycle? Well the answer is a national one and not only one directed to the African American Community and needs a determined effort to create higher wage earning jobs and educational opportunities. How did Eisenhower get the great American boom going? Well he subsidized education with the GI Bill and initiated great infrastructure projects that required professionals, skilled workers and manual laborers. Everyone paid their share under Eisenhower and the maximum tax rate was ninety percent and this Republican had a death tax too so the coffers were never empty. 

Well this is not a complete answer as there is a need for education and liaison between police and community,   police cameras and all those good things as well that have been enumerated again and again as well as an awareness of the African American community that they too have to respond to the overtures and control the disruptive elements in their community. This would be a long process. However a process that is long overdue. The African American community don’t need handouts they need opportunity and once all this has been effected Affirmative Action can be disbanded.

Why has this whole issue got the feel of the fruitlessness of arguing for gun control? One wonders what it will take for our legislators to begin to get down to solving the root causes of so many problems that repeat and repeat themselves. The inevitability of episode following episode, to the extent that one becomes numb and dejected when yet another scene surfaces only to be followed by the same old script blurted out by the media who are more than satisfied just to turn it into yet another ”one off” as they ready themselves to move onto the next predictable catastrophe.