RUTHFULLY YOURS

New York City authorities have hit upon a brilliant strategy, one that Neville Chamberlain would certainly approve of. Give the rioters and protesters everything they want while looking the other way as they trash the city. Appeasing mobs and dictators doesn’t work out very well for the appeasers. But those who are being appeased make out like bandits — literally.

“The prosecution of protestors charged with these low-level offenses undermines critical bonds between law enforcement and the communities we serve. Days after the killing of George Floyd, our nation and our city are at a crossroads in our continuing endeavor to confront racism and systemic injustice wherever it exists. Our office has a moral imperative to enact public policies which assure all New Yorkers that in our justice system and our society, black lives matter and police violence is a crime. We commend the thousands of our fellow New Yorkers who have peacefully assembled to demand these achievable aims, and our door is open to any New Yorker who wishes to be heard.”

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/06/black_americans_speak_out_on_george_floyd_and_the_riots.html

George Floyd was killed by excessive force by a police officer in Minneapolis.  Across the board, Americans were outraged.  Peaceful protests arose, but with the protests came forces that initiated violence by killing innocents and police, burning buildings, destroying property, and stealing.  American Thinker interviewed black Americans for their feelings of what is happening in this country today. The black Americans are all in agreement that they are horrified by what happened to George Floyd, but they are equally horrified by the violence and lack of law and order.

These black Americans feel dismayed by what happened.  They recognize that there is legitimate anger over the tactics used by the Minneapolis police.

Stacy Washington is the co-chairperson of Project 21, founded after the 1992 Los Angeles riots to highlight black Americans’ political diversity.  She differentiates between a protester, someone who exercises his right under the 1st Amendment, and rioters who break the law.  Kathy Barnette, who is running in the general election for Pennsylvania’s 4th Congressional District, saw “the heart of a nation rise up in defense of George Floyd.  No one tried to defend the indefensible acts of these officers.  I was even more excited to see President Trump immediately have the Justice Department investigate and not sweep what happened under the rug.”

All interviewed want to emphasize that it is inexcusable for many of the cities to have abdicated the rule of law.  There are those who claim that the riots and destruction of property are understandable and excusable since it is not a life being destroyed.  Stacy responds, “Property is a life.  I agree buildings are not alive, but what happens inside of buildings enables people to live.  It is their livelihood.  Studies show there is a direct link between increases with poverty and suicide/homicide.  People turn to crime when they are not able to be employed.  In Ferguson, Missouri, after the riots, M1 Bank literally created investment vehicles.  The neighborhood became integrated, and young couples, both black and white, could afford a house.  Now things are getting burned down again.  I am not sure the neighborhoods will be rebuilt.”

Chris Arps, a Project 21 member, agrees with this Martin Luther King quote: “I feel that non-violence is really the only way that we can follow because violence is just so self-defeating.  A riot ends up creating many more problems for the negro community than it solved.  You can, through violence, burn down a building, but you can’t establish justice.  You can murder a murderer, but you can’t murder through violence.  You can murder a hater, but you can’t murder hate.”

https://www.jns.org/opinion/looting-american-culture/

The young people destroying shops, stealing goods, shooting and beating have been shaped by a culture that bows to suffering and elevates victimhood.

 If George Floyd, the African-American strangled to death by the knee of Minneapolis policeman Derek Chauvin, had been white, his death would have elicited the same horrified reaction on my part.

A violent killing by a member of the police department is unfathomable and inexcusable.  But so is the behavior of the angry “Black Lives Matter” mob.  Martin Luther King Jr. surely would have agreed. He would have considered the current violence and looting to devalue the cause and decay the role of blacks.

King outlined his dream—as the best-selling author Douglas Murray recalled in his 2019 book, The Madness of the Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity—at the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963.

Describing how black Americans first were slaves and then second-class citizens, he denounced the laws of racial segregation (that still existed in certain state at the time), and said that he dreamed his children should “one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”