The Ferguson shooting

The moral weight behind Holder's "damn punk" remarks about the shooter is less than impressive.  After issuing a report on the Ferguson police department that was rotten with reliance on disparate impact - and having done so at least in part to suck the oxygen away from its own finding - which mirrors the grand jury finding - that Wilson did nothing wrong, where the hell does he get off talking about how "this was not someone trying to bring healing to Ferguson?"

It was no punk.  It was someone making a political statement, a raw, primitive statement: that white cops are collectively guilty of oppressing black citizens.

I just finished reading the latest issue of Imprimis, the monthly reprint of speeches given at Hillsdale College.  The new issue features an address by Jason Riley, editorial-page guy at the Wall Street Journal and author of Please Stop Helping Us.

He says any debate worth having in our country about race and criminal justice "would have to start with the fact that blacks commit an astoundingly disproportionate number of crimes.  Blacks constitute about 13 percent of the population, yet between 1976 and 2005 they committed more than half of all murders in the U.S.  The black arrest rate for most offenses-incuding robbery, aggravated assault, and property crimes - is two to three time their representation in the population."  He debunks a number of claims about why those rates are so high, dispensing with, for example, the notion that more lenient drug laws would reduce those rates and the black incarceration rate, as well as the goofy notion that some neighborhoods are "over-policed."  He also talks about the hair-raisingly alarming rate of family breakdown and the prevalence of fatherless young men among black Americans.

All this is readily verifiable, of course, but think about what we're talking about.  We're still singling out some Americans by their skin color to discuss some behaviors and social trends, which, at their basis, means life choices.

Blacks this, blacks that.  Are these people not individuals who made certain choices and found themselves experiencing certain consequences?

So why are our social observers still looking deeply into rates of this and that among that swath of the public that happens to be black?

Can't you just hear the rejoinder to that last question?  "Happens to be black?  Excuse me, but their blackness is central to these people's identity."

Therein lies a real key to why we have insane situations such as a summer, fall and winter bookended by a cop defending himself against a hulking thug who chose to start an altercation just because he was asked not to walk in the middle of the street at the outset, and two cops shot outside their police station just because they were white law-enforcement officers.  And in between, we have a parade of spectacles including sports figures at games, and entertainers at awards shows, displaying "hands up don't shoot" gestures, and Holder saying "I come here not just as Attorney General, but as a black man," and Brown's step-father screaming "burn this bitch down!" and millions drained from the local economy as businesses were looted and burned.

All for a false narrative.  What has been so damn important about this narrative?  Keeping demographic distinctions  - the race card - alive, of course.  And why is that so important?  It's essential to the power-mad hustlers who must continually convince people who happen to be black  that they are victims.

I realize there are various groups of conservatives and Republicans that are based on the common bond of blackness.  I should hope that it's in the foreseeable future that they would outlive their usefulness and could be absorbed into larger organizations that stand for the same principles but have no interest in identifying anybody by race.

After all, is there any point to such groups other than to afford members a level of comfort when associating with fellow citizens that they don't feel in broader settings?

But is anyone else uncomfortable with the notion of associating with people who share your core values and principles, regardless of color?

We all know the answer: Not really.  No group of genuine conservatives wishes a gathering of the like-minded to have some kind of demographic homogeneity.  (Alright; Satan-worshippers and gender-fluidity freaks might cause some throat clearing at such an event.)

But that's going to be tough sledding, because there is a type of American who has a vested interest in making sure that black Americans feel alienated.

What's interesting is that Americans who happen to be black and don't bother with whether they are "authentically" so usually do great in our society.  They just chart a life course like everybody else, and prosper, and enjoy deep family bonds, and contribute with great impact to their communities and country.

That is the dirty little secret:  The path to having a flourishing American life is the same for any American who chooses to embark upon it.

There are a few pitfalls to avoid:  Don't make an ass of yourself by pursuing a career as a demagogue, don't get addicted to any kind of addictive dope, and don't regard folks to whom you're attracted lustfully- that is, see their full humanity and approach them with romance and willingness to commit in your heart.


And don't rob convenience stores, don't respond to police officers asking you to take it up on the curb by charging them and grabbing for their guns, and don't go shooting officers in the shoulder or face.

Stay away from that stuff, and you're already far along the path to a fine American life.