A Cry for Attention

Fox News reports that Shannon J. Miles, a young black man, was arraigned for capital murder on Monday morning in the Friday shooting of a Texas Sheriff's Deputy, Darren Goforth.  While fueling his patrol car, the Deputy was shot 15 times by Miles, execution style. No motive has yet been released. But it is not hard to guess one: Breitbart reported on Friday (Aug. 28) that earlier last week, black activists had been calling for the killing of white people and cops on a radio show. From the news report:

Members of the #FYF911 or #FukYoFlag and #BlackLivesMatter movements called for the lynching and hanging of white people and cops. They encouraged others on a radio show Tuesday night to “turn the tide” and kill white people and cops to send a message about the killing of black people in America.

The recording of the podcast has since been taken down.

Why the sudden push for race war from black activists? Or, more importantly, why are such views suddenly resonating beyond a small group of extremists? I can think of several factors that may be contributing:

1. First, and foremost, the job market is in terrible shape, and most particularly for blacks, notwithstanding having a black man in the White House. I suspect that there are a large number of blacks that voted for Obama that cannot bring themselves to admit that they were betrayed by Obama, and are looking for a scapegoat. And the ready-made and ever-present one is "white racism."
2. The influx of illegal aliens over the last several years. Net job growth since 2007 has gone to immigrants (legal or otherwise), and illegal aliens mostly threaten the jobs held by blacks. Rising numbers of Hispanic voters threaten black power bases in Harlem and California, and Hispanic gangs are even using threats of violence to drive blacks out of traditionally black neighborhoods in L.A. Thus, I suspect that there is a fear among some blacks that there is only a short window of opportunity to get what they want politically or in the form of welfare before they become increasingly politically irrelevant.
3. Social media. Just as the rise of social media and video recording has led to anger about the growing militarization of the police, it also allows those in black communities,or sympathetic to their cause, to see video or read accounts of police response to black crime that seem overly violent.
4. Playing hardball. I've seen increasing calls for reparations for slavery. In the past, black leaders have used the threat (and actual occurrence) of black unrest to gain concessions in the way of money and increased political power for blacks (or, at least, their leadership). Reparations will represent the ultimate concession, and would therefore require some significant threats of unrest to make it happen.
5. Idleness. The people (white and black) attending and participating in the protests, riots and looting are the products of a decadent culture, with nothing useful to occupy their time. 

Of these, the greatest fear for blacks should be irrelevance. Via another blogger, I recently came across a piece written by the AntiDem, entitled "I Don’t Care About Black People," which makes the important point that the opposite of "love" is not "hate," but "indifference." The authors says:

... In order to hate something or someone, you must care about them deeply. Hate is a serious, long-term emotional investment, and one must actually care very much about the object of one’s hatred in order to make it. As is often said, hate is not the opposite of love; indifference is. And I have come to be very indifferent about the fortunes of blacks.

I don’t care about black people. Their problems are not my problem. Their enemies are not my enemy. Their concerns are not my concern. I feel no need to understand them or their ways, and I don’t care whether or not they understand me or my ways. I wish them well – in fact, I know not a single white person, no matter how outwardly racist, who does not wish that blacks were doing better than they are, if for no other reason than that we must all live with the effects of their failures. I hope that the issues that seem to ceaselessly dog their community all get solved somehow. I have no desire to do them and theirs injury, except as punishment for injury done by them against me and mine. But I don’t care about them – there is nothing more I want from them other than to simply leave me alone, and in exchange, I will gladly leave them alone as well.

Lest one think that this is all motivated by sheer meanness and lack of charity, there is another reason for my lack of enthusiasm for the cause of helping black people. The truth is that I don’t know how to help them, and I don’t know anyone else who does. For at least fifty years (more like a hundred and fifty, really) whites have been trying to find a way to solve the problems of black people. We must now be realistic and admit that all of these attempts have failed miserably. Fifty years into the War on Poverty, drive around a black ghetto (if you dare) and note what you see. It is indeed certain to look like there has been a war there, but it is equally certain to not look like any victory over poverty has been won. What you’ll find there is the result of whites having tried everything they could possibly think of to uplift blacks, and of it all having either not worked at all or having actually made things worse. As evidenced by the wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, Americans are notoriously slow to understand that their plan hasn’t worked and to accept defeat, but at some point, reality asserts itself in a way that is undeniable.

So here is the undeniable reality: when it comes to whites trying to solve the problems of black people, none of our plans have worked, and we’re pretty much out of ideas. I, certainly, have nothing new to add on the issue – believe me, if I did, I would. I have no secret, sadistic desire to see blacks suffer, and I, too, must live with the results of their failures. But like everybody else, I don’t have any more solutions to offer.

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Thus, to black people, my message is simply this: Good luck, but don’t call me for help.