Once again, various special interest groups, aided and abetted by what I have come to view as “American Pravda”, the mass media, are pushing what may well be a false narrative.  Namely, that institutional police brutality is being committed against blacks in this country, and that African-Americans are being unfairly targeted for harassment and arrest by law enforcement personnel nationwide.  Is this true?

Well, I can only speak for the area where I have experience, namely Beaufort County, South Carolina.  This “Low Country” county is the home of historic Beaufort and Bluffton, as well as the beautiful tourist destination of Hilton Head Island.  It is a nice place to live.  However, we have our share of crime here as well.  Some months ago I signed up to get “Nixle” alerts, which is the subject of an earlier post on this site.  Every time there is a serious crime committed in the area I receive a “Nixle” post to my cellphone and a followup email.  This information lists the nature of the incident, as well as mug shots of those arrested when they become available.  There has been one consistent pattern in these messages.  Well over half of those arrested and charged, (in reality probably closer to 70-80 percent), are blacks.  This is a fact, not a supposition.

Since even here in the deep south the proportion of blacks to the total population closely mirrors the national average of around 13 percent, it would appear that something is way out of whack.  Are these people being unfairly targeted by our local law enforcement personnel or are they indeed the ones committing the majority of crimes in our community?  The empirical evidence indicates the latter.  Many are violent crimes, and involve the use of illegal weapons.

So, as groups like Black Lives Matter and the Southern Poverty Law Center continue to claim evidence of police brutality and systemic racial intolerance in our country, it appears there is something very different going on.  Something which has been building for a very long time.  That something is an almost total breakdown of the moral fabric of a very large portion of the black communities in our nation.  No amount of money or effort thrown at this problem will solve it unless it can be rationally addressed and discussed.  Emotions run high in the black community, but they are being fanned by actions of individuals who seem to refuse to accept the facts or indeed the causes of the problem.  Black athletes “taking a knee” during the playing of our National Anthem just continue to perpetuate a “Them and Us” mentality.  That is neither helpful or productive.  If people of conscience from all races can’t get together and work out our problems in a rational and LEGAL manner, we are headed down a very dangerous path indeed.  Our Constitution, currently besieged on all sides by those who would destroy it, holds the answers.

And one final thing.  The policeman pictured above, who was mudered in an ambush attack by a criminal in New Orleans last Friday, obviously was black.  So was his murderer.