From the Dictionary According to Bob: "HYPOCRISY (n) -- responding in different ways to comparable situations, because one fits the actor's political narrative and the other does not [see also Sharpton, Al]"
As gunshots ripped through the air in Ferguson, Missouri a year or so back, riots were stoked by the shootings the previous year of two black men, one a convenience-store robber and the other one who pulled a gun on police officers and paid the price for his stupidity.
Those black lives apparently matter, at least enough to get rioters to take to the streets with no possible certainty or even agreement as to what the desired end is. I confess that I have a lot of trouble rioting on any grounds in the USA, but I can assure you that it would NOT be in defense of the deaths of bullies and thugs.
A different black life ought to matter even more, if only for her innocence. That would be Jamyla Bolden, the 9-year-old little girl who was doing her homework in the presumed safety of her own bedroom some months ago, when a stray bullet from the weapon of a rioter -- I guarantee you it didn't come from a police officer -- took her life. The sad story is here -- http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/ferguson-9-year-old-girl-shot-dead-homework-bed-article-1.2331544.
The words of a local minister ought to ring true. From the article: "There needs to be a reevaluation of human life: (whether) black, white, young, seasoned, whether in Ferguson, or areas considered affluent," Pastor Willis Johnson told KMOV. "This has to stop. This epidemic of lost life under false pretense and of no real significant reason has to change."
Dear God, yes, it has to change.
This piece will be short and to the point. It is not the actions of the police that have to change, certainly not much. Somewhere there are communities that need to reach deep within themselves. They need to look, not to the churches where charlatans like Al Sharpton and vicious bigots like Jeremiah Wright spew garbage, racism and dissension, but to the true houses of God, where is found the word of the Lord and the salvation that can be found, we Christians believe, through His Son.
They need to seek the word of their God, regardless of faith, sect or denomination, where it is preached as a message of peace. They need to find in their own souls the vision of a community of humanity where wrongs are redressed not through riots, through looting, through burning and, sadly, through gunfire that costs the lives of the innocent, but through true justice, the courts of man and His final justice.
"This epidemic of lost life under false pretense and of no significant reason has to change." Exactly, Pastor Johnson. It is entirely a false pretense to fire weapons in the street to protest the death of men of evil will. It is of no significant reason to loot, riot and burn.
And now Jamyla Bolden, who hadn't grown nearly enough to recognize the evil that rose in those who fired the shots, will be laid to rest before, as her father noted sadly, she had seen the world.
Her life mattered, and tonight I cry for it, and for the insanity of those who know no better. May God make His face to shine upon her for eternity, and may the lesson of her short life quiet those who should know better, and cause them to lay down their arms and their animosity together.
The hypocrisy of those who don't see the difference, who riot for Michael Brown but don't care about Jamyla Bolden, is on trial today.
Copyright 2017, 2015 by Robert Sutton