You Can't Spell Ham Sandwich Without; Well You Know

I've been thinking about the seemingly inexplicable refusal to indict in recent high-profile police killings.  This article in today's' NYT does well to explain the structural problems at work here and that is part of it surely.  But of course personal racism is at play is well and does raise questions of how racism can remain so strong decades after the loud, overt belief in white supremacy has been banished from the realm of the respectable

It's true that murder, rape and robbery are things that do happen in the world; and also true that blaming the first black man available for such crimes is also something that happens far too often; yet we still do need the police who commit such outrages all the same.  It may be that normally fair-minded jurors are actually becoming more racist when faced with this problem, that they may embrace old myths of the Black Brute in order to deny this quandry or deny its very depressing existence.

It's also true that nothing can lead people to embrace bullshit faster than reminders that life is not fair.  There are some who pride themselves on being tough enough to tell you life isn't fair but in reality neither they me or any of us can truly accept it.  Perfectly smart people will embrace willfully irrational or even magical thinking for the sake of feeling that life is fair.  More to the point it is of course painful for we whites to accept that we enjoy unearned comforts secured by foul means.  Accepting that our society has some injustice at its root, at least party by intentional design, cast pallor and suspicion over everything; our endeavors, our accomplishments, our prestige, even our deepest personal relationships.  We should accept "civilization" not because ours is innately glorious but because it makes life a little bit better maybe.  We should submit ourselves to the rule of governments ruled by people no greater or smarter than ourselves, obey the laws made by people no greater or smarter than ourselves, and accept the need for police no more or less innately noble than ourselves and no more or less inclined to be good or bad than ourselves because maybe it all makes life a little softer and easier by some unknowable degree. 

Accepting all this is easier said than done to say the least of it.  While on the other hand the pleasures of being more righteously pro-police/law than your neighbors are visceral and immediate while protesting the social order so that maybe it shows slight noticeable improvement before your own death is rather less so.   It's bleak work to do the right thing and there's no such thing as anyone winning.  Still there is never any good cause for despair; as the eighty year-old bothers to see the doctor because they love themselves so must we love the world.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

FC Top 10

1. Real Madrid
2. Bayern Munich
3. Chelsea
4. Barcelona
5. Paris St. Germain
6. Juventus
7. Atletico Madrid
8. Cruziero
9.Manchester City
10. Porto