We have a cultural problem in this country and I don’t know if anyone knows how to fix it. We have struggled for decades to solve it with no solution in sight. One way not to fix it is by reducing or defunding police budgets just because of a few bad actors. This isn’t Japan or some European country where people are civil and don’t commit violent crime or carry guns. Here people carry guns with too many using them in committing crimes.

Sub-cultures develop within larger cultures and within some ethnic groups crime becomes commonplace. When that happens, people outside the larger culture start to believe all those within the larger culture are criminals too. When the culture can be easily identified by a skin color, demonizing all of them becomes easier. Once that line is crossed it is difficult for people to cross back over. Police and state’s attorneys are no different than anyone else. Once they become deeply involved in trying to arrest and convict people of the sub-culture, they look at all those of the same color or ethnic as being suspicious.

How to make a permanent change in this conditioned attitude in people and law enforcement will involve the people of all larger cultures working to eliminate the criminal sub-culture. If the subculture is heavily into drugs and guns, then the larger culture needs to totally commit to ending the criminal activity by intensive social pressure or helping to jail them.

Protests in and of themselves are baby steps toward solving the dilemma. Maybe the solution is for the larger culture to actively end the sub-culture’s activities.