My best friend in the world is an African American man. We’ve known each other since college, when we partnered to share the duties of our dorm government. I’ve traveled to visit every place he’s lived over the course of his professional career. He stays at my house about 50 nights a year as he returns to his home town for family or other reasons.
We were chatting last night about #BLM, and its impact on his community. He agrees that the culture of the police needs to change, but doesn’t know how to make it happen. He expressed concern that the protesters are going about things without a clear objective or point at which they can claim victory and end the protest with a purpose.
He also spoke about how his relatives teach their kids defer politely and unthreateningly to any demand made by the police, but he realizes that’s not always enough. He spoke whimsically about how he wished his church and others could have the funds to create sports leagues for children of church members in order to provide some structure for the kids’ lives and keep them away from police in the first place. I love my friend, but suspect this is something great to help kids in poverty become functional adults, it doesn’t help police stop killing people.
By the end of the evening, we saw no way out. It came back to the protesters, and whether they can bring about enough change in public opinion to force those in power to take action to change police culture, or whether they go about their protests somewhat aimlessly, and fail to build public opinion.
I don’t have a final point. I just think it’s discouraging.
PS: This is my first diary on DK5. I think it’s pretty easy to use. But Markos has always preached that he wants it to be as simple as possible, with as few buttons as possible. I don’t think he achieved his objective. Way too many buttons.
