Black Cop, White Cop

Black Cop, White Cop

I hate surveys.

A few days ago “the news" reported a survey that said 47% of the respondents said the Ferguson PD should more representative of the population it serves.

Hell, I’m an infidel but if you were to ask me “Should everyone receive $100.00 for Christmas?” my response would be “Hell, yea.”

Now the trouble with surveys is that they make it easy for a gut response with no room for an answer other than yes or a no.

I have yet to see a survey where the respondents would have to do some thinking. For example, “How can the city of Ferguson have a more representative police department?” No, it wouldn’t be “Hire more blacks.”

The problem is blacks don’t grow up saying “I want to be a policeman when I grow up.” I don’t know this for a fact, but I believe those men and women that do go into law enforcement picked up that motivation in the military.

Then, there is the preselection that goes into the mix. Some jurisdictions require a minimum number of college hours. Now, a few years ago, Miami decided it needed more Cubans on the police department and under citizen pressure relaxed their standards with horrific results. Many turned out to be nothing more than common criminals with a badge and a gun.

Many blacks that could be good police officers won’t go into law enforcement because even though blacks may say they would like to see more black officers will turn on them and call them all kinds of names when they come up on the wrong side of the law. It thuf work trying to be a good policeman; it’s even harder if the policeman is black.

If blacks want to see fewer of their people die shot by police they need to learn respect for the police. They need to stop making excuses for the dead beats and stop projecting them as martyrs and using language like execution and murder.

Way too much of America needs a reality check. Real police work is not the sanitized version projected by Hollywood. Police are not like Shemar Moore talking perps into giving up their guns. A policeman’s job, black or white, is to get home to their families at the end of their shift.

And, believe or not, 95% of policemen have NEVER had their gun out of their holster other than to qualify maybe once a year. So, when a man or woman has to draw his/her weapon for the first time the adrenalin is running high. They may empty their weapon and have one or two hits. And, forget about shooting to wound; a suspect can close a 20 foot gap in mere seconds so he/she must keep shooting until the treat stops.

Some moron reporter was asking “Why can’t the police just back away?” Sure, and lose control of the situation?

I am not naïve. I know there are cops that believe they are John Wayne. Luckily, they are in the minority and other cops will report them to internal affairs. That should be reason enough to not get smart elecy with the police because you never know when it’s your misfortune to be stopped by a ticking time bomb. You never know what will set one of these people off. Better to make it home alive than to risk bodily injury or worse, death.

This is especially true in a hick town like Ferguson. I once worked with a black man that had be with the Dallas PD. I was relating to him about a police stop in a hick town. The young fellow giving me the citation was very curious but his partner was standing in front of my vehicle with his hand on his weapon. I started to ask him, “Would you be standing there with your hand on you gun if I were a white woman?” My better judgment prevailed.

But my co-worker told me these are the guys that could not make it in the Dallas PD. They are looking for something to happen: the John Wayne syndrome?

As I’ve stated on other posts, most policemen are alright people trying to do a job we wouldn’t dare attempt. We need to stop jumping on the bandwagon right away when thing goes terribly wrong. We are not in the 60s when the police were thugs with badges. Thugs eventually get fired or wind up in prison.

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Living in fear

Politicians have made it an art form of appealing to fear.

The problem is, politicians create the problem and then place blame on outside forces. Someone wrote that politicians are the only ones who create laws then campaign against them.

Allow me to look at a few fears. First there is the “Fear of immigrants”. Let’s be blunt and say fear of brown people. But why have the gates seemed to have opened up to illegal immigrants?

Well, look no further than NAFTA. Just Google it some time. Seems we were promised all kinds of benefits: mainly cheaper goods. We were told that with NAFTA, Mexico would create hundreds of jobs and that the flow of illegal immigrants would slow down to increased opportunities in Mexico and immigrants would no longer have to sneak into the U.S.

The reality is that the beneficiaries were the mega agricultural businesses. With their corn subsidies, they could grow and export corn into Mexico cheaper than what Mexican farmer could. Mexican farmers could not compete. So the only option was to abandon the farm and seek employment elsewhere.

And, so we hear the promise to “Secure the border” and all the dummies will vote for them without realizing why we have an influx of immigrants.

Then, there is the “Fear of crime”. Sure, there are more murders in Chicago and Detroit than any other city in America. But at the local level everyone running for mayor on up to state rep or governor seems to have jumped on the band wagon. The mantra of the nightly news seems to be “It it bleeds, it leads”. But just exactly, how much crime is there in your city? Just check out https://www.crimereports.com/; you may be surprised.

Crime is not a problem for 95% of us but the politicians would have you believe that you can’t step outside your house without becoming a statistic. What this country needs are more lenient gun laws. What we get instead are laws that restrict personal freedom (and being able to defend oneself is a personal freedom) and punish the law abiding citizen more than the wrong doer.

We are sending too many young people to prison for doing something stupid. What we need are more probation officers and fewer prison guards. But probation workers should be more than report takers in a 9-5 Monday-Friday office. The county should demand that they work nights and weekends. They should do ride along with police in the neighborhoods probationers live.

I myself was on probation eons ago when I was younger and the only time I saw my probation officer was once a month when I submitted my report. He in no way new the veracity of my answers. The only time he knew I was in more trouble was when I would get picked up by the police.

Finally, we have the “Fear of taxes”. Politicians, particularly Republicans, like to tout their record for reducing taxes. But if one goes to the trouble of checking out these claims, it seems the Warren Buffets of the world are the biggest winners. Everyone assumes that lower taxes mean lower income taxes.

Here in Texas, there was a proposition to the Texas constitution to exempt veterans and their surviving spouses from paying property taxes. As if exempting senior citizens isn’t already enough. Isn’t it any wonder that public buildings are in decay, schools are failing and roads are in need of repair? Lower my taxes.

And at the state level, construction of state hiways and bridges is falling behind. Again, our governor has seen fit to turn our roads over to some foreign entity to convert them into toll roads, roads paid for with our tax dollars. He has certainly been a “No Tax” governor and I fear the dummies will keep voting for the lower tax candidates

Isn’t fear wonderful?

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400 Years

I am constantly amazed by everyone trying to jump on the civil rights bandwagon.

Whether it’s the gay rights or the amnesty crowd, their’s is a civil rights struggle in their minds.

They seem to forget that the black struggle for human decency did not begin in the ‘60s. No, the black struggle began with the first slave brought to the Americas. Has everyone seen the movie “Amistad”?

Runaway slaves were a constant. Every time America needed help in its wars, the freedom carrot was dangled in front of them. Seems that the first casualty leading to the Revolution was a black man. And when America was fighting for its survival in the War of 1812, blacks were promised their freedom if they fought in the war only to go back into slavery once victory was ours.

The American Civil War saw blacks fighting on both sides. And contrary to what Hollywood was portraying in the 50s and 60s, the West was not won by John Wayne and a whole bunch of white guys. Had anyone heard of the buffalo soldiers before the 90s? Or the Tuskegee airmen? And how did Uncle Sam repay these brave men? By infecting them with syphilis.

So, when Martin Luther King took to the streets, it should not have come as a surprise but it did. How did America respond? With dogs, water hoses and clubs.

So, gay people and amnesty people think of what the civil rights movement was about and the history before it.

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Let them eat dog

If Marie Antoinette was to visit 2013 America and hear about all the so called starving people and the pets we put to sleep every year and all the strays running around, I’m almost sure she would have said, “Let them eat dog.”

I got the idea for this post from a blurb I heard on Univision this morning. Seems some exporter got caught trying to ship something like 200,000 dogs to Vietnam. And, no they did not want them as pets; they were for food consumption.

We Americans have so many food biases.

Two horse prosecuting facilities were shuttered in Fort Worth because animal activists forced, yes FORCED, the city to shut them down. Never mind all the people that lost their jobs or that people in Europe were willing to buy our horse meat for food consumption.

Just think of all the people we could feed if the wild horses or all strays could be used for food. Spices make everything taste better.

I wonder what folks will do when the delivery trucks quit running or are cut off from Walmart.

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This Could Be Heaven, This Could Be Hell

Ah, the 70s and 80s. Seems like the best music produced was during this period. I won’t even count country as it seems to be a perennial favorite.

This post isn’t even about the Hotel California. I just liked the words for a title.

When you get old, seems like you have more time to philosophize. Since I don’t drink, golf or watch sports, I have a whole lot of time to ponder the mysteries of life.

For a lack of a better word, I want to share my thoughts on fate. The ancient Greeks believed there were three goddesses or Fates and that man was powerless in determining his destiny.

Maybe I’m a little mad for spending my time thinking about the past and how I arrived at this point. What if my mom had told my dad, “Not tonight, dear”? Or if my dad had married a different woman? What if I had never met my wife? What if I’d had different parents? What if I had had sons and not daughters? I think I would have been a lousy father.

Would Oprah be a one name dynamo if she hadn’t bombed as an anchor in Boston and since she couldn’t be fired because she was under contract and the station had to come up with something else for her?

I believe there are hundreds of thousands of talented people the world over that will die in obscurity because fate did not smile kindly on them. I’m reminded of the winners on America Has Talent that would never had their 15 minutes of fame had they not appeared on that show.

I’m reminded of the movie “Sliding Doors”. This from Netflix, “Two wholly different universes unfold …. about alternate realities, the reliability of subway schedules and the role fate plays in shaping random lives.”

I’m betting 98% of folks go about life with nary a thought of what might have been or what life altering event may be just ahead. I for one wonder how my life might have been without my wife (not very good) or if I had finished high school or graduated from college or gone into the service.

Too many possibilities to spend so much time on. Fate is an unforgiving bitch.

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Field Trip

 

I took grandson number 1 on a field trip a few days ago. We went to my hometown and I showed him where the first house that I remember was. It is now a restaurant parking lot. Across the street was the Methodist church where I went to kindergarten. My grandmother’s house was down the street about a block away.

Next I took him to the site of the first Hispanic/Latin Assembly of God church of which my parents were founding members. We did not get to see the site as a train was blocking our way.

My grandson got to see the elementary school which my siblings and I attended. It sure wasn’t as big as I remembered it. The school has gone through such a transformation. There are all kinds of buildings that have been added for a growing population.

There is also a great demographic transformation. While my siblings and I were the only students of Mexican descent, 100% of the present student body is either Mexican or of some other Latin American parentage.

The school seems to be doing quite well as it has exemplarily status.

The ride to the old homestead was not quite the same as we were in a car. I would have liked to have walked the mile home so he could experience that. But, now, because of all the child predators and other freaks, I realize that may no longer be an option.

Finally we arrived to where our first home had been. It was literally across the tracks. I told him of how we lived in a street car the first winter we were there. The street car was on the property when we move in. The whole area is now an industrial area.

I get disgusted with all the people with cable TV, cell phones and on well fare. My parents did the best they could without any help what so ever. But, that was 60 years ago. We didn’t have a daily drum beat reminding us of how bad off we were and how we deserved better at someone else’s expense.

I hope my grandson got a better understanding of his dna and that life must go on.

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The Presidency

The president of these United States has a difficult job. The job ages the man by a good eight years or there abouts.

I like to think of the country as a very large family, each member vying for Dad’s attention. And when we don’t get what we want we like to think he doesn’t like us as much as any of our other siblings.

White people seem to believe that President Obama is all for black Americans. Black Americans seem to believe that the Prez owes them. Hispanic/ Latinos seem to believe the Prez isn’t doing enough for them. Conservatives seem to believe their voices aren’t heard.

Then there was George W. Bush. Black Americans really believe he was the white man’s president. Hispanic/ Latinos seem to believe the Prez didn’t do enough for them and conservatives believed their voices weren’t heard.

I have come to the conclusion that folks must have slept through civics class. The President is neither a magician nor a dictator though at times I believe President Obama wishes he had dictatorial powers.

Let me remind everyone: we have a three tiered form of government. Although at times it seems they are working at odds to each other and the will of the people.

Remember this: the President proposes but Congress disposes. The best a president can do is proposing the legislation he would like to see enacted by his party. The party leadership then goes to work and get everyone behind the president.

But, if you believe the average citizen has a chance then you haven’t heard of the all powerful lobby. There are 400 lobbyists for every one congressman and they have deep pockets. There are lobby groups for everything under the sun. The lobby group could care less about the general public. Their main focus is the bottom line of the particular interest they represent.

Don’t be lulled into believing your congressman has his constituent’s best interests at heart. Any talk of bringing jobs into the district is a payoff to some big contributor.

Long ago I read one of Will Durant’s books in which he stated when you make someone equal, you make someone else unequal. It’s a tricky business; someone’s got to loss for someone else to win.

Like in a large family, not everybody is going to be happy.

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