THOU SHALT NOT KILL!
So say the scriptures and so say I, don’t you? The thou means you, my fellow American. And the thou means me, everybody! Nobody should kill, NOBODY!
No matter, violence, including killing or the ever-present possibility thereof, runs rampant in America. The George Floyd era has unleashed a license in behavior, allowing if not condoning violence and that violence can well include:
MURDER – KILLING!
I for one despise violence of any kind, physical or verbal for that matter. I could never, ever kill another human being even if my own life was at stake, could you? I know well the arguments of defending family, friends and especially children. But I could not do that with guns and knives. I take the biblical admonitions seriously and for me, there has to be another way. What do you think, how do you act, and how do you live?
But violence seems commonplace in some parts of America, expected, killing happening often with impunity. In a recent weekend, nine human beings were killed in Chicago, NINE! Four of those nine, African American, were children, innocent children. No one it seems outside of that Chicago neighborhood, Austin west of Chicago, seems to care. The country is obsessed with the killing of George Floyd but could care less about the killing of four, four innocent children in a suburb of Chicago. Three year old Mekhi James, an African American child living in Austin – Chicago, Illinois was shot in the back, killed when someone fired several rounds into the SUV his father was driving. Three years old! Where is the outrage, and where is the proactive response of Chicago’s Mayor, an American herself, African American and female. Where is the response, the caring, and the promise of justice for those four children and the five adults killed with them that weekend. WHERE IS IT?
Two hours after Mekhi James was brutally murdered, that same weekend, Amaria Jones, 13 years of age was fatally shot in the neck as she sat, get this clearly now:
INSIDE HER HOME!
Thirteen years old, dead and gone and does anybody care about Amaria J. Jones, anybody, including Chicago’s African American Mayor. Does anybody care and will anybody do anything about it?
Then killed was Jasean Francis 17 years old, a resident of Austin – Chicago, innocent but slaughtered by butchers, murderers who could care less about the biblical commandment:
THOU SHALL NOT KILL!
Five adults were killed in addition to the children. Violence, killing, black killing black and does anybody care, ANYBODY? I do and I have asked my Chicago stations to do something about it. ACTION NOT WORDS. All those lives matter, they matter every bit as much as George Floyd, brutally murdered in Minneapolis, Minnesota and they matter every bit as much as the killing of Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta. Floyd and Brooks were shot and killed by police officers and Mekhi James was shot and killed by black criminals, thugs, hoodlums, killers and murderers, the bottom line is the same. Floyd and Brooks could and should be alive, but so should four young African American children as well. THEY SHOULD BE ALIVE! Does anybody care, ANYBODY about these four innocent black children murdered in Austin – Chicago?
In Philadelphia, the so called city of Brotherly Love (now vandals and hoodlums), gangs of rioters rolled through several neighborhoods burning businesses and cars. There was only a tepid, lackluster response from the Philadelphia Police Department as so many minorities vandalized, and violently destroyed the property of good people including any number of businesses owned by minorities. Many wondered why there was not a more aggressive response from Philadelphia Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw herself an African American as so many violently vandalized. Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney, a considerable liberal Democrat sheepishly condemned the violence on the one hand, but immediately seriously questioned the use of his police force to stem the violence with non–lethal tear gas. Every liberal politician must toe the line, the party line, condemning the police and police forces even though the vast majority of those civil servants are good men and women, concerned with the rule of law and determined to uphold the law and to prevent violence. They get lost in the shuffle by these radical police condemnations. These, my fellow law abiding Americans, are frightening days in our beloved country and the rule of law has never been more disrespected or ignored. Scary times indeed for we the people who love America, believe in our Constitution and the rule of law and even as we LOVE OUR COUNTRY:
WE DESPISE VIOLENCE AND KILLING!
We believe firmly and unequivocally that any civilized person, and especially any person of faith lives by the biblical admonition:
THOU SHALL NOT KILL!
New York City releases criminals charged as such without bail. The city also releases convicted prisoners because of CORONA. For the first three weeks of June, New York City, the five boroughs thereof, witnessed:
125 SHOOTING INCIDENTS.
ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY–FIVE!
Mayor de Blasio self-righteously proclaimed:
“We are not going to allow gun violence to continue to grow in this city.”
Talk, nothing but talk because the talk was backed by no action of any kind, virtually none. The Mayor declared the shootings, the killings and the violence a “troubling trend,” and then went back to his usual liberal, progressive, non–support of the New York Police Department. And the violence and the killings continue!
In downtown St. Louis, four police officers were shot by “some coward randomly shooting at police lines,” said Police Chief John Hayden. To add insult to injury, now comes Black Lives Matter and they demand this great city change its name because St. Louis somehow someway has some kind of racist history attached. What a world, WHAT A PLACE AMERICA HAS BECOME as the rule of law crumbles in so many locations.
And the violence continues. VIOLENCE BEGETS MORE VIOLENCE! Radical groups like ANTIFA exploit violent opportunities. These groups foster protest which may start peacefully but invariably end up violently. The VIOLENT know that so much of the resistance is mere talk. Presumptive Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden gave a 20–minute speech in Philadelphia on the topic of:
SYSTEMIC RACISM.
Whatever that is. Biden devoted all of 20 or so seconds to the violence stating that:
“There is no place (no place?) for looting or destroying property or burning churches or destroying businesses, many of them built by the very people of color who for the first time in their lives are beginning to realize their dreams and build wealth for their families.”
End of Biden response. No recommended action. No support of the local Police Departments, or the National Guard or any other FIRST RESPONDERS who risk lives to protect and defend. NOTHING! More talk, and little more than a further contribution to the sense of license for the violent, and seemingly fostering the notion that in this Floyd – Brooks era:
ANYTHING GOES.
If Biden happens to be elected President of our country, watch out for law and order.
John Wood Jr., a national leader of BRAVER ANGELS notes the so called boiling over of minority pain and the violence which accompanies alleged remedies for that pain and he, a 33 year old biracial African American with a white father and a black mother asks the following question:
“The pain is real. But so is the progress that our ancestors (African Americans) fought for and realized. Do we conserve and build on it in search of Martin Luther King Jr.’s beloved community? Or do we reject an American project for which our own people have sacrificed so much?”
This is indeed the real issue for all African Americans. It is a conversation, a critical conversation as Wood Jr. states that all black Americans must address. Perhaps, Wood Jr. wonders, right thinking, law abiding, peace loving Americans of all colors would be more turned off by the violence and the illegal activities than they would the recognition of anything really racist or anti–African American. I believe that the vast majority of African Americans are good, law abiding citizens, so many strong people of faith and determined to effectuate any necessary change by peaceful means, by dialogue, with discussion and with mutual respect one for another and for ALL people no matter the color. They are the ones that must stand up, start and pursue the peaceful dialogue for change and condemn, PASSIONATELY CONDEMN the violence, the killings of any kind! Without that, America is doomed to civil disobedience and unrest perhaps forever.
The common concern seems to be:
SYSTEMIC RACISM.
But I ask the following questions:
WHAT EXACTLY IS SYSTEMIC RACISM?
WHO IS GUILTY OF THE PRACTICE?
HOW IS THIS PERPETUATED?
WHAT ARE ACTUAL, PRACTICAL, ACHIEVABLE REMEDIES?
There is no racism, systemic or otherwise in my life, in my company. I know of no racist in my family or among my friends, none whatsoever. If there were such an one, I would confront him or her, demand change or move on from that individual. There is not one tiny bit of racism in my company, the Crawford Broadcasting Company, anywhere by anyone. If there were, I would deal with it and eradicate it overnight. If any employee of this company committed any kind of racist act, I would terminate that employee immediately without a second chance. You may find it interesting that 52% of the employees of the Crawford Broadcasting Company are so called minorities, 41% of whom are:
AFRICAN AMERICANS!
That was not planned, nor was it forced upon us (affirmative action). These were the right people for the right jobs at the right time with the right skills and the right attitudes and the right determinations to be successful and to achieve THE AMERICAN DREAM! What a pleasure it is for me to know and work with them.
Racism surely exists and where it does, it must be dealt with as forcefully as possible. It is wrong, DEAD WRONG! It is hate at work and that has no place in America or anywhere. There are racists of all colors, red, yellow, brown, white and black. Whoever is racist, no matter the color of the skin, he or she is wrong, DEAD WRONG! All men and women are created equal, creations and creatures of God Almighty and none are better than any other, different perhaps but NOT BETTER!
Only men and women of goodwill can solve the problem of racism. Violence never will. Violence will worsen racism. And, in the final analysis, there really is only one, ONLY ONE who can bring peace and goodwill to mankind and ONLY ONE who can end racism. That man was a CARPENTER FROM NAZARETH. That man was Jesus the Christ whose birth 2,000 years ago was intended as a gift to mankind for PEACE AND GOODWILL. The rule of love he would bring is the only real and permanent solution to racism. That divine help is available even now if we ask. So, ask HIM for his help, and now.
And then, go to work and do what you can do to end racism, and effectuate peace and goodwill for all. At the bottom line, my fellow Americans:
BY THEIR FRUITS YE SHALL KNOW THEM!
