Things Are Black & White

Frank O'Brien writes about his views on what it might take to produce a better society in the USA. Frank O'Brien is a long time resident of Troy, NY, USA, and former head of Clan na Gael in same city, and area.

The initial revulsion at seeing the Chicago shooting leads to the thought of enforcing better the criminal procedure law, combined with better relations being needed between the Chicago PD and the African-American community.

One would have hoped that even through social engineering that people of different color would be acceptant of each other, but unfortunately both Left and Right have only driven relations back several decades. Certainly going back decade after decade there are incidents of this kind that speak to a pattern needing to be addressed, and drowned in love and camaraderie between those of either color.

An end to poverty and homelessness are certainly factors that can bring up those of both communities who suffer from economic disability. We live in a world of unequal divides that allow others to live full lives, while others barely get by to the point of desperation.

These unfair divides need to be dissolved by taxes being put on the top 30%, with next to no taxes on the middle class, and none on the lower classes. Changing the inequality of the rich being able to throw gobs of money to elections can be taken care of by campaign finance reform.

Too often this economic divide allows a minority to dictate economic and foreign and domestic policy. These injustices of the father and grandfather ought be rooted out like so many weeds, and unceremoniously be given a funeral. By providing for a more FDR domestic economic policy, where make work jobs could be employing people for rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, we stand to help build back up racial relations, with police learning to see less class divisions, and be made to get rid of racial profiling as a method of criminal investigation.

Once made worthy of respect, police could help rather than hinder the betterment of the overall community, being our true protectors and servants. To serve and protect is the refrain, so why not do just that, making our relations a partnership, and not be at opposing sides?

I took criminal justice, where we were surprisingly taught all of these realities, with the hope that we would bring this enlightenment to the profession. Unfortunately we still live in a time when old ignorance is rearing its head, needing to be called out for its destructiveness.

Thankfully the Obama administration has established a precedent for African-Americans to be in high offices of power, so we need a trickling down of this equality brought to the bottom half, besides to the middle to higher economic classes. By eradicating poverty, one gets better neighborhoods, badly needed here where I live, and one sees a betterment of quality of life.

Eugenics, which used to be used, and is unbelievably still studied today, is a discredited pseudo-scientific discipline saying that there are superior races, and lesser races. A minority of the world's cliques still adhere to this fascist and base philosophy, so we need to expose this in the open media. The only way of doing this is to break up media giants, and depoliticize news from the propaganda it has become.

Extreme wealth should be regulated too, making the extremely wealthy pay more than their fair share.

If we go by the secular model to include everyone, all will be well too, with all religions being free to express themselves, as long as they don't impede on others. Even Christianity and Islam speak of the weak being the chosen of God, needing to be given all that can be.

Why not re-social engineer the current system to where everyone has a home, enough money to pay their bills, and easy transportation to negotiate travel back and forth in the country?

There would be less stigmatism, if poverty was erased with everyone achieving the dream of stability, and with room for investment and savings. Our economy would need major social reforms to start the way towards this goal, so moving towards a more socialist model would need to be enacted. Allowing a certain level of capitalism would also be needed, since competition invigorates an economy, and keeps quality at a higher level for both products, and of the life coming about too. Lest we make the mistakes of the past, we should remake the entire economic system, then put levers by which these changes would be made permanent. By keeping this parity of equality, everyone would have standing in a community, having the power to better go after racial stereotypes, and other base, dinosaur thinking.

Police should be respectful of all, and expected to defer to the citizen unless there were legitimate reasons to have it otherwise. In America currently, if you are black, and Muslim, you have two strikes against you. We must root out these inequalities as if they were cancers to the human race. Those of us who are Christian should remember the stated desires of Jesus when it comes to social fairness, and that the meek are meant to inherit the Earth.

All major religions call for similar conditions, making the circle of social reform complete. There can be peace once there is fairness both in social standing and standard of living, and a better set of conditions where African-Americans and whites have equal treatment by law enforcement, and political representatives.

Individually we can begin this change by participating more in the community, and being involved in civic organizations. By treating others as equals we can start a tide of change in seeing how we all depend on each other, and have wonderful differences, and talents to offer each other. Following the lead of spiritual men like Pope Francis, we can open up more with each other, finding more commonalities than differences. We all obviously continue to learn in life, so for those stuck in old ways, its up to us who are for social justice to bring up those in these ruts.

With the Obama precedent made, it should be fairly easy to transition into a nation of equals, not remaining in the ignorant old past. If we also have the freedom to be otherwise, its up to us who are enlightened and knowledgeable to bring up others who are stuck in extremes.

Knowledge is power, so we must rethink our educational systems to reflect our new parity with each other, raising the level of expectation, naturally tailored to the need of the individual. I choose St. Francis as my model just as the pope does, and for others in mosques it can be the prophet and Allah. Buddhism does have these components, as do other leading faiths of the world.

It literally is black and white from the stark contrasts that people put on each other, so we should make it a color tv type of model where all colors prosper and join in. Change doesn't mean clinging on to old views, or misconceptions, so we must all grow spiritually with each other, no matter religious difference.

To borrow from an old title, we need a brave new world, with equality and justice, and fairness with a peace deriving from it. This is a world without reckless foreign policy, in which domestic bliss is reflected in how we treat others in the world. We must make up for past grievously bad policies that excluded others for the betterment of a few, being where we should be if old ways weren't still creeping around.

In summation to be all of this would go a long way in joining black and white, Christian, Jew and Muslim together.

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