Urban Crime, False Narratives, and the War Against Law Enforcement Officers
A recent New York Times article notes the rise of violent inner-city crime. Why should anyone with two grains of sense be surprised by the increase in crime? The so-called “Ferguson effect,” where police are suspected of engaging in less aggressive policing because of the fear and intimidation that followed the death of Michael Brown, cannot explain criminal behavior that predates Brown’s death and the emergence of the “Black Lives Matter” activists. The real impetus for the rise of lawlessness in predominately black cities lies at the foot of the Obama Administration’s spring 2011 crackdown on big city police departments. After the crackdown, we witnessed the rise of violent flash mobs consisting of scores of black youths, sometimes totaling into the hundreds, looting stores, assaulting strangers, and vandalizing other people’s personal property. This has morphed into a war against police officers.
In other words, the Obama Administration’s Department of Justice get-tough, no-tolerance policy towards police departments has seemingly emboldened a criminal element in urban areas. By summer 2011, flash mobs were appearing across the nation and black youth were openly taunting police. In August 2011, Dr. Boyce Watkins wrote about black youth using social media to coordinate flash mobs that engaged in criminal activities. Four years later, an American Thinker article raised the question of why we don’t have discussions of black flash mobs. I believe we know the answer. It would be racist for white people and insensitive for blacks to engage in a discussion that might yield an obvious answer. Black criminal behavior, especially among youth, has increased during the Obama Administration because of the signaling that has come from the President and his Department of Justice. Black criminal behavior and out of control murder rates suggest a need for more policing of urban areas and tougher penalties for those engaging in riotous behavior.
Dominating the news is the Black Lives Matter movement that was birthed from a false narrative. According to the narrative, Michael Brown, an innocent young man, was mercilessly gunned down while he had his hands up surrendering to a white police officer. We know that was a lie. The hard truth is that Michael Brown was a troubled young man who died after a physical altercation with a police officer whose orders he disobeyed. The “hands up, don’t shoot” is a lie that has taken a life of its own.
A real problem is what is happening to law enforcement. Given the current realities, who would want to become a police officer? Police are being gunned down while doing ordinary activities. Three officers were killed this past week. At a recent rally in Minnesota, protesters chanted at police officers who were at the scene to keep order: “Pigs in a blanket, fry em like bacon.” Such a chant seemingly refers to body bags and can be interpreted as a call to murder law enforcement personnel charged with keeping us safe. Adding fuel to a racial fire already raging out of control, Minister Louis Farrakhan, the aged leader of the Nation of Islam, has called for 10,000 fearless black men to kill white Americans. Speaking at a Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Miami, Minister Farrakhan said:
“Retaliation is a prescription from God to calm the breasts of those whose children have been slain. So if the federal government will not intercede in our affairs, then we must rise up and kill those who kill us. Stalk them and kill them and let them feel the pain of death that we are feeling…”
Can you think of a more dangerous recipe for racial unrest and racial suicide for a suffering black community? We have unwittingly created a deadly situation where no Americans are truly safe, especially law-abiding inner-city residents who often become prisoners of their own communities. At the present moment, it seems like criminals have the upper-hand when it comes to violent encounters with law enforcement officials, especially when the criminal is black and the arresting officer is white. Things are getting bad when police officers can’t stop to put gas in their patrol cars without the threat of becoming the latest fatality in what has become a war against the men in blue. Such a situation is unacceptable in America.
Carol M. Swain is author of Be the People: A Call to Reclaim America’s Faith and Promise (2011) and The New White Nationalism in America: Its Challenge to Integration (2002). In the latter book, Dr. Swain warned of a dangerous set of conditions converging in America that was creating a devil’s brew for racial unrest.
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