A Pattern Not Worth Repeating

I see a pattern. We ought to learn from patterns. But maybe some people don’t learn.

I’m going to use three historic examples, all within my adult memory, plus a current one. And then we’ll talk about the pattern.

archive illustration found on Pixabay

 

LA Riots— Rodney King, 1991-2

Before I start with this one, I want to go back a bit further. We lived in California during the mid-1980s. A neighbor was a police officer. I remember him telling us about an incident that had happened recently on a freeway we frequently used in the east Bay Area. I don’t remember all of the details of that incident, but there was gunfire, and I believe both an officer and the suspect were killed. The neighbor told us that the guy was on PCP. His eyes told the officers that. The guy had a gun, and a crazy look, and there was no reasoning. Guys on PCP have crazy strength and just keep going. I don’t remember for certain, but I think they had to shoot him, more than once, to take him down and stop him from menacing the public.

That story stuck with me.

Rodney King, photo from here

Now, it was the early 90s. We no longer lived in California, but it was LA where this took place. A guy named Rodney King took the police on a high-speed chase—as fast as 115 mph—for eight miles, before he got blocked and they tried to apprehend him. He resisted arrest, acted strange, laughing and waving at a police helicopter overhead, and continued to try to get away.

The officers used batons, rather than more certainly lethal weapons. (I think a taser might also have been used; King claimed a burn mark from a taser.) But he kept getting up.

What the video showed was multiple officers (four were charged) beating an apparently unarmed man, repeatedly, in what looked like excessive force.

The officers were acquitted on charges of assault with a deadly weapon, and three were acquitted of excessive force, while one was left undecided by the jury. The case had been moved out of LA County, to Simi Valley, where the jury, rather than being all or mostly black, was majority white with an Asian and a Hispanic.

The verdict of the case was the ostensible catalyst for rioting that lasted days. Many businesses were destroyed—mostly minority-owned. Billions of dollars in damages.

A later federal civil trial found two of the officers guilty of depriving Rodney King of his civil rights. But this was after the damage was done.

I’m probably one of the few Americans from that time period that never saw the video of the beating. I don’t really know why; I think I didn’t consume a great deal of TV news, and I had little kids around me all the time, and I didn’t want to see the violence.

But I heard about it, of course. And my first thought was that story of the guy near San Jose years earlier who had been on PCP.

Rodney King wasn’t tested for alcohol until hours after the arrest; results came back just under the legal limit. That means he was very likely quite impaired during the high-speed chase. Toxicology came back negative for PCP, but there was some marijuana in his system. PCP can remain in a person’s system for one to two weeks. So I think we have to assume his erratic behavior wasn’t caused by PCP. But, if you were an officer, just ending an adrenalin-charged high-speed chase to apprehend a danger to traffic, and your life and others’ had been in danger, and then the guy gets out and acts erratically and continues to resist arrest no matter what force has been inflicted—you would probably assume this was PCP or something similar, and that your life was in danger if you didn’t subdue him. [Note: PCP, along with alcohol and cocaine, was in his system at the time of his death by drowning in 2012.]

According to court reports, the officers’ defense was that they followed their training. That may be true.

Whether to follow a speeding car to pull him over, and then have an ensuing high-speed chase were decisions made without knowing the race of the person in the vehicle. Whether to subdue the resisting perpetrator, and use force to do so, were decisions made regardless of the race of the individual—who was doing what he was doing, and just happened to be the race that he was.

King was not an innocent black man who just happened to become the target of racist cops. One reason he stated for attempting to flee was that he was in violation of parole. But being a target of racism is the story that set off the riots.

I got some historical details from these two sources, plus an AI search of court proceedings:

·         “The 1992LA Riots: A Historian‘s Perspective on the Causes and Consequences” 

·        “Los Angeles Riots of 1992” Britannica 

 

Hands Up Don’t Shoot!—Michael Brown, Ferguson, Missouri, 2014

In 2014, a black man was shot and killed by police. The media claimed that he had his hands up and had said “Don’t shoot!” but the cop shot him anyway. The grand jury heard testimony that there could be a case, but the prosecutor, going through that information, chose not to prosecute, and found the officer had acted in self-defense.

Michael Brown, illustration found here

Again, this was claimed to be systemic racism against an innocent unarmed black man. But what had actually happened was much different than the media story. I wrote about it at the time, so I’ll repeat the basic story:

 A very large young man, on drugs, robs a store, shoving the (Asian) store owner on his way out with unpaid-for merchandise. Minutes later, when a report of the robbery is being sent to police officers nearby, he’s walking down the middle of the street, where he will attract the attention of law enforcement. He doesn’t take direction to get out of the street, but reaches in to a police vehicle, attacks the officer, goes for his gun, threatens his life.

When the officer shoots, still with the perpetrator looming over him within the police car, the man begins to run away. He has just represented himself as a threat; it is the officer’s duty to pursue to see where he goes, particularly because this is near residential areas; people could be harmed by this man. In Officer Wilson’s statement, he never intended to apprehend the big, dangerous man alone. He had called for backup and was just keeping eye contact. But Michael Brown turned around and started coming at the officer.

Considering the previous attempt on the officer’s life, just moments before, there were a lot of things the officer could fear: another physical attack that might knock him out; losing control of the weapon and having it used on him and on other innocent civilians. He fired several rounds at the charging man. He saw a flinch, so he knew he had hit him. He paused. Michael Brown didn’t do the normal thing—stop, hold up his empty hands, surrender. After being shot, he continued to charge at the officer. He kept charging, despite additional bullet wounds. Nothing stopped him but the final head shot—when he was within three yards of the officer.

Unarmed does not mean not dangerous. Clearly this man was dangerous and was exhibiting threatening behavior. Would it have been nice if we had some sort of instantaneous tranquilizer gun, instead of real bullets? Maybe. But when you’re up against a criminal with real bullets, you might not want to risk a slow response to his getting hit. And you might not know in the moment all the details that get examined after the fact. So officers carry guns, and I think we’re in agreement that’s for our protection and theirs.

What about Tasers? Good in some circumstances. But you have to be quite close, with all circumstances right. And there is always a chance they could still cause death. So I’m still waiting to hear what problem exists with the system.

There was one sure, certain way this tragedy could have been avoided: Michael Brown could have behaved less like a thuggish threat and more like a civilized human being.

He could have raised his hands to show he had no weapon. He could have respectfully obeyed the officer. He would probably still be alive if he had done everything wrong except for charging at Officer Wilson even after receiving bullet wounds. Stopping at any point would have saved his life.

I link to several sources within my piece; plus I referred to another historical source, both below:

·       "Contrasting Civilization and Savagery in Ferguson" December 1, 2014. 

·       “Michael Brown is killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri” This Day in History, published August 6, 2020.

 

Summer of Love—George Floyd, 2020

Remember, I’m one of the few people who never watched the Rodney King beating video. I am also one of the few who never watched the video of the officer on the neck of George Floyd. (I have seen photos and short snippets; even these, like the accompanying photo here, look shocking.) This may make me seem less informed than the ordinary person. But I think, for me, I was better able to hear facts and evidence without the emotions the video would cause.

George Floyd, held down by
Officer Derek Chauvin,
image from Wikipedia

I wrote about this quite a lot at the time, although not a lot describing the actual event, more about the aftermath—what got termed the "Summer of Love" or "mostly peaceful protests" that led to billions in property destruction. My first impression was that the story we were given by the media was accurate: that a 44-year-old white police officer, Derek Chauvin, had caused the death of a black man, George Floyd, brought into custody for using a counterfeit bill at a store, and then resisting arrest and behaving erratically. I believed the country agreed it was a bad act, while there were disagreements on what to charge, and what should be done.

As we went through the case and learned more, what we learned was that the man, George Floyd, was in bad health. And he was a drug user. And it was possible that he swallowed drugs to avoid prosecution for having them in his possession. We also eventually learned that he did not die of asphyxiation, but of heart failure. The officer was holding him down in a position that he was trained to do while waiting for paramedics, which had been called. Think back on the PCP situation and Rodney King; police have good reason to be wary of suspects behaving erratically. It may be an ironic twist that the training given to Officer Chauvin was in order to avoid the apparent police brutality in the Rodney King case.

Without argument, there was nothing in the case showing racism, and racism was not even brought up in the case. But that was the pretext for the weeks of rioting and looting, and the spread of Black Lives Matter across the country and around the world.

Below are the pieces I wrote during that first month.

·        “Don’t Mistake Rioters for Protesters” June 1, 2020 

·        “Don’t Mistake Rioters for Protesters, Part II” June 4, 2020 

·        “Chaos Is Tyranny” June 8, 2020 

·        “Those Who Stir Up to Anger vs. Those Who Inspire” July 6, 2020 

 

Deportation—Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Returned to El Salvador, April, 2025

This current story in the news this month is different in that it doesn’t involve white police and black suspects. It’s about an illegal alien from El Salvador, who was sent back along with other criminal offenders to an El Salvador prison.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, image from here

The news story claims that this was a mistake, that the man was guaranteed safety from being sent back to his home country. The media refers to him as a Maryland man, a married father.

They leave out some crucial details. He is an MS-13 gang member; this was adjudicated twice. His wife twice had protective orders against him for beating her. He was directed to leave the country in 2019. There was an order not to deport him to a particular country—but it was Guatemala, not El Salvador. A clerical error in the court papers? Well, probably not. His claim had been that a gang was threatening him and his family, which had been doing a pupusa business out of their home in El Salvador, from which he fled to the US. However, the rival gang had been destroyed since then, after President Bukele’s crackdown on gangs—changing the country from the most dangerous to one of the safest in the world. So the threat to Garcia no longer existed. And the family, previously threatened by the rival gang, was no longer in El Salvador, but were in Guatemala.

When MS-13 was designated a terrorist organization, that overrode any previous order preventing his deportation to a particular place. He was deported to the country of his origin—and citizenship—where he was wanted as an illegal gang member.

In other words, Garcia was not mistakenly deported to El Salvador; he was legally deported to his home country of El Salvador. [He has since been moved from the terrorist prison, CECOT, to a less intimidating prison.]

A federal judge took it upon himself to claim the President had no right to deport this illegal alien gang member. He ordered the plane—already in flight—to be turned around on his order. And he is trying to find the President guilty of insubordination. That means he sees the President as one of his subordinates, which is laughable.

What we do not need to worry about is ICE “kidnapping” and deporting innocent legal aliens, let alone naturalized  or native born US citizens with Hispanic surnames. [I actually know people with these needless worries.]

There were a number of sources on the more accurate details of this story. Among my favorites was an explanation to the media by Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller. This full 14-minute clip from C-SPAN has him answer the question near the beginning, but he adds details later as well. 

Most of the information I got came from Robert Gouveia videos, in which he went through the court documents. Here is one from two weeks ago:

  ·        “Trump Held in CONTEMPT! Kilmar Hoax SHATTERED! Poison Pill Attorney FIRED! Tish James BUSTED!” 

  

What Is the Pattern?

Someone, an enemy of civilization, looks for a narrative. They need an example case; they are ever on the lookout for such a case. In several of these (and we could have added Trayvon Martin, given time and space for yet another), they find what is supposed to be a typical innocent black man harmed or killed by systemically racist police officers. And in the last one, it is supposed to be a typical illegal alien, come here to build a better life, innocent except for that transgression of entering the country illegally.

In every case, they have used very non-innocent suspects and non-racist officials. If there are actual examples of their narrative—which there would be, if the narrative were true—they could find plenteous examples. But they don’t.

They say things like, even though it isn’t precisely true in this case, it’s the overarching truth, the bigger truth.

But, again, if it were true in the larger sense, there ought to be examples galore. Are they just really unlucky, happening serially upon negative examples by chance, among all the other incidences of systemic whatever they’re claiming?

More likely, they choose really bad examples of innocence being oppressed by their enemies—We, the People—because their narrative is false.

Some people might have believed them the first time or two. But lately (see "The Propaganda Beast Is in a Doom Loop"), fewer people are falling for the false narrative. And that could bode well for our future.

Those Who Stir Up to Anger vs. Those Who Inspire

There’s an important difference between feeling passionate about something because someone stirred you up to anger, and because someone inspired you to defend something good.

How do you know whether you’ve been stirred up to anger or inspired? Anger might be one clue.

Another clue is that stirring up tends to take one singular incident and extrapolate from there that an entire system is irreparable because of it.

Let’s take a look at some examples.

Examples of Stirring up to Anger

George Floyd

George Floyd was killed while in police custody, in Minneapolis. It was on video. It appears to all Americans that he was unjustly killed in this incident. And yet, because of this incident, there were riots, lootings, murders—not just in Minneapolis, but all over the country, and even all over the world. And they continue more than a month later.

Why? What is the narrative? That this single death in this one city shows that racism is so rampant that no black is safe anywhere? And that it has always been this way, and it’s time for an uprising to stop this ubiquitous injustice? 

It’s a leap. And it’s unsupported by facts.

First, if racism were ubiquitous, you’d find a large segment of the population that cheered for the death of George Floyd, simply because of his color. You don’t see that. In fact, you hear zero examples of such views. Maybe there are some fringe racists out there in a country this large, but you’d have to seek them out and purposely give them a voice, because that viewpoint simply doesn’t have a place in our society.

The data, as we’ve gone over, shows that blacks are less likely than whites to be fatally killed in an interaction with police.

The cries of protesters for what they claim to want—to end racism, especially as it pertains to police brutality—we can accomplish today. Now. Immediately. As if by magic. Done! Simply by changing the perceptions and attitudes of the protesters. Because those goals are not only achievable; they are achieved, according to all objective measures.

So why the leap to “We need to defund the police,” or “We need to eliminate the police”? It doesn’t accomplish the stated goal. It accomplishes something else—the goal of those doing the stirring up to anger.

Bubba Wallace

Take a look at another related example, the supposed racism at Nascar, when a noose was found hanging in the garage of the only participating black Nascar driver, Bubba Wallace. The immediate response was that some racist had targeted him. Nascar was concerned. Media labeled all Nascar fans racists. In a show of solidarity with Wallace, participating Nascar drivers spontaneously walked his car to the post position—to show their racism? Exactly the opposite.

And then, it turned out the “noose” was a loop handle on the garage door, which had been there, according to photo evidence, at least since last October, so it could not have targeted Wallace. And it wasn’t intended to represent a noose at all; it was simply a looped rope to use as a garage door pull.

It’s one thing for Bubba Wallace to see it and wonder. It’s another thing for the entire world to jump to the conclusion that all of Nascar and all Nascar fans are racist—with no evidence other than a looped rope that had been there for quite some time, and was intended an entirely non-racist purpose.

Why the leap? Because someone benefits from the narrative that racism is rampant, even in a place where there has been no evidence of it. It meets some goal of those stirring-up-to-anger people.

Vanessa Guillen

How about an example other than racism? OK. There was a murder at Ft. Hood, near Killeen, Texas. US Army Spc. Vanessa Guillen, a 20-year-old Houston native, went missing from the base on April 22^nd. While it may not have been apparent, the search for her, with multiple investigative arms, has been ongoing since then. This past week remains were found that were thought to be hers—finally verified on Sunday. As the investigation reached this climax, investigators confronted Spc. Aaron David Robinson, and he shot himself. His girlfriend, Cecily Aguilar, has been charged with conspiracy to tamper with evidence.

mural for Vanessa Guillen in Austin
image: JayJanner/Austin American-Statesman, found here

From what I gather from various news stories, Guillen worked with Robinson on base, and saw him shortly before she went missing. The evidence seems to be that Robinson killed her by bashing her head with a hammer. Then he disposed of her body by cutting it in smaller pieces, mixing with some sort of concrete, and burying those pieces in various places. Robinson’s girlfriend, Aguilar, is believed to have participated in the disposal of the body.

Friends and family have said that Guillen complained about sexual harassment by Robinson. At this point, I do not know what details are involved in that charge, or whether they were being pursued by authorities. It seems likely that such complaints led investigators to Robinson. It appears similar to the kinds of cases that show up on NCIS (US Navy investigators) pretty regularly. While TV shows always get the criminal during the hour of their investigation, which appears to cover only days, in real life two months is not particularly slow.

There were complaints that the Army couldn’t even handle the investigation; they had to bring in an entity that finally tracked down the remains, I believe with animals. Except, an entity that handles tracking down remains would nearly always come from outside and is not unusual for such a circumstance.

And yet there are calls—including a petition on Change.org—to shut down Ft. Hood entirely, supposedly because the rampant sexual harassment on base makes it unsafe for women to be soldiers there.

That’s kind of a leap. There is only a single case we’re looking at. One piece I read from 2017 (and updated to include Guillen in the data) was trying to show that there are a mysterious number of soldiers who die at Ft. Hood. But I looked at the list. Of all non-suicide causes of death, there was only one other woman. Sexual harassment did not appear to be a factor. And that case was several years ago.

Why does the death of one woman, while tragic, lead to the call for the closing of the base because of rampant sexual assault against women?

I don’t know if sexual harassment is an ongoing problem. Wherever men and women work together closely, it tends to show up. That is not the same as rampant sexual assault and murder. Nor is there any evidence provided to show that the Army was doing anything other than pursuing the case in the time that it took to make a solid case. That 2017 story was also calling for the closing of the base. So maybe this incident is just another arrow to sling.

Extrapolating from a single incident to claim that an entire entity must be done away—that’s not caring about people of color or people of a certain sex; that is stirring up to anger for some other purpose, which seems to be a tearing down, rather than building up, purpose.

Examples of the stirring-up-to-anger variety seem endless these days. But, if we look, we can also find examples of inspiring to defend the good.

Examples of Inspiring to Defend

President Trumps’ Mt. Rushmore Speech

President Trump and First Lady at Mt. Rushmore July 3, 2020
image found here

Let’s just be honest and admit that President’ Trump’s speech at the Mt. Rushmore celebration this weekend was excellent.  And yet, here are samples of what the stirring-up-to-anger media called overtly racist, dark, and deeply divisive:

Being thankful:

Let us show our appreciation to the South Dakota Army and Air National Guard and the Air Force for inspiring us with that magnificent display of American air power, and of course our gratitude as always to the legendary and very talented Blue Angels. Thank you very much. Let us also send you our deepest thanks to our wonderful veterans, law enforcement, first responders, and the doctors, nurses, and scientists working tirelessly to kill the virus. They are working hard. I want to thank them very, very much.

July 4^th Is Historic:

We gather tonight to herald the most important day in the history of nations, July 4th, 1776. At those words, every American heart should swell with pride, every American family should cheer with delight, and every American patriot should be filled with joy because each of you lives in the most magnificent country in the history of the world and it will soon be greater than ever before.

And

Our founders launched not only a revolution in government, but a revolution in the pursuit of justice, equality, liberty, and prosperity. No nation has done more to advance the human condition than the United States of America and no people have done more to promote human progress than the citizens of our great nation.

Only in America:

We are the country of Andrew Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant, and Frederick Douglas. We are the land of Wild Bill Hickock and Buffalo Bill Cody. We are the nation that gave rise to the Wright brothers, the Tuskegee airmen, Harriet Tubman, Clara Barton, Jesse Owens, George Patton, General George Patton, the great Louis Armstrong, Alan Shepard, Elvis Presley, and Muhammad Ali, and only America could have produced them all. No other place.

Anything dark or overtly racist so far? No. Not even anything covertly racist. There was a call to defend against America’s enemies:

It is time to plant our flag and to protect the greatest of this nation for citizens of every race in every city in every part of this glorious land. For the sake of our honor, for the sake of our children, for the sake of our union, we must protect and preserve our history, our heritage, and our great heroes. Here tonight before the eyes of our forefathers, Americans declare again, as we did 244 years ago, that we will not be tyrannized, we will not be demeaned, and we will not be intimidated by bad, evil people. It will not happen.

So, we’re inspired to stand together, as Americans, against bad, evil people—like those tearing down our cities and our statues and monuments. That’s what the media call divisive? They need a better dictionary.

If you’re looking for words to unite, and to inspire to defend what is good—this speech is a good place to look.

Senator Lee’s Resolution

Senator Mike Lee
image from here

Last week Senator Mike Lee of Utah put forth a resolution intended to unite Americans on what we can agree on. He starts with some “whereas” points, all of them verifiably true, both positive about America and its intent, and an acknowledgment of what we’ve been facing in recent weeks. The comes the “resolved” section:

Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate that—

(1) the rising tide of vandalism, mob violence, and the mob mentality that feeds it—including its cruel and intolerant ‘‘cancel culture’’—should be condemned by all Americans;

(2) peaceful demonstrations and mob violence are different in kind;

(3) physical assault and property destruction are not forms of political speech but violent crimes whose perpetrators should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law; and

(4) the innocent law enforcement officers, public officials, and private citizens who suffer the mob’s violence and endure its scorn while protecting our communities from them deserve the thanks and appreciation of every American.

Senator Lee said he thought it was straightforward: Mob violence shouldn’t happen. It is happening. It should be stopped. We can all agree on this, unanimously. 

The resolution came in the wake of a shooting in Provo, UT, last week. [local accounts here] An older gentleman was driving downtown and found himself surrounded by a protest. He was very slowly trying to make his way through and out of the area. But a protester began shooting through the passenger side window of the man’s truck, and one bullet hit him. In a panic, the driver bolted through the crowd (none reported injured). People were yelling and claiming he was a white supremacist who entered the crowd on purpose to run someone over—all evidence to the contrary.

Eventually the shooter was found and is being prosecuted. But, if you’re not aware, this is an area called Happy Valley, not sarcastically. People tend to be peaceful and law-abiding and basically just decent to one another all the time. Crime and violence aren’t unheard-of, but they are less usual than most cities of this size. And the idea that the police there are racist or brutal is a figment of someone’s imagination. The protest in this city is, in itself, without merit. So there was no reason for people in the area to expect they’d run into a protest—right across the street from a Latter-day Saint temple.

Senator Lee was saying, essentially, “We can all call this wrong, can’t we?” Apparently not.

Senator Bob Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, insisted on adding a line specifically calling out President Trump, which would have been, not only inaccurate, but would have defeated the purpose of the politically neutral resolution. Menendez went further, referring to Lee’s description of our founding, saying it “reeks of a supremacist view,” and fails to condemn America’s “original sin, which is slavery.”

The US didn’t invent slavery; in a world in which slavery had been endemic for millennia, at last America created a setting in which “all men are created equal” could become a commonly accepted thought, and slavery could be abolished. In fact, I’d go so far as to say, wherever slavery has been abolished in the world today—including the few places to accomplish it before the US—did so because of America’s founding ideals.

So, Senator Lee’s words, to unite and inspire to defend what is good about our nation, are called racist and divisive by someone who would rather stir people up to anger.

There is clearly a division going on. But it is not being created by those who inspire to defend.

Archbishop Vigano’s Letter

About a month ago, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano wrote an open letter to President Trump.  He described something in the opening that strikes me as true:

In recent months we have been witnessing the formation of two opposing sides that I would call Biblical: the children of light and the children of darkness. The children of light constitute the most conspicuous part of humanity, while the children of darkness represent an absolute minority. And yet the former are the object of a sort of discrimination which places them in a situation of moral inferiority with respect to their adversaries, who often hold strategic positions in government, in politics, in the economy and in the media. In an apparently inexplicable way, the good are held hostage by the wicked and by those who help them either out of self-interest or fearfulness.

There are definitely two sides. Those who seek for and inspire to defend the good are in the light. Those who stir people up to anger in an effort to tear down, destroy, intimidate, and terrorize are in the dark.

One thing about being in the light—we can see more clearly. But, as Archbishop Vigano said, we need to recognize we’re in the majority. We need to stand firm, and cast a light on what’s going on, so that those in the dark because of fear or confusion and see their way out of darkness and into the light with us.

Don’t Mistake Rioters for Protesters

In Minneapolis Friday a police officer was arrested for the murder of a black man he was detaining and restraining in a manner that led to death. It was captured on video, so the whole country has seen it.

Protests break out calling for justice for George Floyd. The perpetrator is in custody. The other officers, who didn’t step in to prevent the officer’s actions, are also charged as accessories. All were immediately fired, not suspended, no waiting to see.

Terrence Floyd, brother of George Floyd, calls for peace.
"That's not going to bring my brother back at all," he says of riots.
Image from here.

The arrest wasn’t instantaneous. In such a high-profile case (because of the media), the prosecutors need to be careful not to charge more than they can prove. It doesn’t appear to be premeditated, for example, so if they charged first-degree murder and couldn’t prove it, the officer would be found not guilty. And, because of double jeopardy protection, he couldn’t be charged again for the same incident. So the charges are what they can prove for certain. If evidence later appears to prove a higher level crime, the charges can be raised.

There were things to take into account. I suggest this op-ed, which explains those legal details. 

But do you know anyone or have you heard anyone say that the brutality was justified and the police officer should be let off? In regular media? On social media? Anywhere?

This is one of those times that civil society is in agreement. A serious crime was committed, and there must be justice.

found on Ben Shapiro's Facebook page today

So what is being protested?

If justice is underway, what is the message of the protest?

I think it’s something like, “Until America can guarantee that this will never happen to another black person, America is evil.”

But that’s an impossible ask.

America was founded on the principle that all people are created equal—no one is entitled to more consideration under the law than another. Society isn’t stratified by birth, as it has historically been in most countries on earth throughout history.

Unfortunately, slavery of blacks was instituted on this continent by the Mother Country, and it needed to be rooted out. The Constitution was written with that expectation. It took too long, and it took a bloody Civil War to accomplish. But that’s what America sacrificed to make it happen.

Even then, people who had been taught their whole lives that people of a certain bloodline were inferior didn’t automatically unlearn that false teaching. It took another century for people to get fed up and actually grant equal rights.

We’re still divided. But let’s define things a little more carefully.

The Republican Party was created to fight slavery. All slaveholders were Democrats. Even in the northern non-slave states before the Civil War, the pro-slavery people were only Democrats. Coincidentally, it is Democrats who run the cities with most of the racial issues. This is true in Minneapolis—local on up to the governor.

The Republican Party pushed for the Civil Rights laws in the 60s. It was Democrats, mainly from former slave states, that resisted letting go of the Jim Crow laws they had perpetuated.

Then, somehow, the lie got told that it was the Republicans all along who had been racist. The lie became that what conservatives wanted to conserve were the old, pre-Civil Rights, ways. That conservatives wanted to conserve the Democrat way of thinking and living. That was never even close to reality.

So, here we are, decades later, and the lie is bigger. Now, at a time when most Americans don’t even understand the mindset of a racist, and have never felt that way in their lives, have never treated different races with disdain—those people are being told they’re guilty of systemic racism.

What are the protests saying, then? That we should stop being white, or Hispanic, or Asian, because blacks need to be knelt down to? If that isn’t it, what is the message of the protest?

Houston Chronicle May 31, 2020

I’ve seen a number of people reference other protests—implying that this is just an escalation, because we didn’t listen before. Such a message covers the full front page of yesterday’s Houston Chronicle Sports section. Colin Kaepernick protested by refusing to stand for the National Anthem, and that offended us. “If only we had heard his message!” people say.

We did hear him. It wasn’t his method of protest that offended us. It was the lie of his message—that America is an evil, systemically racist country—this from a millionaire black man playing a ball game for a living, and not playing it spectacularly well enough to merit his hiring amid the bad media he brought on.

Black Live Matter protested. And when people of goodwill answered, “Yes, your lives do matter to us. All lives matter,” those people got shouted down with, “No! You’re not hearing us. Black lives matter!”

What is that supposed to mean? That our lives don’t matter because we don’t have the right skin color?

Their protests were related to the Ferguson incident, which wasn’t a case of racist police brutality; it was a case of a black thug attacking a police officer who defended himself; even black eyewitnesses testified of that. Still the protesters shouted the lie that the perpetrator had held his hands up and called don’t shoot and was just gunned down. When it was proven that didn’t happen, the protesters insisted, “It’s still symbolic of the systemic problem.” Then where is your real evidence?

I assert that there isn’t a systemic racist problem going on in America, particularly toward blacks. Black radio host Larry Elder has the stats. Such as today, when he pointed out that police are 18.5 times more likely to be killed by a black man than the other way around. That studies that set out to prove racist police brutality found instead that, surprisingly, blacks are less likely to be harmed, because every officer is hyper-aware of the media ramifications of an error.

Elder recites the evidence often. So does black commentator Candace Owens. When they provide data, they’re called traitors. Sometimes they’re even called white supremacists, which is more than a little ironic. They get called these things because their experience and the data they provide does not coincide with the going narrative that there’s systemic racism in America. But those calling them those names don’t provide data; they only cite isolated incidents—which we all agree, when they actually happen, are injustices, and we all agree that justice should be done.

So, where is the evidence of this systemic, widespread problem that is making them so angry?

I’m not saying they don’t really feel what they’re feeling. I believe they do.

Steve Locke, who tells his story
of being detained because black
image from here

I read a story over the weekend, from an incident several years ago, that tells what they’re feeling better than most. It’s the experience of a black man, a college teacher in Massachusetts, who was heading to get a burrito for lunch before going to teach a class. Police pulled him over and questioned him, and then detained him. He fit the description, they said, of a black man, his approximate size, wearing a knit cap and a puffy coat, who had just robbed a nearby business. His jacket (a designer brand, and not a parka) didn’t look very puffy. He was wearing a lanyard showing his ID at the university. Everything he said checked out. He remained calm and respectful. Nevertheless, the police kept him, didn’t believe him, and were considering taking him to be identified by the victim. Fortunately, a detective arrived, saw that his story checked out. The new officer on the scene ran through the details and let him go.

This teacher had felt endangered. He believed it was because he was black. Literally, it was, because the actual perpetrator had been black. That is an unfortunate reality for blacks; they have a particular attribute that looks like the people who are doing an outsized proportion of the criminal activity. That’s a problem caused by those criminals, not generally by the police. But you can see how an officer—even a black officer—could come to be suspicious of people who, in their experience, so often turn out to be the bad guys.

I have sympathy for that teacher. It’s an upsetting thing to happen to a decent person. What could he have done to prevent it? Nothing. He even knew to handle the situation in a way that prevented escalation.

What could the police have done? Detected truth more accurately. Seriously. The detective who arrived later on the scene could tell almost instantly that this wasn’t the bad guy; this was a college professor, and his story rang true. Why didn’t the first officers see that? I don’t know. Maybe they need better training. Maybe they need more experience—combining more seasoned officers with newer ones until they learn? Maybe there’s something else.

But what I see is not racism, but police officers checking out someone who partly matched a not very detailed description of a criminal, a man who had the bad luck of being at the wrong place at that moment. That’s a very different thing from, “He’s black, so we’ve got it in for him. Let’s get him.”

No one’s arguing that racism never happens. Unfortunately, it does. The vast majority of Americans are not only not racist; they’re disgusted by actual racism.

We hear the peaceful protests. The message is, “We’re upset because of racism.” Yes. We understand.

It is similar to people who are afraid of the coronavirus. This fear is intensified for someone whose experience is that it has killed or severely affected someone close to them. So they insist on things that do not help fight coronavirus: economic collapse, wearing of facemasks alone outdoors, contact tracing at a point when prevalence is so widespread that such practices guarantee practically permanent loss of freedom. Yes, we understand you’re scared. The best solution is not to end society as we know it until every case of the virus in the world is gone; the best solution is for you to get a better understanding of the situation so you get over the fear. Then we can all cautiously get on with our lives with that new awareness.

We stopped being racist so long ago that most of us Americans have lived our entire lives without a racist heart. What more can we do? The best solution is not for all races to bow down to blacks in abject humiliation and repentance; that would be a lie coming from people who did not do anything wrong.

Protesters are saying this should never have happened. The people they’re protesting to? They agree. The message has been heard. The wheels of justice are underway. If you value civilization, it’s time to go home and watch the process play out.

Ah, but there’s the issue. People who do not value civilization are using this moment for their own nefarious purposes.

Protests are acceptable—even when their message is wrong, a lie, or misguided. Wrongness in a protest message has more to do with emotion overriding reason than it has to do with moral wrongness. So we value their right to express their views in peaceful protest.

Riots are not protests. Riots are evil acts of violence. They are literally anti-civilization; they are savage. They destroy property. They harm people—usually innocent people, sometimes even the demographic of people the protests were stated to support. And sometimes they take lives.

Rioters are criminals. Sometimes they get away with their crimes by overwhelming the law enforcement resources. That is intentional.

Some riots grow naturally out of crowd emotion. Mob mentality. Those are always bad.

The riots we’re seeing now are even worse; they are unnatural. They are instigated. They are planned. They are funded.

We don’t know all the details yet. And who knows whether the stories we’re seeing will turn out to be true.

Antifa is involved. US Attorney General Barr has identified them as the organizers of looting and mob violence across the country. And President Trump is right to label them a domestic terrorist organization. 

There’s a collection of photos from various cities, where people have noticed pallets of bricks showing up, mysteriously overnight, where there is no construction going on. They have cones placed around them. They’re staged strategically to be available—for throwing by rioting thugs. One instruction included a suburban neighborhood, miles from downtown, with the intention of making the previously safe feel unsafe.

Bricks pre-staged for rioting, image found here

Minneapolis, where the incident took place, and possibly Houston, where George Floyd was from, were not surprising locations. But these things are happening in cities all over the country. What is the message when thugs deface the Lincoln Memorial, where MLK gave his historic speech in the fight for Civil Rights? There is no connection between the damage caused by the evil rioters and the anti-racist message of peaceful protesters.

Anarchist rebels tend to make a common mistake—that once they set things in motion, people will rise up and join them.

What we need to have happen is the arrest and prosecution of each and every perpetrator of the crimes involved in rioting—violence, property damage, theft, assault, murder. Cleanse our free society of those who are actively working to oppress destroy our way of life so that they can get us vulnerable enough to easily oppress.

I believe the numbers of actual believers in the anarchist Antifa worldview are small. People of goodwill do not join such savages.

A community near Minneapolis held a food drive
to help victims of the riots. Image from here.

One good sign is that people showing up in the mornings—to clean up the damage. Pick up debris. Wash off graffiti. Repair what they can. That is what good people do: the exact opposite of the evildoers.

Here are eight examples of good things that have happened. 

Here’s a story of people in Minneapolis bringing groceries to the aid of victims of the riots.

Here is George Floyd’s brother calling for peace. 

What we need is overwhelming civilization to wash away the savagery. Let’s pray we can do it.