Lives, Mattering

BLACK LIVES MATTER. Blue lives matter. All lives matter. Hell, Virus lives matter.We all make a difference, whether momentous or minor, right? Of the above, the exception which proves the rule is black lives. Historically, currently, not all lives, including blue lives and white lives, have been kidnapped, enslaved, beaten, starved, reviled, excluded, and systematically oppressed and discriminated against, en mass, except black lives, by the millions.We are quick to comfort ourselves by reminding ourselves, we privileged white lives, that the vast majority of America's police officers are people of courage, integrity, decency, and morality, not racist. No one argues this point, except the racist part. Nobody actually knows what percentage of America's police officers harbors racist attitudes. Surveys reveal nothing. nowadays, nobody is a racist, nor admits to being one. the number could be as high as one hundred percent. Throughout American society, the number could be equally high. In a very real sense, we are all racists, to some degree. We are willing to ascribe all police brutality, all murders of black men, to "a few bad apples". Are we equally wiling to acknowledge that the violence and looting associated with protests against systemic racism are the product of a few bad apples, and not the anarchical mob rampages of hordes of people of color? The little two bit carnival barking con man punk currently serving as president has incited more hatred and violence among his reprobate followers than all the mobs which ever rampaged through all the streets of all the cities which ever existed. His life matters too; much too much. As an afterthought,, we might wish to bear in mind that all this death, disease, economic collapse and racial unrest are taking place while Donald Trump is president, not some far left radical socialist anarchist Democrat.