I have been a strong supporter of civil rights my entire life and active many times in assisting minorities and the less fortunate but recently, have been getting more and more turned off by the BLM movement.

They are showing that they have most things completely wrong and in many cases, the solutions will only make everything worse for blacks and for the world.

1. The vilifying of cops and calls for defunding police are pathetic. Almost all cops are good and they are essential to all blacks, especially in high crime, urban areas, so that these places can have law and order, which is a must environment in order to bolster better educating at safe schools and more jobs in those communities.

2. Changing Police department protocol addressing the many problems IS THE ONLY solution that relates to cops and is completely obvious. "Make cops better because we need them" should be the slogan for those sincere about this element. 

3. Thousands of blacks are murdered each year, mostly by other blacks. Where is the outrage over this if black lives really matter. Less cops/funding will equate, with an absolute correlation to more crime and MORE blacks murdered. 

4. Stop lying about the stats. Cops are LESS likely to kill a black man than a white man in any confrontation/arrest. All the stats/studies show this. Yes, they do profile and are MORE likely to pull a black man over and be suspicious of him but less likely to kill him, let alone do it like the murdering, racist cop that killed George Floyd.

5. If they recognized the real problem and took accountability for it.............a 6 times higher rate of crime committed by young black men vs young white men, we could start working together on fixing that problem so that blacks could fully share in the American dream. In the current world with perfect cops, the young black man committing a crime will be treated with respect while being arrested, then get a fair prison sentence by the justice sentence.................and can think about how great it was to be treated justly.............as he rots in prison. 

6. The ONLY solutions that will ever make a difference for all blacks is to improve the educational system, provide more jobs and strengthen the role that the black man plays in his family(with wife and children).  I will repeat ways to do this on the next page.

7. BLM is, as Ali's son stated become a racist movement based on hate. It's also the opposite of what MLK would stand for. They don't even care about truth. It's turned entirely political and the democrats are utilizing it to keep black votes, when they SHOULD BE addressing their failed policies in the inner cities. Again, I can outline great ideas on incorporating better policies and make $0, so why are these people getting paid 6 figure salaries and don't see any of it? Because they are all about getting votes and having power. If they really cared, they would have done something the last few decades, other than wearing African Garb or removing statues of people that had slaves in our country when slavery was legal and accepted by mainstream society. That gets blacks exactly squat and wastes tons of energy that could be spent doing something that really would help blacks.

                Re: Using statistics to lie and smear cops            

            https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/53752/

Young black males commit violent crimes at a rate(in the study that I sourced a couple of year ago) 6 times higher than young white males. Being raised without a good male role model has alot to do with that. Would taking away welfare cause young black men to suddenly metamorphose into responsible fathers and husbands?

Maybe you think that young black women would stop having sexual relationships or use better protection if there was no welfare. 

Turns out that black women actually abort more babies than they raise in many big cities and many of them raise those children without husbands. If they are having those children because it gets them welfare, then we must assume that no welfare would result in a higher black abortion rate.

The welfare system is not the main problem in this case. Changing the culture requires outside help. These people on welfare and in the inner cities that were raised by single parents(moms) or in dysfunctional families, don't have the understanding or blue prints to know how to be good parents(especially the men) or how to be successful in life. 

There has to be something that interrupts the repeating, viscous cycle via the education system or thru local organizations that connect with vulnerable children, starting at young age to teach them. 

I strongly believe that good parenting classes in high school should be mandatory, especially in low income areas with single parent families. Can you teach love? This is not about religion but that's exactly what the 4 Gospels of Jesus did. .....and its blossomed into Christianity that has profoundly changed the world for the much better. What I'm suggesting is ethics classes combined with parenting classes.  The principles go hand in hand.  Teach children to respect others, the value of human life and what a good parent and spouse should be doing in a successful relationship. Have people in their community(ideally from their neighborhood) come in to share their positive experiences as dad's/husbands and mothers/wifes.  

With absolute certainty, this would have a profoundly positive affect on many children in dysfunctional families. 

https://education.seattlepi.com/would-mandatory-parenting-classes-schools-good-idea-1803.html

Teaching  at school can only do so much. What happens when they leave school to a bad neighborhood with a bad parent(s)?

A high % of bad black fathers are in prison. This is another topic altogether but it's another golden opportunity for other men, regardless of color to step forward and be mentors, role models or good examples. This is absolutely realistic.

How would that work? First you identify the men. Many will be from the suburbs, many, will be older and will have already raised their own children successfully. Some will be very young and want to have a family but haven't found the right partner yet.  I have recruited men like this to be my basketball, soccer and baseball coaches(mostly the younger ones for sports). If you offered money, you will get more than just volunteers but most people like this don't do it for money. There needs to be screening, background checks and child protection classes to avoid predators/pedophiles that will weasel into programs like this to abuse boys. 

Men, filling in as a positive father figures/ideally foster parents(even if they are paid) will and do make a difference in most of these boys lives. The younger the child, the better chance to connect with them before the bad things in the world surrounding them define who they are:

https://www.fosterfocusmag.com/articles/just-foster-dads-part-1

Forget about the welfare or no welfare issue or government, no government's role. Either situation is a recipe for failure if you don't have responsible adults that understand what it takes to be good parents applying their love and skills to the at risk, vulnerable children.

Most parents and spouses learned about parenting/married life from being their parents children. 

We spend billions of dollars on the education system but fail to educate and prepare children for the most important role they will ever have as adults. 

If these are such great idea's why aren't are paid politicians and government on to it?

Our politicians and government don't work for us much of the time and their ideas are usually not creative unless it ties in with something that will help them get elected........promises to give people things like reparations for blacks or free health care or free college. ....or to save the planet(sorry if that offends anybody from one party-but if you look at my belief system today,  its the one that defined the democrats from the old days-which included me). 

Being a good parent(and citizen) is several orders of magnitude more important to individuals/families and society than actions to address a fake climate crisis........even if there was a climate crisis. "

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Another thing that would help that is not being discussed, to go along with better training of cops(that HAS been happening and HAS been effective already across the nation) is to encourage them to be more of a part of positive endeavors in the black communities that they enforce laws in.

The benefits are 2 fold. The more officers that you have coming to local schools for instance, to interact in a positive way with students, the more trust that you will build in them. They ARE good people. This is being done in most communities already but there is usually a designated "Officer Friendly" and just 1 or 2 people that go to all the schools. 

Most of the other cops are out there battling crime. They get bombarded all day long with real life negative experiences with criminals. After awhile, human nature, common sense/analytical thinking and street smarts working together create a cognitive bias in them...........stereotyping young black males. This leads to profiling. It can lead to them disrespecting a group that shows the most disrespect to them. The training they receive has to overcome human nature on their part which is telling their brains to judge the people based on their observations.

This can be offset when officers establish relationships and involvement in those same communities with the vast majority of  blacks who are upstanding citizens. This can help balance their view.............to connect with the good side in a personal way and not always just the bad side. Have cops spend a few days in a positive environment with good people in the same community to balance all the negatives.

How about you and me try to imagine the life of an inner city cop, where violent crime is rampant and they are constantly risking their lives to arrest violent criminals who often resist physically and very often are verbally abusive. Of course that's their job. They signed up for that and know what they are getting and should be prepared for it, right?

Still, they are human beings..........almost every one of them good human beings and very few of them racist  but more, them being affected by the challenging environments they work in. 

Addition, 6-20-20: With regards to the education system, I know that tutoring is available at many schools and is sometimes free for lower income families. One problem is that you can't force this on a kid outside the regular school day without permission from a parent. Being more assertive in applying tutoring for these children that are falling behind is essential. The ones falling behind  in elementary school, almost all define the ones farthest behind by the time they get into high school. By then, it's almost impossible to turn things around,  New learning in the scholastic setting builds on a foundation of previous learning. If you can't do basic math during the early years, it can cause cumulative learning issues as you get into more advanced math and you just fall father and farther behind. Nobody, child or adult enjoys doing something they are not good at. Falling behind in subjects causes them to embrace the idea that they are not good in those areas which causes additional negative reinforcement and stifles motivation. The trick would be to identify as many as possible at a young age and give extra tutoring to them. Volunteers outside the school system are wonderful(pj did this for awhile in Seattle) but there just are not enough resources and too many kids. PAYING outside tutors could generate more of them. We also have to face the genetics and IQ disparities in children. Some children have poor unsuccessful parents because Mom and Dad were not blessed with brilliant minds. Just like we get the color of our eyes, hair and skin from Mommy and Daddy, we also get their brains. I can appreciate the immense challenges of teachers, who have a classroom of kids with IQ's that might range from 130 to 90. The smartest kids are not being challenged enough, while the less capable are constantly struggling. I think somebody in the school system would understand this better than me and there are limits to how much any person can achieve..............but each of us has massive potential that can be maximized. The idea is to create the best possible environment for children that have bad environments so they can maximize what their individual potential is. Some are not cut out for college but NOBODY was born to drop out of school and commit crimes that put them in prison. 

mm: "Volunteers outside the school system are wonderful(pj did this for awhile in Seattle) but there just are not enough resources and too many kids. "

I volunteer tutored for 19 years in Seattle and 3 years since we've been in Las Vegas. But "they" sure didn't make it easy for me here. Had to contact several different schools in LV, before finally finding a charter school that was interested in having me tutor. Even then had to go though lots of paperwork, pay for my own fingerprinting etc, before being "allowed" to do so. Of course this year it ended when the schools shut down. 

I understand the intentions on this PJ,  but this is one of the many many areas where assorted government agencies shoot themselves in the foot

Thanks much pj!

You are the quinnessential example of somebody that is part of the solution vs just telling us what they think the solution should be and putting all the blame on others, while not lifting a finger to do anything themselves.

It's people like you that REALLY do make a difference. Every encounter tutoring with a challenged child helps. We can never predict the eventual outcome but it can range from infinitesimal to colossal. 

My wonderful Dad taught me to play chess in 1966 for instance because he was a great dad that wanted to share a great game with his son. Never did he think that he was raising a chess coach that would end up coaching 3,500 kids and run scholastic chess tournaments. 

Before I took over at our first school, 25 years ago. They had chess there because of a very sick man's devotion to the game. I just happened to be helping Tim McLaughlin because I signed my kids up to play chess at Scott School. If not for Tim, I would have never imagined the potential and benefits for kids playing chess.

Tim died in the middle of the chess season in 1995 and I knew immediately what I wanted to do. But without Tim being there before me hand, I could have never known that because there never would have been chess at our sons school and no way would I have thought of that idea(I was not an active chess player) ........or without Dad teaching me.

So we do things for others out of the kindness of our hearts with no expectations except the hope that it will make them better people and the world a better place. Sometimes it doesn't seem to help much. Other times, in ways that we never expected, it blossoms into something big and pays exponential dividends. Lives that we touch positively, touch the lives of others and it makes a huge difference..........but it all has to start somewhere.

I am honored to know somebody like you pj the scholastic math tutor!

pj,

In the Vanderburgh School Corporation, I have to get a background check every X number of years but its not applied at all the same at each school.

The 5 schools that I coach chess at are all in the EVSC but only one asks for the background check and not every year. The other 4 have never asked but it would be on file from me applying at Scott Elementary School.

Part of this is probably Scott School had a teacher that molested a child several years ago. 

Funny thing is that I was doing chess at an elementary and middle school for 6 years with no background checks and zero assistance from anybody,  then started a high school(for the same kids I coached already that grew older) and they made it almost impossible for me. 

The first year they refused until I could get a teacher sponsor and they did require a background check. I was ok with this but the younger kids would need more protection than these older ones.  The younger schools already knew me though because even before doing chess, I used to come to help as room Dad for my sons and other functions and I had recently retired from being a tv celebrity and people treat you special just because you are in their living room a few times a day on their tv set. 

You taught math, right pj?

What grades and what type math?

What have some of your experiences been like?