Acts of Kindness

At the end of November, I joined a website called Bloggy Moms because I liked the look of their community.  Here I found the December Blog Dare - a dare to write blog posts every day of December with convenient writing prompts for each day.  While I have more than enough opinions to write every day, I liked the prompts so I joined the Blog Dare and began.

This worked well for the first 3 days.  I wrote my opinions and I read some wonderful posts by other women.  But then came December 4th - topic:  Acts of Kindness.

While I understand why this topic is part of the December Blog Dare, I dislike the assumption that December is somehow a month for acts of kindness.  On the contrary, I believe that people should do random acts of kindness year round.

Personally, I love doing random acts of kindness. Over the span of my life, I've bought different people a cup of coffee, helped to change tires, opened doors, and given people gas money. Once, while traveling home with three kids and a mostly-full minivan, my husband pulled over for a woman limping next to a broken down car. It turned out she had a flat tire, a dead cell phone, a sprained ankle, no spare, and no extra money because she was driving home. We gave her a lift to the next exit, found a man to repair her tire, and paid him to do the job. She cried and wanted to send us the money, but we refused because sometimes a person just need a little help.

And yet, in this one month, people tend to act like the person they claim to be or wish to be year round.  People act nicer, kinder, more patience, more considerate - they suddenly realize that money isn't as important as helping someone buy groceries.  The compassion of the human spirit shines in December.

While I find it refreshing to see such kindness, I also feel immense sadness that this happens only once a year.

The Conundrum of Racial Profiling

I must start out by saying that I, personally, have never been a victim of racial profiling. In fact, I might have benefited from reverse racial profiling occasionally since I'm white (for the record, my genetic makeup is over half Germanic, with Scottish and Irish thrown in for good measure). I believe racial profiling hurts everyone in a community, which is ironic since the people who use racial profiling firmly believe that the practice helps communities.

First, let me provide my own internal definition of racial profiling:

racial profiling:  the practice of law enforcement to use a person's ethnicity or race to determine whether or not to engage the individual (e.g. traffic stop)

I have a friend, Tiffany, who lives in a nearby community, Acworth, GA.  Tiffany and her brother get stopped by the local law enforcement about 2 dozen times every year for the same crime - DWB.

Never heard of DWB before?  Then chances are that you are white, because DWB stands for Driving While Black.

Tiffany and her brother always have the same conversation with the officers:

Yes, I live around here.  Yes, I have a driver's license.  No, you may not search my vehicle.  Why did you pull me over?  Oh, because you thought my brake light was out.  Wow - it seems to be working now.

They never get tickets, but they have gotten the message that the police do not like black people in Acworth.

That is problem number one with racial profiling - the practice leads the people who fit the profile feeling as though the local law enforcement is negatively biased towards them (which they are.).  That leads people to mistrust the police, causing a whole new raft of problems.

Problem number two is the real conundrum - racial profiling creates a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Think about it. If a police officer pulls over black people two times more than white people, simple probability says that the officer will find two times as many black criminals.   That leads to more racial profiling, leading to bigger probabilities of finding black criminals v.s. white criminals, leading to more racial profiling.  The vast majority of today's "statistics" that support racial profiling rest on this type of biased information.

How does this hurt communities?  Yes, and here's how:

1. Racial profiling does not lessen the number of criminals in non-profiled groups.  It may lead a police officer to pull over the wrong vehicle or overlook the real criminals in search of profiled citizens. 
2. As I stated before, racial profiling leads to distrust of the police, which leads people to handle situations better handled by the police because the people don't want the police involved since they cannot be trusted to do what is right.   
3. A basic principle of our legal system is presumption of innocence - a person is considered innocent until proven guilty.  Racial profiling goes directly against this principle - people are presumed guilty until the officer finds them innocent.    

So why am I writing this post?  Why do I care?

I care because if we ever want this practice to stop, we all need to stand up and acknowledge the truth of what is going on.  Because I feel like I am silently condoning this practice if I do nothing.  Because I want my children and grandchildren to live in a better world, and getting rid of racial profiling would be a step in the right direction.

Occupy Wall Street: How the Government Keeps Failing

Just when I thought that the government cannot make this situation any worse, I discover that I'm wrong.

This past week, government officials around the country began to "evict" Occupy protester from their protesting sites.  Now, if I assume that there is a valid reason for these eviction, then I would expect that the various government officials would evict these people by the light of day, allowing the press to record the proceedings.  I would expect the protesters would be given enough time and warning to remove their possessions in an orderly fashion.  And unless the protesters began to violently react, I would also expect close to no arrests.

Did any of this happen?

No!

The government officials crept through the night like bandits and thieves, like mafia enforcers who wish to avoid the eye of the public.  Police men showed up in riot gear, despite the fact that all of the violence so far was initialed by the police.  Tear gas and rubber bullets flew, creating war on our own streets.  Against our own citizens, who want nothing more than for the current government to listen to the people.  They want Congress to stop practicing taxation without representation, to stop representing the wealthy elite who consider themselves about "We the people" and to represent everyone.  They want the laws currently on the books to be enforced, for the wealthy who have been breaking the laws with impunity to be brought to justice.  Stop allowing a small group of business to be virtual monopolies, controlling the entire American economy yet having no responsibility to match their power.

The government failed the American people years ago, when they allowed the wealthy elite to dictate the votes of Congress.  They failed the American people when they bailed out the bank and car companies, citing that these organizations were "too big to fail" but not enforcing the monopoly laws on such companies.  They failed the American people by passing laws that allowed corporations to be a "person" in the eyes of the law, gaining all of the privileges and none of the responsibilities.  They failed the American people by allowing for-profit universities to take money for student loans and not give a decent education in return.  They failed the American people by using the debt ceiling to get personal legislation passed, putting party politics above the entire country.  They failed the American people by faking a "war on terror" and then doing nothing useful to stop terrorists.  Instead, they removed more and more of the rights of Americans until we have the situation of today.

American citizens getting arrested for practicing their right to protest.  A right guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.  A right inherent to the American Dream.

Now, the government fails us again, arresting not only the protesters but the media.  Anyone who has a camera or a video recorder is at risk for being arrested, not for breaking any particular law but for reporting the truth.  For recording what the government is doing, and letting the world see how democracy and the American Way of Life is dying.

American Society: We're All In This Together, Folks

Imagine that you live in an apartment with several roommates.  You divide up the rent, the water bill, the electric bill, phone bill, ....  You don't measure how long each individual takes in the shower, or how much television any person watches.  Everyone just pitches in to pay for the apartment and amenities.  If you're lucky, your roommates will even tide you over on the bills when your car breaks down and you need to spend an extra $1,000 to fix it.

That's what we are, the American people.  We are roommates, all living in one big apartment called the United States of America.  Instead of rent and bills, we pay taxes to cover living expenses, such as the police, firefighters, public libraries, and schools.  Our living expenses also include maintenance of items previous generations "purchased", such a public roads and public parks.  When someone has  a "bad month", that means that they live under the poverty line, we help them out with the expenses.  Those who have extra pitch in more.

Why?

Because we are all in this together.  United, we stood for over 200 years.  But unless people stop being so greedy, and putting their own wants ahead of society, then we will be divided and we will fall.