The Right Trees

Let’s start barking up the Right trees

I don’t know when I first heard the phrase “that dog is barking up the wrong tree”, but it really has crossed my mind so often lately. It fits the current decades-long failed efforts of helping those struggling for progress and safety in the most vulnerable communities. This barking dog never wins its prize.

The barking dog represents all the caring people and opportunists or misguided politicians who want to help those struggling folks in the community. The squirrel is the elusive culprit that’s causing all these problems. But the squirrel they see in the tree is either not the real culprit or there may actually be no squirrel. They’re barking up the wrong tree. Otherwise, they would have found that squirrel a long time ago. It’s in a neighboring tree just grinning in its twisted and dark little world. Laughing at the misguided barking dog.

The squirrel may be the gang thugs who love it when the police are the ones taking all the heat. When all officers are demonized and disillusioned. The evil squirrel giggles and runs rampant believing they have even more free rein to dominate their territory. Or it may be the perpetual cycle of fathers that leaves the mom handling all the stress and burdens. Knowing her precious little boy will also probably be lost to the streets.

The most glaring issue is black-on-black gang-related shootings and random bystander deaths [~4100 shooting victims in 2020]. In Chicago 2020, about 1 person was shot every 2 hours each day! So why aren’t our caring, compassionate and thoughtful “thought” leaders jumping on this full force? Could they possibly redirect their focus from white privilege and the terror of 1619 Jamestown? Or do they feel it’s unjust to criticize the gang bangers? Because after all, they are just the worse victims of Systemic Racism.

The correct tree is in calling a spade a spade[ Calling a Spade a Spade ]. Tell it like it Is for a change. To the law-abiding citizens in the community these murderers are just as much a clear and PRESENT danger as the Klan was in its heyday. . But sadly the only barking we hear is about the importance of Equity, Inclusion, and the devastation of systemic and institutional racism. Do the Do-Gooders think the shooters will have a come to Jesus moment when Inclusion and Equity are achieved? Or perhaps the random violence issue is not important to the intellectuals that are pushing for the unifying doctrine that all whites are racist.

What if corporate America made a deal, a negotiation, a give and ask, with their Diversity and Equity consultants and other black political/thought leaders? Something like this:

The Corporate Give:

We will develop equity hiring and mobilize our corporate culture with retraining and programs to become “Woke” about implicit bias, etc if, The Ask:

The Woke are Asked:

You mobilize a national narrative and movement focused on inner city gun violence and lowering of fatherless homes in the “hoods”.

That would certainly be a tree that had lots of squirrels.

When I was in college at Cal State I lived in Compton across the street from a large park. The gunshots at night would keep us up. When I was younger we lived in the Crenshaw district of Los Angeles in a solidly middle-class black neighborhood. I remember when the LAPD acquired helicopters. The helicopters would keep you up at night as they tracked down criminals.

Now for a minute close your eyes and imagine you’re a kid growing up in today’s “tough” neighborhoods. Do you jump and flinch when you hear the snap of a gunshot? Or a car backfire? Do you have trouble focusing or sleeping at night? Do you think of a friend or relative who was about your age who was killed by a stray bullet? Do you wish you could visit the park down the street and play, unafraid? Like the kids from across town play and laugh, unafraid. Perhaps you suffer from PTSD. [PTSD]

Living in a city/community with ~10 people shot each day, having friends or family shot or killed, having close near misses with bullets, witnessing a shooting or death..attending too many funerals… Being apprehensive and afraid to testify for fear of revenge.

Michelle Alexander shined a light on Mass Incarceration [The New Jim Crow]

That was the wrong tree.

I see a squirrel in a tree called The New “Real” Jim Crow

This Real threat is the blacks in the community that produce violence, intimidation, and fear. The bars on windows and doors where I grew up were not there to keep out the KKK or Neo-Nazis.

Let’s bark up THAT TREE!

Let us work together to directly empower those in dangerous neighborhoods.

Remove the shooters and end the gangs.

Have a sustained national dialogue and push for this sequence of achievements:[Empowerment]

High School Graduation

Job

Marriage

Then

Child bearing