Values, Trust and Violence

If you don’t trust government then I guess you don’t trust schools, snow plowers, road pavers, police, the military overall and millions of city, county and state clerks, attorneys and managers of countless programs that safeguard quality of life for the lesser income families among us. Or maybe you trust most of these government units and levels, but some you don’t. Which ones might those be?

And who is in charge of managing the issues above you don’t trust? Have you or anyone else you trust looked into this matter and determined how to go about improving on the situation? Or are you sitting on the sidelines complaining, getting bitter, making others bitter, and doing nothing helpful? Or maybe you are ‘doing something helpful’ by stepping forward with protests, brandishing guns or some other power move?

None of the items in the previous paragraph are helpful but here are some steps that might be:

1. Call your state representative or state senator if your problem is a city, county or state issue.
2. Call your congressman or senator if your issue is a national/federal issue.
3. Call your local library and ask for help in forming a discussion group with facts, figures and appropriate research that may lead to a welcome, informed citizen’s group getting involved in solving the problem. At least understanding the problem better, if not solving it.
4. Then, based on what you have learned, politely steer obviously wrong public statements by others in the press or on Facebook or wherever, to what are the correct facts. Do so politely to defuse an already emotional climate surrounding many issues.

Here’s one issue that will get an automatic barrage of resistance.  Gun violence is too high; what can we do to lessen it? All you have to do is ask that question and you will be attacked 1000 times by people who jump to the conclusion that you are going to come after their guns.  The fact that this has never happened in the entire history of America doesn’t seem to dissuade them.

All I want is a polite, informed discussion on the issue of gun violence and what the nation can do to lessen the violence and produce a safer living environment for all of us. Can’t we at least identify the problem, measure it, track how violence has lurched up and down over many decades and plot what might have been the root causes of such outbreaks? Might serious and calm study of the related issues actually teach us some things we didn’t know? Kill assumptions; base talk and dialog on facts. That’s my goal for the time being.

Hopefully some months from now practical solutions can be defined and considered for implementation. What those might be I have no idea about currently. I’m still in the stage of defining the problem.

Meanwhile in Dallas one warped individual with clearly deep personal problems decided that white people are the problem and cops in Dallas are responsible for violence against black people of urban areas all over the nation. His solution was to take guns to a public peaceful protest and kill as many policemen he could, policemen who were present to protect the peaceful protesters. All good police personnel who already are part of the solution, not part of the problem.

In other communities hair trigger emotions exist that apparently are causing some policemen to think trusting African Americans in some situations is dangerous to their own safety. Those same people then quickly take action that takes the life of innocent citizens (innocent until proven guilty, please!). The problem is the hair trigger. Why is it present in the first place? Does the local black community evidence high crime, runaway violence, and the presence of many guns involved in day to day police incidents? If so, the community needs to ask for help in solving their community problem. The police may not be the guilty party they think. The hair trigger, remember? Who caused that? Police? If so, the local city officials need to step in to ease that situation and build more positive community relations. All will benefit from this.

Is any of this easy to work with or solve? Not one whit of it. It is perilously difficult to work with. That’s because trust is mostly absent and hard work is needed to rebuild it. Without trust among the principles nothing will be accomplished that’s good. Only more violence.

It takes leadership to solve this problem. And that leadership is not always an elected official. It is a church person, a clergyman or deacon, a priest or a nun, or a congregation member willing to step forward and work with people in trouble. It is a neighbor who feels calm heads need to sit down together to discuss the problems and vet out potential solutions. And in turn these same people need to find others with authority and resources to add the necessary ingredients that will assist building lasting peace in the community.

Building strong communities is an art. That’s why community organizers were invented back in the 1950’s, 1960’s and 1970’s. They are worth their weight in gold because they work with seemingly valueless assets and turn the community into highly productive, high quality places to live. Hard work but worth the effort.

If enough people like this are stepping forward then communities that are suffering have a good chance at happy outcomes. If not, only sadness, violence, death and lack of hope remain. And that does not define the America I know and love.

July 13, 2016