5taken

DEMOCRACY DEPENDS ON
INFORMED CITIZENRY

our entire way of life in America depends on the rule of law, that the maintenance of that law is a hard

in this country we don't have soldiers in the streets or militias setting the rules

they were assigned to protect and keep orderly a peaceful protest in response to the killing of Alton Sterling of Baton Rouge and Philando Castile of Minnesota

the targeting of police by the shooter here, an act not just of demented violence, but of racial hatred.

We wonder if an African American community that feels unfairly targeted by police and police departments that feel unfairly maligned for doing their jobs, can ever understand each other's experience

I'm here to insist that we are not as divided as we seem. And I know that because I know America. I know how far we've come against impossible odds

Mayor Rawlings and Chief Brown, a white man and a black man with different backgrounds, work not just to restore order and support a shaken city, a shaken department, but work together to unify a city with strength and grace and wisdom.

I see what's possible when we recognize that we are one American family, all deserving of equal treatment. All deserving equal respect. All children of God. That's the America I know.

I'm reminded of a passage in John's Gospel, "let us love, not with words or speech, but with actions and in truth

we ask the police to do too much and we ask too little of ourselves

As a society, we choose to under-invest in decent schools. We allow poverty to fester so that entire neighborhoods offer no prospect for gainful employment. We refuse to fund drug treatment and mental health programs.

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