Deeply troubled by continued shootings

I abhor violence. I cannot condone destruction of property. There should be another way to get one’s point across — and, in fact, there always is. But let’s consider some reality here, at least, before we lock our minds down for good.

Jacob Blake, a Black man, gets shot in the back seven times from as close a range as I can imagine. While walking away. In front of his 3 kids. He’s now paralyzed. Does it really matter, given those circumstances, that there may have been a knife in his car? It was not in his hand. Contrast with Kyle Whittenhouse, the 17-year-old white teen from Illinois who was able to walk down the street in Kenosha with his AR-15, shoot three, and kill two. Video appears to show Kenosha police driving past Rittenhouse just after the shooting, with his hands up, gun visible, and driving on. He is now still alive. The contrast is so stark — and flies in the face of logic. Of the two, who was the more credible threat?

I am not a religious person, but I was raised to know moral right from wrong. This is so clearly wrong. How is it that many are more concerned about the violence to property — as bad as that is — than the consistent and disproportionate violence to Black people?!

Am I just a bleeding-heart liberal? Does that explain the tears on my cheeks as I write this? Or am I just a typical human showing normal human compassion to others who so often don’t get it? It seems so obvious to me it is the latter.

I sincerely hope voters do not use the regrettable but relatively small amount of property destruction in the face of the consistent violence and disproportionate violence to Blacks to justify their vote to re-elect President Trump. This is Trump’s America right now — not Joe Biden’s. If they do, I predict a re-elected Trump will crash immediately through the few remaining guard rails in his way, furthering our dizzying progression as a nation to full-on autocracy. So much for no man being above the law.

If I am right, then we will have led ourselves into this trap, and those who kept Trump in power will have gotten not what they deserved, but certainly what they should have been cognizant enough to foresee.

I cannot, in good conscience, watch this happen without attempting to persuade those who wring their hands over a burned Target — which will no doubt be rebuilt — to focus instead on the violence done to innocent lives. Which is the greater and more irreplaceable loss?

We can still take the moral high ground, as a nation — may we never quite be too late for that.

Paul Mack

Columbus

The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.