POLICE AND POLICING
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Published: Monday, June 15, 2020 15:23
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by John Campbell
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A few years ago I was trying to find a parking place in a mall parking lot when I stopped to let a Black woman drive out of her space. As she drove past me she slowed, lowered her window and spat on the side of my car. I guess I had experienced some hatred and racism but did not know why. Growing up in a small town that was proud of being part of the Underground Railroad, many of my friends were Black and race was never mentioned. We were in school together and played together. We spent time in each other’s houses and thought that we were living a normal life. After leaving that small town, it became apparent to me that what I had grown up to know to be normal was not the same in much of the rest of our country. I went to Syracuse when Jim Brown became the first Black football player there, and we lived in the North. Through the years, I have seen the revolution of non-white people being more accepted into society. The sixties were filled with burning streets and marches to propel this promise of equality forward. Dr. King finally got his message across before being killed, and Congress acted to rectify the age-old problem of “All Men Are Created Equal” without rights being granted to some because of their race. President Johnson started the Great Society, which built government housing and granted welfare to many of those fleeing the South. The problem was that, after receiving the welfare, it was difficult to find a job that would allow the same standard of living. The freed slaves were enslaved again but without the chance of living the American Dream. A big problem at this time was the education system that never attained the ability to educate those living in the inner cities in the government housing. The poverty became generational. If a job was found, there was a loss of benefits, and without a good education there was little chance to find a job good enough to equal or improve the standard of living over that in the government housing and welfare payments. So with no job to occupy time crime and drugs became the main pastime with the formation of gangs to rule the streets. Here come the police to take the streets back and they are still trying to do just that.
PROTEST THE PROTEST
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Published: Friday, June 05, 2020 15:39
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by John Campbell
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Hits: 1256
I have had a bad week. One of my ministers at my church wrote back to me that he was upset with me because I had written in a previous blog that it was easier to get into Walmart than it was to get into church. I had written to him about reading the scripture lesson from his cell phone. The other pastor did not like me pointing out his ideology when he posted that he did not care for the president with the Bible and compared him to Clinton at his impeachment. So you see that I am being prayed for because I don’t like cell phones in church services, and I don’t like that after a night of rioting and burning stores, a church with the president holding a Bible was the most important thing to write about. The drug that I am taking to control an autoimmune disease has side effects that are bothering me and making me irritable.
