"Law and Order"...racism at it's finest!

I watched "Law and Order" tonight and once again I was blown away by the blatant racism on American television. The episode featured the story of a white woman who encouraged her sons to stand up for themselves when their basketball was stolen by a black kid at a neighborhood park. The sub-story was that affluent people (presumably the "bad" white folks) were moving into a black impoverished neighborhood in the name of rejuvenating the inner city. I assume the idea was to rid the city of criminal elements, but the way it was played out, poor people were being displaced by rich people and somehow that was an injustice. I guess only poor people are allowed to live in U.S. cities... Or perhaps they are ENTITLED to live there because they have managed to chase everyone else away. Anyway, this woman drove the three white kids back to the park to retrieve their ball, but expecting that the thieves might have knives,(ya think? It's only the inner city!) she told her boys to arm them selves with baseball bats. When they arrive at the court the boy who STOLE their basketball claimed he didn't have it and one of the white boys began to chase him with the baseball bat. (Bad Move) The father of the thief saw his son being chased by the kid with a bat and he did what any self respecting black, impoverished American would do...he pulled a gun and shot the assailant killing an innocent bystander in the process. (apparently being impoverished doesn't preclude one from amassing the funds necessary to procure a firearm) Now the white D.A. decides to try the white mother who told her kids to stand up to bullies with baseball bats, and the black father who shot them to ostensibly protect his son, THE THIEF, in the same court on the same day before the same jury. Ahhh, Solomon in all his wisdom couldn't have planned it better. And in the end, they both receive identical sentences. It seems that NBC would have us believe that standing up to a bully is as egregious an offense as killing one. The suggested response to a bully, according to this program, would be to go to the authorities with the problem. That one really got me laughing. I live in a suburb of Los Angeles and if I walked into the police station to complain that a kid on a public basketball court stole my kids basketball, I'd get laughed out of the station. In all honesty I wouldn't send my kid into a predominantly black neighborhood to confront a bully with a baseball bat. In a sane world I'd want to confront the kid or his parent myself but I'd be afraid to in a predominantly black, thug infested neighborhood. Teenagers rightfully hate it when mommy gets involved, so I'd probably stand by feeling helpless and watch them do what any self respecting white kid would do in that situation. Leave the public park to the gangs and find or build a safe court somewhere else. Of course then we'd be racist for having a more exclusive basketball court. The truth is that programs like this do little to ease racial tensions because they focus on race and socioeconomics and fail to look at the real cause of the problem. Law abiding people have no defense against criminals who are "lawless". The police are ill-equipped and disinclined to act until blood is shed or life is lost. That is the brutal truth. The problem isn't black or white or brown or rich or poor...it is navy blue and wears a shield. It is a broken legal system and it is a National media that instigates and perpetuates the hatred every chance it gets. Face it America, poverty is a problem for every ethnicity, and if we don't quit thinking in color and start thinking and acting with integrity the only "Law and Order" we'll ever see is what the television is dishing out, and that is one foul tasting dish.

The Blastometer is off the charts.