Milwaukee riots...Sheriff David Clarke's response

For the past three years we have seen something not seen since the 1960s,
Black communities waging war against law enforcement. I don't use the word
war lightly, but when we see assassinations of police I can think of no better
or worse word.

Who wagged this war? It was three years ago a group came to life, Black Lives
Matter, to bring attention to the grievance that cops kill Blacks with impunity,
arguing they will not be prosecuted.

As wrong as such charges are today, similar ones made in the 1960s had a degree
of truth before Black voices were heard and finally heeded by politicians from
town halls to the White House. Laws passed, agencies created and oversight
occurred at every level of government. Life in Black communities got better.

But, viewing the rioting going on today, the uninformed can easily conclude nothing
has changed, and solidified when media distorts reporting making lies become truth.

But, if fifty years of positive responses have not improved the quality of life in Black communities what could be the reason. What is happening today that was not happening
five decades ago?

What happened was not planned for, but foolishly condoned political indifference​.

Marriage in the Black community became the exception not the rule, while a man
walking away from parental responsibility became the rule.

Marriage and parenting are the foundation of family and when either or both
are missing we see the results in every community where majority of people are
poor, under-educated and unemployed, leading to hopelessness and anger!

In America there is no greater example than countless Black communities where
marriage and parenthood are the rarest commodity. Members of these communities
too frequently refuse to look inward, preferring to point outward, especially
to law enforcement which must protect the communities no matter the feeling of
its citizens.

Many Black community leaders have spoken out, but most often sidestep the cause.
Sheriff David Clarke of Milwaukee County, WI, does not. 

The following is his response to the latest riot in his own hometown where a young
Black man was killed after he pulled a gun on a Black officer.

Transcript of Sheriff Clarke:

Saturday night, the social order totally collapsed in a part of the city of Milwaukee.  And when that happens, tribal behavior takes over, and tribal behavior leads to the law of the jungle replacing the rule of law.  Here's what causes riots: We have inescapable poverty in the city of Milwaukee.  Milwaukee's like the sixth poorest city in America.  You have massive black unemployment.  I think it's at 32%.  You have a failing K-12 public education system.  It's one of the worst in the nation.  You have questionable lifestyle choices.  Some of this is self-inflicted.  All these kids with no fathers around, father-absent homes.  When fathers aren't around to shape the behavior of young men, they oftentimes grow up to be unmanageable misfits.  Those are the ingredients; Milwaukee has all of them.


There are millions of young men across the country who are in that same situation.  You know what encourages this?  The growth of the welfare state.  These are underclass behaviors.  Seventy percent of the kids born in Milwaukee, at least for the last decade or so, are born without an engaged father in their life.  So I look at the progressive policies that have marginalized black dads. They pushed them to the side and said, "You're not needed. Uncle Sam is going to be the dad.

"He's gonna provide for the kids. He's going to feed the kids," and so on and so forth. But Uncle Sam has been a horrible father. Uncle Sam does not love these kids.  It might keep a little food in their mouth and that's about it.  But we all know the importance of an intact family, what it can do to shape the behavior of kids.  When you have the situation here like we have here in Milwaukee... It's in Chicago, it's in Baltimore, it's in New York and some other areas.

This has been a total collapse, a disaster.  These progressive policies have hit the black community like a nuclear blast.  And until we reverse this, this government dependency... That's what creates all of this, and it encourages it, by the way, along with some questionable lifestyle choices.  But until the black community does a self-evaluation and until they begin to self-criticize about some of the lifestyle choices they're making, this stuff is gonna continue to fester, and it's gonna continue.

The political answer really is for these progressive Democrats, they've ruled this city for 50, 60 years.  We haven't had a Republican mayor in the city of Milwaukee since 1908, okay, so this is all on them.  But the political class is also gonna have to be honest and say, "Look, we set up this government dependency, it has backfired on us, let's slowly -- you can't pull the rug out from under people all at once.  Let's slowly start to reverse this and make people, make people reach for self-sufficiency."  Over time, you can reverse this.  You can't do it all at once.  But right now this is about political power.  The progressives want votes, black votes, and they do it how?  Keeping black people hooked on a high of handouts.


As you read Clarke's words put yourself in his shoes, a Black man who hurts more than
most others can imagine. Yet even as he must hurt he knows what must be done to reverse
this downward trend that is destroying Black communities.


Pray wiser heads prevail and work to heal Black communities.


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