America: Borne in Blood - The Blame Game

Thanks to social media, the shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile ricocheted in every direction around the country, tearing the fabric of society to pieces as people began blaming "racist cops" and then "racist Liberals" and anyone else they could think to blame.

Kevin Jackson from The Blacksphere," for example, said "the people to blame for this are Liberals" whom he referred to as "the worst people on the planet." He went on to explain that it is not African Americans, but Native Americans, "who are killed more, per capita, than any other race,” as if to suggest that African American’s should therefore be thankful that things are not worse for them.  Others joined in the linguistic lynching of BLM on social media.

Judge Jeanine Pirro, for example, "stoked the (emotional) fires" of division by saying Obama "stokes the fires (of racism) every chance he gets." In the comments, the focus was not about issues of race and inequality, but about those who feel victimized by all those who complain about issues of race and inequality. Many blamed Barack Obama directly, while one complained that “Obama doesn't care that Texas police officers were shot "because they are white and Christian," and a third concluded that Obama “had completed his intention of division."

That the people making such comments apparently failed to see just how much they were contributing to the very "division" they were so upset about, was as bewildering as it was disheartening.

The Comical Conservative, on the other hand, received cheers and applause for claiming that "black lives matter doesn't really care about black lives," because "black people are responsible for killing more black people than anyone else."  Instead, he proclaimed, as if deriving some deep satisfaction from adding insult to injury that both he and his audience shared,  BLM is just a movement for attention, money, and like most activism, more money." His comments made me wonder if he feels the same way about the NRA, the Catholic Church, Doctors without Borders, Wounded Warriors, and a host of other “activist groups."

As the political pundits of every stripe came crawling out of the wood-works, they began to look and sound more and more like professional wrestlers. red faced with fury and spoiling for a fight, rather than people who were trying to live up to the very lessons they had no doubt spent their lives trying to teach own their children.  What parent does not punish their child for acting this way on the playground?

Indeed, when William Butler Yeats wrote that "the best lack all conviction," it was probably because, despite their emotions, "the best" were the ones trying to engage in a conversation that was long over due, "while the worst are full of passionate intensity," as Yeats put it, because they are convinced they know everything they need to know already, and who is ultimately to blame.

And with their righteous indignation and denouncements, "the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned."