OK, I’m glad to see that you have given this some thought, but I don’t think you fully understand BLM or the issues at hand just yet. Ultimately, your argument is built on false premises.
- “Eric, the black-on-black crime is as relevant as the police shooting. They are hand-in-hand. You cannot discuss one without the other as one (black violence) is one of the the causes of the other (nervous cops shooting blacks).”
Says who? You assert that a causal relationship exists between “black-on-black crime” and police brutality. Since when is this an indisputable fact? All it takes is a quick Google search of “myth of black-on-black crime” to see that perhaps — perhaps! — these issues can be discussed separately. Or that maybe there are other “causes” of police brutality that are actually more valid and worth fighting to change (e.g. police culture, deficiencies in internal accountability, institutional racism).
2. “I thought this would be an article that addressed the culture of violence that pervades black inner city neighborhoods. It is the absurd rate of violence in these communities that causes cops (both black and white) to take a hard line stance with offenders.”
This is your most “Fox News”-y assumption. The idea that it is black folks and their supposedly immoral/savage culture (culture of violence!) that creates disproportionate rates of poverty, crime, and imprisonment. So many issues with this line of thinking. It is terribly inaccurate, demonizes and pathologizes blackness, and obscures that ways that poverty/crime/imprisonment are caused by structural racism, social and economic inequalities, etc.
3. “Still, we have to get to the source. To just cry racism is lazy and ignorant.”
Notice I mentioned structural racism? I am a white male, too. It would be so much easier if we didn’t have to think about racism anymore. If somehow a black president and disappearance of the “n-word” meant that we now live in a “post-racial society.” Unfortunately, racism and oppression are woven into the fabric of our country’s institutions —our schools, businesses, government organizations, and courts of law. So we’re faced with a choice: be part of the solution (call out, challenge, fight against systemic racism), or remain complicit with the status quo. Only one of those really sounds “lazy and ignorant” to me.