I am outraged! If you are not outraged over the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner, Ahmaud Arbery and other minority group members killed by police or vigilantes you have no heart. If you do not demand police accountability when investigation into their actions warrants, you have no soul. If you condemn every police officer or the thousands who peacefully protest because of the criminal acts of a few, you have no brain.

It is a mistake to attempt to solve complex problems with simple solutions or use tragedy for political gain. Yet there is no shortage of folks trying to do just that. When it comes to interactions between black Americans and police, too often the encounters that end in tragedy begin with unlawful behavior. Yet, that fact is often omitted in demands to abolish or defund the police.

The evidence does not support claims that biased police are systematically killing black Americans. But statistics do show minorities ar disproportionally killed by police. In a July 3, 2020 USA Today opinion piece, Heather MacDonald, asserted, “The African American community tends to be policed more heavily because that is where people are disproportionally hurt by violent street crime. . .  In New York City in 2018, 73% of shooting victims were Black, though Black residents comprise only 24% of the city’s population.”

According to the National Institute of Justice report by Anthony A. Braga and Rod K. Brunson, published in 2015, “resulting from a history of exclusion from important economic and social opportunities, residents of disadvantaged urban neighborhoods are primarily minorities and often black. Research has long documented that most violence occurs within racial groups and that black Americans, often victimized by black offenders, experience disproportionately high levels of violent crime.”

Sadly, bad black people are killing each other along with innocent black people. The most egregious example is Chicago, which epitomizes the failure of politics to resolve social problems. We are only six months into the year and there have already been 329 people killed, up 34% over last year. People demand changes in laws when what is needed is changes of hearts. Politics are not the answer. The Democrates claim to be the party of the black voter. Chicago is led by black Democrats. It has a black mayor, black police chief and 40 percent black aldermen. The last Republican mayor left office in 1931 and there are currently no Republicans among the city’s 50 aldermen.

The hypocracy is not confined to Democrats. How can Republicans denounce China for human rights violations while justifying perpetrating violence against peaceful protestors to afford our president a photo-op in front of a church? As outraged as I am by how George Floyd died, I am equally outraged by the state funeral spectacle played and replayed on the evening news.

Mr. Floyd is a dead black man who should not have died, but his death certainly did not warrant the sort of coverage suitable for the likes of Elijah Cummings, Damon Keith, Edith Irby Jones or Toni Morrison, to name only a few. Nor should what happened justify emasculating a police force and ceding a police station, along with several city blocks, to a leaderless mob like we witnessed in Seattle.

Where are the voices of outrage over black on black violence? Where are the voices of outrage over rogue police officers like those who took Floyd’s life? Where are the voices of outrage opposing abortion, but not the supporting women forced to carry babies they cannot afford to feed? Where are the voices of ourage demanding men of all races, who father children out of wedlock, accept responsibility for raising them, or at least, supporting them and instilling sound moral values in them?

Where were the protestors when the government was removing children from parents whose only crime was wanting a better or safer life for them? We all stand guilty. Conservatives demand individual accountability for sin while progressives write laws intended to correct our society’s sins. Nothing really changes. It is all talk, ill-conceived over-reaction, acceptance of moral failure and/or lack of personal accountability. Jesus is the answer, but both sides are yelling so loudly that no one can hear what the Prince of Peace has to say.