Do black lives matter? They do to the God that created them. To the media and too many in the black community, they do not. Recently my pastor spoke and he said when a nation has high morality there is little need for laws. On the other hand, as morality declines, some call for more laws, which can never make up for the declining morality. His point of reference were the Pharisees who objected to the disciples of Jesus not ceremonially washing their hands. My pastor pointed out religious leaders had added on 613 laws to the 10 God gave Moses. That of course pales in comparison to the number of laws and regulations we have in these United States, with more passed each year.
The decline of morality is on full view as urban militants stir up otherwise peaceful protesters into violence. These protesters however like the Pharisees fail to see the larger problem- or if they do, they largely choose to ignore it. The recent wave of protests and subsequent violence stem from a white police officer killing an unarmed black man in Minneapolis. There is also a local contingent in Tallahassee (to include some that call themselves pastors) who are objecting to police killing three black people there in the past several months. This includes one that posted on social media (more fuel for declining morality) that she was going to have the police kill her after she killed another black person. It’s worth noting that also in Minneapolis in 2017, a black police officer killed an unarmed white woman. Like the current case, he was charged with murder. He’s since been convicted and sentenced to 12.5 years. Unlike the current case, there were no nationwide protests.
As one that looks at numbers and data before making a decision, I looked at the gun violence that has plagued Tallahassee in the past several years. The police department stopped putting out victim info after the passage of Marsy’s law in 2019, so my data covers 2017-mid 2019, about 2.5 years.
While you won’t read about it in the paper there or see it on the news, what is killing many more black men in Tallahassee (and elsewhere) is not the police, but instead other black men. For example:
In these 2.5 years, a total of 33 people were killed by gunfire where police solved the crime via an arrest or the offender died. Of those:
None or 0 were killed by police.
27 were black, and of these, 25 were males. Of their killers, all were black.
2 were Hispanic, and of these, none or 0 were males. Of their killers, all were black.
4 were white, and of these, 1 was male. Of their killers, 2 were white (one white male killing 2 white women, another white male killed another white male) and 1 was black.
Also relevant was the fact that each year around 75 to 80 percent of these gun criminals were convicted felons or otherwise prohibited by existing law from possessing a gun. In keeping with the above “more laws” idea, there are many that believe new gun laws will stem this tide. It won’t cure the moral decay that has taken place here. To state it plainly, when a criminal that has business with a gun comes to town, taking everyone else’s gun away just makes their job easier.
The media like the protesters ignore or pay lip service to these numerous deaths and instead focus on the few when police are involved. A minuscule number of police officers taint the honest and hard working men and women that serve every day around the clock. When they do, their actions are investigated and as was and is the case in Minneapolis- they are prosecuted when there is cause to do so. Similarly, the urban militants taint well intentioned protests with needless violence and destruction.
Consider the media coverage for the first mass shooting in these United States on January 1, 2019- in Tallahassee on Pensacola Street. Five people were shot- all of them black- and all of the gun criminals were also black. Despite this carnage, there were about two mentions on it, and all of them were local. Contrast this with the death of two white women at a yoga studio in 2018, killed by a white male. National news. Dozens of stories. To use another biblical example, the protesters and the media would do well to remove the plank from their own eyes and focus their efforts on the problem within our community before complaining about the speck of sawdust in the eyes of law enforcement. Doing so is entirely consistent with a better idea- one put forth by Dr. Martin Luther King- let’s look at the content of one’s character (morality) instead of the color of their skin.
Paul Henry