Don’t hate the player, hate the game

The ire of injustice is directed pointedly and poignantly at individuals caught in the cross hairs. The real opportunity is to improve the system.

Teachers love their kids. They show up armed with a curriculum they believe in. They pour over the material the night before, practice their animations and analogies. Their love for the kids keeps their midnight light burning.

They are underpaid, under appreciated and overstretched. They deserve our attention and empathy.

Let me pose this question. Did you know that teachers in America are some of the most vital players in the fight against racial prejudice and other forms of “human” ism issues.

The history our kids are taught is one sided. The art our kids embrace conditions their reality. The characters and their colors that form the analogy that severs our kids reality from multi perspective truth or as Chimamanda Adichie coined it “single-stories.”

Police officers like teachers are like the internet. They are merely vessels executing the will of the system that trains them, the system that certifies them, the system that has become the community they belong to, that their identities derive from.

In the same way we must not wake up and damn all teachers because of the miseducation of our kids. In the same way we must not damn our pastors for propagating a white Jesus and other racially inaccurate sentiments of modern Christian traditions. In this same EXACT way, our ire must be precise. It must be directed at the system, the curriculum, the seminary shortcomings and other playbooks behind the systems and their executioners.

What is a police officer to do in a neighborhood where the gangs are majority black and the playbook for justice is racial profiling designed to value the life of the officer first and foremost because of his importance to his duty, his city, his system, his family, and well, himself.

Objectively, would you default to saving your life over being wrong and found dead? Abroad, our military devalue human life. They do not apply the same tactics on foreign soil as they do on American soil — whether to a black or white man. Where is our outcry against the brutal loss of civilian lives to keep the American peace?

By damning police officers, we deter our brothers and sisters from aspiring to protect their communities. We make the execution of law however flawed become unattractive to the very black and brown kids that must get into the system and offer a diverse view on policies.

It’s the playbook. It’s the curriculum. For they make the system. Let’s direct our attention to the Police chiefs that turn a blind eye to cases of brutality on the rationale that their members’ lives come first for they drive the playbook that drive the system. Let’s sit with the articulators of the application of the law to our police officers.

We want change? Let’s get to the root and ask questions. In Christian circles there is a popular phrase: “love the sinner, hate the sin”

The sin is this case is the systems harboring racist ideology and refusing to modernize and improve. We may find that the guardians of these systems are open and seeking change but if we are offering no alternatives, the ire like a hurricane will pass with damage but no change.

Where are the creators, educators, literate, and fine humans. We need you, we need to create new syllabus, new tactical techniques that are effective and just, new traditions of the faith or at least depictions of the Faith.

In my soul, I believe that when better exists, humanity gravitates to it. We’ll only perpetuate a destructive cycle of stagnation by attacking the very people that maybe our best allies at changing the fabric of systemic “human”-isms.

If your zoom application is slow, you don’t break your laptop. You uninstall and download Microsoft teams, webex and any alternative that is better. Let’s stop the cancel culture for the lives of our executioners are just as significant and valuable as the lives of our lost ones.

Strive for injustice but remember to not lead with hate. Hate often dehumanizes, damages when we need to construct and erect better.