A meme has been shared by a number of people in my Facebook area and while it pains me to do so, I’m going to have to calmly try to explain how utterly insulting you have been to me. Since the shooting of the two reporters in Virginia, some people have tried to use the identity of the shooter, a disgruntled gay black man co-worker, as a way of discrediting people who have concerns about gun control and those who are alarmed at the number of black people killed by police. These people have taken to a variation of the one drop rule; if one black person kills a white person, doesn’t that mean black people killed by the police isn’t a bad thing?

I already know the counter argument. People in the black lives matter movement and other ‘race baiters’ (their words) use a tragic incident to fan the flames of racism in the country. Here is something I would like for all those folks to do for me; give me a list of 25 black gay shooters who have killed white people in the past two years. OK, let me make it easier and ask for 25 black people. Can you do it?

No you can’t and please don’t give me the tired argument that the media doesn’t cover those stories. It seems when you need to support your argument you are more than willing to find any troll site available and use their dubious numbers and information as facts. The meme I have posted is from a site I’ve never heard of, but its questionable stance is being shared by hundreds if not thousands of people, and that sharing only confirms there are people more than willing to assume the worst of a large section of the community. The people that shared the meme didn’t think of the differences in the situations, of the actual facts that would render the meme wrong. That’s why I posed the question to come up with 25 black people who have killed white people in the past two years. If the numbers are that high, I’m sure one of the troll sites would have those facts readily available, but I bet you won’t find it because the numbers aren’t there.

I will go a step further and let’s say I accept the argument that the black people killed by the police were justified. The black people were breaking the law and deserved to have whatever judgement the officer made at the time. It is tragic that they were killed but they broke the law. If I accept that rather flimsy assessment of each situation, what was their crime? Seriously, sit down and write down what the crimes were for the ‘thugs’ as you call them. Let’s see, we have Trayvon Martin that you guys say was on drugs and was bad in school. You have the guy selling loose cigarettes on the corner. You have the woman with the illegal turn. You had the kid that shoved and stole some little cigars. You have a guy who broke into a car dealership. Those are the ones just off the top of my head and if I looked harder I could come up with over 20 black people in the past few years that have died in police custody. My question would be what is the violent crime that was done to justify them winding up dead?

In April there was a gunman running through my neighborhood. He shot a couple of people. Police were on an all-out manhunt for the guy. He was captured alive. He was white. A few months later, a black man who possibly had marijuana in his car pulled up to his apartment complex where the police were conducting a search. Supposedly the man ran to his apartment, the police were in pursuit and the encounter ended with the man being shot. The issue I think many people have with police shooting incidents are the inconsistencies of encounters. What a lot of people want to do is put this as a black / police issue. What that does is give people who share memes like the one I posted a sense that the issue doesn’t apply to them. If you aren’t black and a criminal, you have nothing to worry about from the police. I would ask you to look at the black people who were killed by the police. Again, if we are to listen to your logic and assume they were criminals, what crime did they commit that was so dangerous that they had to be killed? Some of the people who have been killed by the police recently were running away from the police because of traffic violations. Should that be a death sentence by pursuing officers?

Essentially the people who are so proud of sharing this meme are comparing apples to oranges. You are taking one black man’s murder spree and linking it to police who are killing black people. If you want to equate one black man killing two journalist as a counter to the police killings, then let’s look at the Charleston shooting, the Aurora shooting, the Sandy Hook killing and the vast number of other killing by white people, a good number of which have been white people killing other white people. Why have there been no outcry of the white on white crimes? Why have we not talked to white leaders about stopping the senseless killing among their people? You’re not going to see it because that’s not how our society works. I would love it if we could talk intelligently and responsibly about the violence we are experiencing but every time I want to have hope, people throw up memes that disgust me, giving me the impression that we are not going to have a thoughtful conversation about these strong issues. We will continue to balkanize ourselves and try to find a way not to be part of the problem. We would rather blame others whom we deem criminals for the actions that befalls them; that it of course until someone close to us becomes the victim through no fault of their own.