Divided We Fall!

Divided We Fall!

By Billy King

As I sit here watching news coverage of the riots that are tearing our nation apart my heart breaks. I have a combination of feelings of sadness, fear and anger. I am saddened by what happened to George Floyd. I am fearful of the retaliation from our government as a result of the ensuing riots and I am angry at the reactions of everyone in the media; both social and mainstream.

I am not going to rehash what happened to spark all this as we all already know. We had some dirty cops on a power trip decide to flex their authoritative muscles from behind a badge and now we have a dead man to show for it. People are angry. I am angry! I can just imagine things they may have said.

“Oh you wanna resist arrest?? Well we’ll show you! Yeah! How’s that feel?”

I wish to see these men punished to the fullest extent of the law. In light of news that they man with his knee on George Floyd’s neck has been arrested and charged with third degree murder and manslaughter, it appears that is going to happen.

That is why I do not understand these violent riots. I can certainly understand a peaceful protest where you stand together, march and voice your grievances. It has been done before as recently as just less than a month ago when people were protesting the government mandated lockdowns. Nevertheless, these are not protests for George Floyd. They are full-fledged riots destroying city after city. Stealing a new TV and gaming system and then burning down a Target does absolutely nothing to honor George Floyd and there is no justification for it.

However, that does not stop our friends on mainstream media from trying to justify the rioting! Don Lemon, a hack and a sorry excuse for what CNN calls a journalist, screams at his audience about how if people want to support protests to get haircuts, then they have to support the protests of a black man murdered by racist cops! No we don’t, Don! Because, first, the protest of lockdowns was never about getting haircuts, you stupid idiot! Secondly, as I said before, these are not protests; they are full-fledged riots. There is more to come on the mainstream media later.

Then you have social media. I guess logic and common sense just goes out the window when it comes to social media. Most conversations are similar to as follows:  

Someone screams “Racism!” 

Then someone else says “Where?” 

“Right there!”

“I still don’t see it!”

“Then you’re a racist!”

I really get tired of being called a racist every time I dispute any charge of racism. A week or so ago, a friend of mine said the two men in Georgia that were charged with the murder of Ahmaud Arbery were racist scum. When I asked why he thought that, his only answer was that they were white and from the south. I pointed out that I am white and from the south and then asked if I was a racist too. I have yet to receive an answer. I have condemned the actions of all offenders and called for their punishment but just because I refuse to say that they are racist, I get condemned as a racist by others. I am sorry but before I level the charge of racism on people, I am going to need more evidence than just the color of their skin and that of their victims. 

As I have pointed out in previous ramblings, you can easily chalk up the actions of the two men in the Ahmaud Arbery case to self-defense. Now they had no cause to chase that young man down but he had other options than attacking and trying to take the other man’s gun. The police officers who killed George Floyd were dirty cops who acted incompetently and were not doing their jobs. Considering all of this, ask yourself, where is the history of racist behavior for any of these people? I choose to take the advice of Dr. Martin Luther King and judge a man by the content of his character and not the color of his skin. Now you can find plenty of flaws in all these men, but racism is not one of the said flaws. You never heard anyone screaming racism when news broke about a black man beating the hell out of an elderly white man in a nursing home in Michigan. Reports say the man was mentally disturbed but nobody has given any evidence that he was racist. 

A person can display wrong behavior and not be racist at the same time. Just because I use critical thinking to come to this conclusion, it does not make me a racist. If you think it does, then I am very sad for you. 

Nevertheless, if you ask some on social media they will rage with claims of systemic racism. Every other post or tweet talks of how all cops are racist and they go out hunting for minorities who are minding their own business and kill them. Then they get away with it simply because they are law enforcement. I could believe this if it were 1955 and we all lived in the Jim Crow south but this is 2020 and I think we have come a long way since then.

It is being disingenuous to say that the dirty cops who killed George Floyd are getting off because they are law enforcement when it is not even over yet. As was pointed out earlier, arrests have been made and they are being charged with murder. So how is this getting off?

It is also disingenuous to say that black people are just minding their own business when police roll up and kill them. That is just flat out false! 

Trayvon Martin attacked George Zimmerman. 

Michael Brown robbed a store, charged a police cruiser, and tried to take an officer’s gun. 

Freddie Gray was in possession of an illegal weapon. 

Eric Garner was selling cigarettes illegally and resisted arrest. 

Even George Floyd was accused of trying to pass off a bad check and he resisted arrest as well. 

Now none of these men deserved to die for the crimes they committed. Nevertheless, let us stop pretending that they are just minding their business when a cop rolls up and decides to kill them for the fun of it!

Do you want the police to leave you alone? Stop committing crimes. If you are being unjustly arrested, stop resisting arrest! 

This is not to say that there are not bad cops out there because there are. The cops who killed George Floyd are prime examples of bad cops but it looks like they are going to get what they deserve. 

Social Media is also taking part in comparing these riots to the protests of the lockdowns less than a month ago. As YouTuber, Matt Christiansen points out, “…narratives switched from cheerleading petty tyranny to cheerleading anarchy in a few days' time. Yesterday’s Michigan protesters were violent; today’s Minneapolis rioters are peaceful.”

President Trump is being accused of racism (shocking, I know) for referring to the rioters as thugs. He is also being criticized for threatening use of military force to break up the riots.

My thought about those who are calling him racist for using the word, thug, is this. If the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the word, thug, is a black person, then maybe you need to do some self-reflecting. It sounds pretty racist to me to associate a negative term like thug to a black person. If you look at the rioters, there are white people rioting as well. So when you think of thugs, are you only thinking of the black people? Racist much?

You can also ask anyone on social media comparing the protests in Michigan to the riots going on all over the nation to name one law that those people carrying AR’s broke and they come up with nothing. That is because no laws were broken. It is perfectly legal to open carry in the state of Michigan. Not one shot was fired. Ask about the riots and how plenty of laws were broken. This includes laws against looting, destruction of property, and arson just to name a few. Ask this and you get rants about justice for George Floyd and then you are called a racist for not caring enough. Their selective outrage says more about their biases than it does about the President’s perceived bias. They condemn people who are protesting unfair house arrest just because they are carrying weapons, which is legal and then they try to justify criminal activity by the other side. If those rioters do not want to be shot or be arrested, then perhaps they should consider protesting peacefully and not breaking the law. 

My heart ached when I read a friend’s Facebook post the other day about how unsafe a black man feels in this country. He said he felt safer fighting wars in foreign lands than he does here in the United States. I was literally in tears reading it because I wished he could see this through my eyes and vice versa, so that we can both have a better understanding of one another. I am not going to pretend to know what it is like to be a black man in America nor will I deny that I may have certain privileges. However, I do not see the systemic racism that others do. Is there racism? Of course! It would be foolish to say there is none. I just do not see it as being as big a problem as others may see it. I have facts to back me up. Larry Elder posted a column laying out facts about how an officer is MORE likely to shoot a white man than a black man and how police kill more whites than blacks. The facts Larry Elder laid out came from a study by a black Harvard professor. I shared them with this man but he was not convinced. I honestly believe that people in higher positions than us see it as more beneficial to divide us and overblow this systemic racism narrative. Apparently, it works because unfortunately, he and I could not come to an agreement and he decided to unfriend me.

So who is dividing whom here?

I believe that there are race baiters out there trying to divide this nation and they seem to be doing a very good job of it. I am willing to bet that had it been a white person who did the crime and resisted, the result would have been the same. Only difference is nobody would be protesting because the media would not give it the same coverage. Why? Because the media is complicit in this scheme to divide Americans.

Has anyone reading this ever heard of Daniel Shaver? If not, you should take the time to google his name. If you have the stomach, you should watch the video of how another group of cops that seem to be on a power trip gun this man down in cold blood as he begged for his life. Somehow, these cops got away with it as well. One is retired and receiving a $2500 per month pension. Yet there were no protests for this young man. His name does not quite roll of the tongue like the names of Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Freddie Gray, or now George Floyd because he never got near the media coverage that the others did. Oh by the way, Daniel Shaver is also white. I guess Don Lemon had other things to scream about when Daniel Shaver was brutally killed.

I can assure you that there are other white victims but this blog is already too long and I am not trying to make this a contest. I’m making the point that killings of white Americans like Daniel Shaver do not fit the media narrative that racist cops go out and hunt down minorities to kill because America is this evil place and minorities should distrust white people and demand reparations for crimes committed over 100 years ago. Then some at Fox news will come along and tell white Americans they should resent minorities for demanding reparations for crimes committed over 100 years ago.

Our elected officials are in on it too. Maxine Waters encourages her constituents to harass people in restaurants, gas stations and stores. She went on a news program the other day and said, “…but I think that the officer, who had his knee on [George Floyd’s] neck, enjoyed doing what he was doing. I believe sometimes some of these officers leave home thinking, I’m going to get me one today. And I think this was his one….” Inflammatory statements like this do nothing to bring us together.

Many of these “protesters” seem to look an awful lot like ANTIFA members. George Soros allegedly has them on his payroll. George Soros. A man who wants a New World Order. People are a lot easier to rule when divided. 

The Great Emancipator, Abraham Lincoln himself said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

That statement is just as true now as when he said it over 150 years ago! We need to come together as a nation united and stand against anyone who would do us harm; including those we put in position to protect and serve!