I'm not sure whether Alton Sterling was a good man, or a bad man. To be honest, it doesn't really matter. I'm also not sure whether the two Baton Rouge police officers involved were good or bad men. And that doesn't really matter.
Because using anecdotal evidence to try and create a proof of case for broad, societal issues is never a good thing, it's never productive and it never produces good results. Ever.
All that we accomplish by moving from tragedy to tragedy is to create hucksters. The Rev. Jesse Jackson has built an entire career doing this, as has the Rev. Al Sharpton. Deray McKesson tried, and failed (at least initially) to parlay this into a position with the ruling class. The Black Lives Matter movement itself has been increasingly bold, going as far to stop a Pride parade in Canada in order to demand.....money.
There are a few people in America getting wealthy on the backs of the angry mob. They are doing so by refusing to underestimate the stupidity of the American people, our media, and how we react to emotional pulls. In short: not well.
The two sides then become locked in an absolutists wet dream. Black lives matter (and ONLY black lives matter) on one side and the petulant "All Lives Matter" movement on the other. This is not an argument about who matters, but about who matters MORE.
In many ways, the all lives matter cry is synonymous with "check your privilege". It's a guttural demand that one side is irrelevant, that the designs and goals of many are not important. Both arguments are played by the ruling class as battle cries, and flayed by the media as serious political talking points when, in fact, neither really are.
The fact is, it's OK to be a Caucasian and acknowledge that "driving while black" is a very real problem in America without having to acknowledge that everything you have has been given to you due to an illegitimate system. It's OK to believe that some people in police departments across the land view black Americans as something less than human without demonizing the entire rest of the country as somehow morally deficient.
And finally, it's OK to admit that Black Lives Matter make some valid points, but that they also should not be held inside a vacuum. In fact, the greatest path to solving these issues, ALL of the issues, is to embrace criminal justice reform in it's entirety. That does not mean that you are belittling black lives, but elevating them while also elevating all lives.
You would think that this concept would be a fairly simple one for clear-thinking, honest actors to grasp. That large swaths of the activist communities in America (and the politicians that incite them) are not grasping it suggests that many are neither clear-thinking, or being all that honest. And dishonest leaders have shown a historical precedent for taking advantage of a proletariat that loses its ability to reason.
A bigger problem is that the reasonable voices are being drowned out by a for-profit media who is only looking to turn anger into shareholder return at the expense of their so-called "civic duty". (Something the media does possess (now or ever) despite their endless romanticizing of themselves.)
Sadly, any hope of having a meaningful discussion has been lost. The Republican House, headed by Speaker Paul Ryan, failed to include criminal justice reform in their "Better Way" policy paper. (A paper which has been largely ignored by the media).
Because of this the hard work of reform is going to have to be done on the fringes, in Statehouses and at the municipal level, where the politics, and the politicians, are diminutive and increasingly petty.
One thing is for sure, in the battle between the Bronzed Ego and Anointed One, needed reform is going to get an extremely short-shrift. The good news out of all of this is that whatever follows the GOP seems to understand that this is a huge issue that needs reform. But that is going to come to the front in 2017, or later.
For 2016 then it appears that we are going to have to heed the advice of Dante:
"Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate"
"Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."
