George Floyd Protests Show the Black Community Needs to Grow Up

Once again we have a police incident involving the death of a black person caused by a white officer. Once again there is mayhem.

Chicago is no exception. People like Father Michael Pfleger and Chance the Rapper have been in the streets decrying injustice, along with many others. There have been no local reports of looting to the knowledge of Practical Chicago. But a series of Chicago Tribune photographs shows that protests have not been calm.

One thing needs to be clear: the officer in this situation was entirely, 100%, without a doubt wrong. He deserved to be fired. He also deserves to face legal consequences for his actions. People like him make it harder for police departments around the country to do an already difficult job.

But what also needs to be put front and center is that the black community in America has big social problems.

How many of the people rioting or protesting were there because of racial outrage and how many simply wanted the opportunity to get things for free? The photographs of black people walking away from burning stores with big screen televisions is a pretty damning account.

This is nothing new. There was massive looting during the Rodney King riots and that was in 1991. Chicago’s west side was burned and looted in the 1968 Martin Luther King riots. It has never come back: many of the properties that were destroyed remain vacant lots today.

Then there is the political angle. Liberal media sources get plastered with reports of how African-Americans should not be treated this way. This is proof of systemic racism in our country they say.

Rich white students on liberal college campuses feel sorry for black people, protest on their behalf, and talk about them as if they are pets who need to be cared for.

Then we have Joe Biden recently telling us that any black person who votes for Trump in the upcoming election is not really black.

The police incident in Minnesota was not racism. It was one bad cop who happened to be white doing something terrible to a victim who happened to be black.

According to numbers from Statista more white people have consistently been shot to death in this country in recent years by police than black people. But you never hear anything about that.

Every weekend black people murder other black people in neighborhoods across the country amidst drug and gang crime. The most violent neighborhoods in Chicago during the past year, according to Chicago Police statistics, have been African-American. But there are never loud protests for change.

All of it adds up to hypocrisy and what seems to be a terrible sense of entitlement and narcissism. It also illustrates a culture of violence that causes many problems.

Just this month we saw footage of a black man beating an elderly white man severely in a Detroit nursing home after the black man put footage of his assault on social media. His YouTube channel, which has since been taken down, contained racially-charged content talking about things like, “how the black race is the chosen race and was supposed to rule the Earth.”

In February a black man robbed a gas station in Palatine, Texas. In the process he bound the station clerk and a customer with duct tape, both white women, doused them in lighter fluid, set them on fire and left.

The clerk failed to ignite. But the customer did. Fortunately she was able to escape restraints and extinguish herself before the situation became life threatening. She received burns and took a trip to the hospital.

In 2017, here in Chicago, a group of young black people kidnapped a young white man with special needs and tortured him live on Facebook. The family of the victim was contacted and told that a ransom of $300 would be required to keep the young man from being killed. Footage showed the victim forced to face a corner and say things like, “I love black people.”

Conservative activist James Woods posted a shocking video earlier this month of black orderlies beating an elderly white woman in a nursing home.

Also earlier this month a white Maryland couple was executed with a firearm while visiting their son’s grave in a Veterans’ cemetery. The shooter was a black man.

Last summer in Minneapolis two instances of black mobs beating and robbing white people were caught on camera.

In each of the above examples there were no riots. No white people ran into the streets and started setting property on fire. There was no looting. There were no widely publicized cries of racism or inequality.

The victims let our system work on the perpetrators.

Some may say: Sure, but the system does not work the same against white people. If that was true fifty years ago it certainly is not today. Ask Rod Blagojevich, George Ryan, Jeff Skilling, Bernie Madoff, Betty Loren-Maltese, Rita Crundwell, James Traficant, Harvey Weinsten and many others who have received stiff sentences in the recent past.

Black people living in America should consider themselves lucky to be in a country with so much opportunity. Yes, slavery was terrible. And the days of segregation, with colored water fountains and the like, were deplorable. But those times are long gone.

And living in Africa today is nowhere close to as good as being in the United States. In fact it is terrible: there is a huge slavery problem there, although curiously Jesse Jackson has never been in any hurry to help his oppressed brothers over there.

It also might be nice to hear a little gratitude for the hundreds of thousands of Northern soldiers who were killed or wounded in the Civil War fighting for the end of slavery. The American Battlefield Trust puts that total at 596,670.

Nothing of the sort comes across. Only demands for slavery reparations over a state of affairs that has not existed since 1865.

Black people are hardly the only ones who have ever faced prejudice. When Italians and Irish were coming to America in large numbers they faced a very hostile reception. And Jewish people never seem to get past being attacked. A recent uptick of incidents in Germany prompted that country’s antisemitism commissioner to recommend against wearing kippas in public.

It is difficult to say that inequality is a major problem in modern America unless you try very hard to force the narrative. The Mayor of Chicago is a black gay woman for crying out loud. We just had a two-term black President. There have been countless successful black celebrities, politicians, and corporate leaders. None of that would be possible if a great white conspiracy existed to keep them in bondage.

It is well past time for the black community to grow up. They need to stop whining about slavery and segregation. They need to stop committing acts of self-serving violence every time a controversial event might let them get away with it. They need to stop committing terrible crimes against white people and then making a national incident out of any situation where a white person happens to do harm to someone black. And most of all it is time for them to stop terrorizing their own through crime and violence.

You cannot be an oppressed victim and be successful in the most prosperous country on Earth at the same time. It is time for a choice to be made.

Practical Chicago recommends the later.

References:

https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2020/05/26/protest-held-in-chicago-after-death-of-george-floyd-during-arrest-by-minneapolis-police/

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-viz-george-floyd-protest-minneapolis-chicago-20200529-6qdxvz3id5cs7jozpmjrczx6ry-photogallery.html

https://www.newsbreak.com/minnesota/minneapolis/news/0PAlMDR0/watch-looters-pillage-target-store-stealing-flat-screen-televisions

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_King

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JGmKHrWKMQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7nUBYFKnr0

https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/

http://gis.chicagopolice.org/CLEARMap_crime_sums/startPage.htm#

https://rmx.news/article/article/suspect-who-beat-elderly-white-man-in-detroit-nursing-home-said-on-video-black-people-are-supposed-to-rule-the-earth