I wish…. There those two words are again.

Another black man that should be alive right now, isn’t. I desperately want to be able to leave off black but I can’t. Society won’t let me. Angry people with an agenda won’t let me. When I heard the news, my first thought was that the officer made a horrible mistake and must be held accountable. I still feel that way.

Let me start over and make this tragic statement in a way that has no agenda. A man who should be alive right now isn’t. He is not blameless, but he should not be dead right now. He was killed through a horrible mistake that requires a veteran police officer to be held accountable. His foolish actions contributed to his own death, and someone else’s life being destroyed. I wish he had just obeyed lawful orders and lived to fight another day. I wish the officer had pulled her taser out instead of a gun. I will never understand how that happened. I wish…

I wish people could see past the end of their noses. Wealthy men and women of all ethnicities are sitting in beautiful houses, pitting you endlessly against one another, all for power and profit. Endlessly peddling hate.

There is no reliable way to prove or disprove anything anymore but I want to try in my own way to reason through this constant narrative that half of us fall for over and over.

Police are running around killing innocent people and it’s built into the system.

My county is small and insignificant but I keep up with the arrest record. My small county arrests a lot of people. I bet many more are pulled over or visited by these killers in uniform every single week, but nobody is getting killed. There are 3006 counties in America and most all of them can surely make similar claims. I suppose the interaction between our population and police across this country, on a monthly basis, is astonishing, and with all the systemic racism and unbridled gun slinging among our men in blue, there is scarcely a young black man anywhere. Except that’s not reality. In reality, you’re much more likely to be killed if you’re white. Once again, I don’t like bringing race into the discussion. The truth of the matter is that if you obey the police, you will be fine. You may end up arrested, but your chances of not being killed are pretty strong. There is a saying that I have learned over the years that some would consider disrespectful, but it’s true none the less…

Play stupid games and win stupid prizes.

You won’t hear talk like this from those living in beautiful houses and making a damn good living off of the rest of us, but you won’t see any of their children in the morgue because of a police confrontation either. Why can’t they preach to your children the same thing they preach to their own. They love their children. They use your children.

When it’s all said and done, nobody wants to live in the wild west, so police are here to stay. I wish our schools taught things like…

Don’t run from the popo.

Don’t grab the popo’s gun.

Obey the popo’s instructions.

Don’t make any sudden movements that might in the popo’s mind keep him or her from going home at the end of their shift.

To be even more specific, do what the popo says and live to fight another day, regardless of your skin color. If the schools won’t teach these survival skills maybe they could be taught at home. Why roll the dice with people that you love? In the meantime, it’s too late for this man and the woman who shot him dead.

ws