Racial violence distracts from election

 Some would say the recent racial violence in the U.S. was inevitable with the proliferation of weapons and blacks being the targets of police shootings more than their population would justify.

Even scarier is the growing feeling that the rich have too much control, and the poor are living miserable existences.

In other words, those with money in the U.S. have more to worry about than blacks.

It has not shut up Donald Trump who supports dictators like Russia’s Putin, and often has responded within minutes to any violence with a warning that he would use nukes and ban people he doesn’t like.

His campaign apparently feels whites are so scared they want to hear tweets blaming President Obama for the recent violence.

Trump may be going against the flow this time.

There were protests Saturday and Sunday across the nation by people who believe police are too quick to use their guns, and are unlikely to be held responsible. More blacks are shot by police than their share of the population would suggest occur.

​Democrat Hillary Clinton, who has a nearly double-digit lead in some polls, said more has to be done to quiet anxieties about racism.

"White Americans need to do a better job of listening when African-Americans talk about the seen and unseen barriers you face every day," Clinton told a largely black group. "We need to try, as best we can, to walk in one another's shoes -- to imagine what it would be like if people followed us around stores or locked their car doors when we walked past ... or, if every time our children went to play in the park, or just to the store to buy iced tea and Skittles, we said a prayer: 'Please God, don't let anything happen to my baby.'”

Candidates from both parties throughout the country have urged that politicians not use the recent violence as a way to get elected.

How we handled slavery has become a topic again, and not just on Broadway.

Art often suggests where a nation in trouble is headed, whether it is South Africa or the U.S. Theaters in Johannesburg were full of plays about the evils of apartheid, and clearly played a role in ending white-minority rule.

The Washington Post says the U.S. needn’t fear Nat Turner kind of slave revolts.

“But it still must worry about the aggrieved black man,” the Post said.

In South Africa, police often found themselves defending white richesse, though they were not by any means wealthy themselves.

The danger in the U.S. is not a black majority. It is much more complicated. Many minorities, including Hispanics and Asians, consider themselves modern-day serfs.

One thing is clear. Reviews of demographics show minorities are growing. Firstly, they have higher birth rates.
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Police forces have growing numbers of minorities.

The idea that the widespread presence of mobile phones would make police more careful and result in fewer police shootings of civilians hasn’t happened.

The Washington Post Gun Archive Project shows fatal shootings by police are not dropping.

The shooter in Dallas, who killed five police, was trained in the U.S. Army, served in Afghanistan, said he attacked them because so many fellow blacks were being killed by police.

For seniors, President Obama’s visit to Dallas this week will bring back unpleasant memories of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy there.

Police shootings of blacks have rarely resulted in convictions. The optic is such that many, perhaps most, see police risking their lives and therefore some deaths that would be called collateral.

In Minnesota, a black man was killed by a policeman when a witness said he had told the officer who had pulled him over that he was carrying permitted gun.

There is recognition that it is not simply a black and white issue.

The conservative Web site RedState said: “Reasonable people can disagree about the prevalence of police brutality in America, and the extent to which race plays a factor in it. I don't think reasonable people can disagree that excessive police force is punished way less often than it actually happens. And that's the kind of problem that leads to people taking up guns and committing acts of violence - tragically (and with evil intent) against cops who as far as we know have done nothing wrong.

“But people's willingness to act rationally and within the confines of the law and the political system is generally speaking directly proportional to their belief that the law and political system will ever punish wrongdoing. And right now, that belief is largely broken, especially in many minority communities.”