On Saturday, an Islamic extremist planted a bunch of bombs in places throughout New York City and New Jersey. As soon as I heard that there was an explosion in New York City, two things came to mind: it was either a accident or a Muslim extremist trying to kill people. Then they found a pressure cooker bomb, and I was pretty sure I knew exactly what it was. So did most people if they're honest. Trump wasn't wrong with his conclusions on this particular issue. Hillary said he shouldn't jump to conclusions before knowing the facts, which is ironic coming from someone who blamed the Benghazi attack on an anti-Islam video. The truth is that ISIS and Islamic extremism in general are HUGE problems throughout the world. Saying this does not make me "Islamophobic." It makes me cognizant of facts.
Try to remember before September 11, 2001, for those of you who were around. It was just over 15 years ago. What was your first thought when you heard about the first plane hitting the tower? Shamefully, I remember what my comment was, because I'll never forget anything about that day. The Yankees had just won the last three World Series and four of the last five, and they were well on their way to playing in another one that October. I was sitting in my Chemistry class Junior Year of High School when I heard about the first plane hitting the tower.
"Probably a pissed off Red Sox fan."
That's what I said. With little knowledge of the situation, it was a hauntingly terrible joke.
Then the second plane hit.
"OK, that was on purpose. We're under attack..."
I had no idea who was attacking us. I knew nothing of Islamic extremism them. Being a Christian, I knew Judaism well, and I knew of Islam to some extent. I knew that Jews and Muslims often didn't get along very well in the Middle East. I knew that they both revered Abraham, but then split on Isaac and Ishmael. We all seemed to get along just fine in America though. I knew some Muslims, just like I knew Jews, Buddhists, Atheists, Agnostics, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Unitarians, Hindus, whatever. They had different religious beliefs than I did, but they were people. I had no problem with any of them. I try to treat everyone with respect until they don't treat me with respect. And on that day, more than ever, we were all just Americans.
Then we found out who did it, and if something similar to what happened that day occurred again today, most of us would probably, and probably rightly, immediately attribute it to Islamic extremism. But before that terrible day 15 years ago, that was the furthest thing from my mind. Sure, I was a naive high school student, but I didn't know that was a thing that could exist here in America. It was a different kind of war, and it still is. Yes, there are a lot of Christians and Jews and people of all religious beliefs who do really bad things. But there is a brand of terrorism that's pretty unique to Islamic extremists. Christians and Jews aren't attacking infidels in the name of God, but the number of terrorist attacks by extremist Muslims done in the name of Allah is out of control. It is a regular occurrence in this world. No, not all Muslims are terrorists--not even close--but in this modern day, most terrorists are Muslims.
We haven't found a solution to this yet, so there's nothing like a good old-fashioned police shooting of a black person to distract us from it, because that's actually something that we should be able to solve. I've gone over the numbers before. The number of police shooting black people is not an alarming number, and most black people who are killed in general are killed by other black people. But, quite honestly, these facts do not matter to those who are grieving the loss of a loved one. Black lives do matter. I empathize with the black people who are hurting. No, I will never fully understand being black, but I can grieve with those who grieve. I can demand change. I can acknowledge that racism is not completely dead, and this is a problem that must be corrected. But I'm still going to examine the issue more closely, and I'm not going to support people who are rioting, shooting cops, or encouraging violence against police officers in any way, shape, or form. If you want a civil war in this country, that's how you bring it on. If you want real change, let's have a rational discussion about the issues, the causes, and the solutions.
My first job out of college was in Quality. In a Quality Department, when something goes wrong, you must find the root cause and the corrective action. Different incidents may have different root causes and different corrective actions. There is almost never a fix-all solution for something. When a black woman is pointing a gun at a police officer and threatening to kill him with that gun, while also using her child as a human shield, the root cause of her death is her own actions. We can grieve, we can wish she didn't die, we can believe she didn't deserve to die, but the color of her skin is completely irrelevant here. It's another black life taken by police, but the root cause is not racism. When a black child points an air gun at a police officer that looks like a real gun with a laser sight on it, and the police officer draws his gun and kills the child, we can grieve, we can be saddened, but again, the root cause is this child's actions, and has nothing to do with the color of his skin. The main corrective action in both of these cases is to not point a firearm (or something that looks exactly like a firearm) at a police officer.
Then we have the less straightforward cases. There are riots in Charlotte now because a black man was shot in his car. His daughter says he was a disabled man reading a book who did not have a gun, and the officers say he had a gun. I don't know who's telling the truth here, and I'm not going to make excuses for the police officer or the victim when I have such little knowledge of what occurred, but regardless of all that, this wasn't because of racism either. The officer who killed the black man was also black. And finally, there's the situation in Tulsa, where video has surfaced of an unarmed black man being killed. The female officer who killed him has given her account of what happened. But again, I don't know what exactly occurred, so I can only grieve for another life lost right now. Was racism a factor? Maybe it was, and maybe it wasn't. Hopefully the truth comes out in both of these situations and justice prevails. There are no positives when things like that occur. But what are some steps we can take as a nation? What are some corrective actions?
I like the idea of police body cameras. There are good cops, bad cops, and cops who make mistakes, but there are also those who lie about what occurred, so body cams should aid both the officers and those that they are involved with, because they give us a better idea of what actually happened in any given situation. I like the idea of more police training. Some of them are just bad with firearms and reading of situations (the incident comes to mind in which the police officer accidentally shot a black caregiver when he was actually aiming for a mentally-challenged person who he thought had a gun, which turned out to be a toy truck). Some of them are quick to use force. Some use deadly force when it is not necessary, and non-deadly force options are available. Training may not fix all of this, but maybe it can help. Punishment for doing the wrong thing and true accountability are also necessary. Racist cops being fired immediately when found to be racist, and being punished to the fullest extent of the law when they themselves break the law are obvious necessities.
You want to know what won't help our nation? Rioting by destroying things and hurting people, demonizing or shooting police officers, and pointing fingers instead of having constructive dialogue. Are you a BLM supporter who's angry because of the folks who were getting loud about football players not standing for the National Anthem but are silent about the recent highly-publicized police shootings? Talk about that, but don't tell them that THEY are what's wrong with this nation on social media. Are you a BLM skeptic who's angry because of the folks who are up in arms over the recent highly-publicized police shootings, because they were also up in arms over other police shootings that turned out to be justified, and they became huge fans of the 49ers second-string Quarterback overnight? Talk about that, but don't tell them that THEY are what's wrong with this nation on social media. Think racism is gone? You're wrong. Think racism is to blame every time an officer shoots a black person? You're wrong too. If you're both wrong, there's some common ground to build on.
But let's find some real common ground. Can we agree that sometimes a police officer shooting a black person is justified, other times it's racist, and other times it's neither? Be a part of the solution instead of the distraction. Try to understand the other side. BLM skeptics are justifiably upset because some folks blame cops for killing black people who are pointing weapons at them, others are saying all cops are bad, and others are violently rioting in the streets, even when the officer who killed a black man is also black. But BLM supporters are justifiably upset because of the images they see so often of people who look like them, their families, and their friends being killed by police officers. Yes, the media's disproportionate coverage of these events is to blame to some extent, but the media listing every dead black person's rap sheet is often unnecessary. It's a big news story these days whenever a police officer kills a black person, and the media covers it from many angles. It's said that shootings of any kind are still happening in America today.
We need prayer. We need God. We need to stop demonizing each other. We need racial reconciliation. Love is the only real solution. Mix it with some common sense and you might have an antidote.
