With God's help

I had an interesting discussion yesterday with a friend of mine following the first night of riots in Minneapolis.  These resulting from the death of an African American while in the custody of 4 law enforcement officers. He kept bringing up black on black crime and the black community taking responsibility for themselves.  I wonder, though, if there's a link between the amount of crime in black neighborhoods and the treatment that segment of the population receives from society.  Systemic racism leads, IMHO, to systemic poverty and hopelessness.  This inevitably causes some to turn to violence to achieve their goals of survival.  My friend provided the statistics of population versus black prisoners.  To state that 13% of a population make up 40% of those incarcerated presumes all circumstances are equal.  The fact is that the 13% of the population are in living conditions that lead to a more, for lack of a better word, "uncivilized", behavior points to a link to the higher incarcerated percentage.  To say otherwise is a logical fallacy of correlation leading to causation.  We must look at the underlying circumstances and not the results those circumstances leave us with.

As we discussed these issues, I was taken back to previous such conversations, black on black crime comes from the very fact that African Americans typically live in close proximity to each other just as white Americans do and Mexican Americans do and Chinese Americans do. The closer you are to someone the more likely you are to have interactions with them whether it be good or bad.

After the call with my friend, I spent some time in prayer and reflection.  It occurred to me that I, as a follower of Christ, must look beyond the base elements of this type of violence.  As I was reminded of my baptismal covenant, I promised to ,"strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being". This I will continue to do, with God's help.