FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Richard Millington, Director of Communications
Email: caribbeaninstitute@gmail.com
New York Caribbean Institute Calls for Dallas Police officer who killed St. Lucian national in his own home to be charged with murder
BROOKLYN: BROOKLYN: The New York based Caribbean Guyana Institute for Democracy (CGID) on Friday harshly condemned the killing of 26 year-old St. Lucian national and Dallas, Texas resident, Botham Shem Jean. Jean was shot and killed around 10:00 p.m Thursday night, September 6, 2018 in his own home, by a female Dallas police officer. The officer told investigators that she returned home from her shift and entered the wrong apartment in her building.
In a statement issued Friday, CGID President, Rickford Burke, said the officer’s negligent, reckless conduct and depraved indifference to human life resulted in murder. He consequently called on Dallas District Attorney Faith Johnson to prosecute the officer accordingly and to the fullest extent of the law.
Burke said “the culture of policing that has emerged in black communities all across America is one where cops shoot to kill first, then ask questions after.” He asserted that “Police officers are killing black men while walking innocently on the streets, driving innocently in our cars and now while living innocently in our own home. This is too much for a people to bear. CGID therefore calls on the US Justice Department to review and revise the protocols for armed engagement by law enforcement in America.”
Burke said “CGID intends to write our US Senators and Members of Congress from New York, to push for a national review and reform of protocols on how and when law enforcement officers engage in the use of force. This is long overdue. How many more black men must be killed before we take action?” Burke posited that “politicians who sit by and do nothing about the epidemic of law enforcement murders of innocent black men are equally complicit in these killings and should be held to account.”
Dallas police department Friday issued a statement claiming that the officer called for help and told responding officers “she entered the victim’s apartment believing that it was her own.” The incident took place at South Side Flats, an upscale apartment complex located in downtown, Dallas, a few blocks from Police headquarters.
Dallas Police said the officer was in full uniform and “fired her weapon striking the victim who was transported to hospital where he was pronounced dead. Burke blasted the Dallas Police for not releasing details about how the officer reached into Jean’s apartment and whether a breathalyzer was administered, as would have been the case with an ordinary citizen. He also questioned how Jean’s name was released to the public when Police simultaneously confirmed that the next of kin notification was not made.
The CGID head said the officer’s story is inexplicable and implausible. Emphasizing that Caribbean community believes the officer’s account strains credulity, Burke questioned its veracity saying “if she went to the wrong apartment how did she make initial contact with Mr. Jean? How do you mistakenly shoot your neighbor who you see and presumably interact with regularly, without recognizing him? “The Dallas Police chief expressly stated that her department is no longer pursuing a “police involved shooting investigation,” but is seeking a warrant pursuant to a manslaughter investigation. Clearly the police evidence suggests that this is not an accident and that the officer’s account contradicts the evidence. Hence, in the interest of transparency CGID calls on the Dallas Police Department to stop disseminating misinformation and disclosed the facts and circumstances of Mr. Jean’s death forthwith, lest it is viewed as concealment,” Burke contended.
the US to study accounting at Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas. He also studied at the Sir Arthur Lewis Community College, in Castries, St. Lucia before migrating to the US. At the time of his death, he worked in Dallas as a risk assurance associate for accounting firm Price Waterhouse Coopers.
CGID Has called on all Caribbean American organizations and nationals to condemn Jean’s killing and to support and express solidarity with his family.
–END—
687 responses to “Dallas Police Officer Murders St. Lucian”
@David September 11, 2018 11:28 AM “Not sure anybody cares except the family.”
I do care.
It is always a tragedy when a young person dies.
I would wish for ALL of our young men [and women] to grow old, and to die quietly in their own beds of old, old age.
So yes. Some of us do care.
SS still able to do 5 or 6 hrs weeding with a hoe????? that is no way to talk about a significant other lol. is that not being disrespectful to kin
Oh Yes, WhiteHill wants to get on you alright! five to six hours of weeding with a hoe, I can well imagine you swinging a small ax for 5 mins. Just when I thought you’d put aside your disdain for us and is going out on a limb for this executed son. Maybe your feelings are only geared toward older men. Let me know if 5 mins with a small ax is good enough or you can swing it for much longer.
It is only 12:49 and lawson has already had too much to drink.
The Canadian authorities should go back to the good old days when alcohol was not served until noon, and Lord help us they are adding marijuana to the mix in just a few weeks time.
Don’t know what is going to become of our lawson after October 17th.
@whiteHill September 11, 2018 12:53 PM ” I can well imagine you swinging a small ax for 5 mins.”
5 minutes?
Five minutes?
Lolll!!!
I have to tell you I am dreading it,the govt is gonna put a lot of brothers out of work, it was like if they lowered the net in basketball, all so trudeau can get more votes, he is probably right in thinking he is more palatable when people are stoned.
@SS you do love these pithy nonsequitar type non-contextual ripostes…😂
I merely SURMISED if any possible impairment was due to abje tiredness…pls read with awareness!
But also note that the work of a PO on any one shift can be abjectly tiresome physically and mentally.
It’s a ridiculously SIMPLISTIC to compare police work to most other standard occupations….
But u want to do ur Simple Simon ting of high indignation yet totally off-based responses…. carry on smartly.
lol..don’t mind Lawson, he is already drinking up the Cannabis beer.
DPD they did say she had just completed a 15 hour day. Even at 30 years old that’s a stint.
PLT,
I’m afraid most people are missing your points. They still believe your comments about racism apply to the shooter rather than the system. These incidents are usually under reported even by the liberal media. That they quickly accepted the officer’s account is their default position. It’s just ingrained in their psyche. Only black people know better because of their experiences.
@ Donna, PLT has NO valid points – he has made up his mind, and as you may gather from his many pontifications, the possibility that he might be wrong has never occurred to him, and anything other than a conviction for racist murder in this case will not satisfy him. Just the sort of person one doesn’t want in any position of authority, who is already doing what he is accusing the Dallas police and Texas Rangers of doing – molding the evidence to fit his own prejudices.
Blacks HAVE been subject to a myriad of great injustices by the systems (run by whites) – but that is NO excuse for injustices to be perpetrated against their historical oppressors to satisfy some primordial thirst for revenge, and to perpetuate and exacerbate racial division.
Racists like PLT and WARU are vultures – they want no harmony ever.
Blacks HAVE been subject to a myriad of great injustices by the systems (run by whites)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
New understatement of the Century.
….but that is NO excuse for injustices to be perpetrated against their historical oppressors to satisfy some primordial thirst for revenge, and to perpetuate and exacerbate racial division.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Best bullshit statement of the Century so far….
Agree that this story has bern escalated by the media on a racist tone
But then again the media is driven by numbers to sell news
There is a picture circulating social media showing Jean in a group photo with the police officer
@45govt September 12, 2018 4:06 AM
It is a pity that you cannot understand simple sentences written in English. I enjoy only one thing more than learning something new, so the possibility that I might be wrong is ever present and I am delighted when someone shows me that I have made an error. DPD did so in this very thread and I thanked him. You, unfortunately, have been utterly unable to come up with anything more substantive than ad hominem attacks.
As Donna points out, you completely miss the point of what I have posted which vividly illustrates the structural nature of institutional bias. I never once accused officer Guyger of racism, but you spewed your venom against me for something I never said. In fact I went out of my way to explain to Mariposa that “The racism that is apparent is structural not personal.”
Your latest post does contain a nugget of truth. and for that I commend you: “Blacks HAVE been subject to a myriad of great injustices by the systems (run by whites)…” However you missed an important bit, Blacks HAVE been, AND CONTINUE TO BE, subject to a myriad of great injustices by the systems (run by whites).
So Bushie, you DO want permanent victimhood and revenge to be the defining characteristics for our future?
45govt September 12, 2018 9:00 AM
No. We just want justice to be the defining characteristic for our future.
Victimhood?
Boss, that is the very least of Bushie’s problems…
Revenge…?
Is that the process of avoiding being RE-enslaved…?
Skippa… anyone can trick Bushie once – the Bushman is trusting…
A few can trick Bushie twice …. Bushie has been known to be forgiving…
But for CENTURIES now…. yuh mean de same old, same old, shiite.???!!!
Come on 45G …. Not stinking Bushie…
You can try Dribbles though….
PLT – you want justice you claim, but not for officer Guyger, eh? WHEN she is convicted of racist murder, she should get the needle. UNTIL then, there is a presumption of innocence. I am astonished that you simply don’t get that.
I trust you were as outraged when Micah Johnson shot and killed FIVE white Dallas POs and wounded NINE others in 2016 because he “wanted to kill white police officers”. Being as even-handed as you are, I feel sure you devoted as much vitriol towards him as Guyger…. perhaps you can show us?
@45govt
Please read what I wrote rather that making things up. I wrote that she should be charged with second or third degree murder because it is reasonably clear that it was not premeditated. There is no death penalty for those charges. Until she has been tried she is presumed innocent. Micah Johnson’s offense was first degree murder on the other hand so he does face the death penalty if he has been convicted.
@PLT – I DID read what you said – let me remind you of it.
“This is an example of White privilege in toxic combination with police impunity. In other words a perfectly routine example. She murdered him in cold blood then made up a cover story. The police department swallowed her clearly fabricated bullshit because that is what they always do.
It is entertaining watching the racists swallowing the police bullshit only to have to incrementally walk it all back as Amber Guyger’s stupid lies shrivel up as soon as they are exposed to light.”
No prejudgement there then! You are a sad joke, and a liar.
PTL most understand that racism is rooted and srtuctural
But for anyone to be pointing racism in this case is unwarranted
It might be that black or white officers are held to a different standard during procedure than average citizens
Is it right . No!
@ Peter Lawrence Thompson
Your comments are being made o small island men (and women) who have not left the rock for all of their lives.
They have never been in a car ful of black people driving in a car in a state where they dont know their destination and EVEN WITH GPS find themselves driving slowly because of myst in the road and get pulled over and searched because they are blacks in a “racist” state.
Nor do they find themselves in a BMW with a convertible roof driving along the I*** and get pulled over because “the car and a black man driving means drugdealer”
Nor being in a house with a distressed female who has panic attacks and calling the Ambulance and the accompanying cops (yes depending on where you live the ambilances will call for cops) come in the house with holster clips off their glocks and stand with hands on weapons…
You are wasting your time when you tell them that this incident is one of white privilege and inbuilt immunity that impacts on the process of investigation BECAUSE THESE KILLER COPS ARE WHITE.
You have spent alot of time here with these racists.
I am in a way surprised at my friend DpD who KNOWS what you are talking about yet…
Leave the efffers alone PLT and as Thomas grey says
“…To each his sufferings: all are men,
Condemned alike to groan,
The tender for another’s pain;
The unfeeling for his own.
Yet ah! why should they know their fate?
Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies.
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more; where ignorance is bliss,
‘Tis folly to be wise…”
@45govt September 12, 2018 10:10 AM
Even when you actually quote me rather than making stuff up you have no understanding of plain sentences in English. Everything in that quote is categorically true…
The “White privilege in toxic combination with police impunity” led the police to issue statements which simply parroted the excuses offered by the accused as if they were facts before they actually interviewed witnesses, as well as avoid arresting Guyger for several days. Can you imagine? There is no more obvious case of “White privilege in toxic combination with police impunity” imaginable.
Murder is clearly defined in US statutes as one of a type act, known collectively as homicide, which result in the death of a victim. If it is intentional and premeditated the charge is first degree murder; if the intentional but not premeditated the charge is second degree murder; if it is neither intentional nor premeditated thge charge is manslaughter. The homicide may be justifiable in the eyes of the court and be ruled a justifiable homicide. Guyger’s actions were, according to the officer herself, intentional but not premeditated: therefore second degree murder. In Texas first degree murder is called “capital murder” because the perpetrator can get the death sentence. Non capital, or second degree, murder is Texas is simply called “murder.” In order to get a murder conviction the prosecutor must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that:
* Guyger intentionally and knowingly caused the death of Jean;
* or that Guyger intended to cause serious bodily injury to Jean and committed an act that was clearly dangerous to human life and this act caused his death.
Therefore the charge should clearly be that “she murdered him in cold blood” (in Texas there is a crime of passion defence which would be in “hot blood”).
The racists that I referred to were the ones “… swallowing the police bullshit…” not officer Guyger. This does not mean that everyone swallowing the police bulshit are necessarily racist, just that I read many racists that were.
@45govt
If you want the difference between manslaughter and murder under Texas law explained to you by an actual Texas lawyer, rather than by someone whose only legal qualification is being able to read the statute, you can go to https://medlinfirm.com/blog/the-difference-between-manslaughter-and-murder-in-texas/ to see that everything that I’ve told you is true.
@45govt September 12, 2018 10:10 AM
@PLT – I DID read what you said – let me remind you of it.
“This is an example of White privilege in toxic combination with police impunity. In other words a perfectly routine example. She murdered him in cold blood then made up a cover story. The police department swallowed her clearly fabricated bullshit because that is what they always do.
It is entertaining watching the racists swallowing the police bullshit only to have to incrementally walk it all back as Amber Guyger’s stupid lies shrivel up as soon as they are exposed to light.”
No prejudgement there then! You are a sad joke, and a liar.”
No more a joke and a lie than what happened in the Steve Biko case during the apartheid white regime in South Africa.
Didn’t the same white regime security guards (aka police force) claim -with international white support- that the poor young black man died from being on hunger strike and then attempted suicide in which he succeeded?
@miller, oh c’mon Biko was 41 years ago in racist SA. Why not go back further and decry the hanging of escaped slaves in the deep South? Or the transportation of and working to death of Scotch Irish slaves in Barbados, the hanging of horse thieves in the Old West, the mass murder of the Jews in Nazi Germany…..oh sorry, they were all white, weren’t they?
NO-ONE has a monopoly of evil, and while the inhuman treatment for, prejudice against and denial of human rights to blacks in modern America is insupportable, none of them were shoved (often alive) in
industrial numbers into ovens to my knowledge.
Let us try and retain some perspective.
to follow up on what piece said and answer his question …if you have a car full of black people who is driving? ….usually a cop
nobody gives a shit about your own people killed in jamaica cause then you would have to explore the possibility that black on black murders far out pace any white cop shootings
Jean did everything he was supposed to do, went to school, got a job, was highly spoken of by his employer and his church community, a quintessential choir boy or a subset of the “magical negro”.
Yet, he is at home minding his business and is cut down by an armed assailant who happened to wear a Police uniform. If the situation was reversed in the open carry State of Texas and he saw an intruder at his door and shot only to discover it is a female Police Officer what would be his fate?
This was published 2 years ago….
“The truth is that the raw statistics can’t tell us whether the police are treating African Americans differently from white people. To understand that, we’d need to look at more details about what happened in each incident. There’s a big difference between a case where someone was shooting at the police, and a case where someone was passive and unarmed.
One person who has tried to do that is an economist from Harvard University called Roland Fryer, the first ever African American to win the prestigious John Bates Clark medal in economics. This month Fryer released a preliminary study examining records from 10 cities and counties, with the best data coming from Houston – it’s not yet peer-reviewed, but it has received a lot of attention in the press.
Fryer’s research suggests that African Americans and Hispanics are substantially more likely to experience force in their interactions with the police – such as having a gun pointed at them, being handcuffed without arrest, or being pepper-sprayed or hit with a baton. This racial difference is reduced, but doesn’t completely disappear, when Fryer adds all sorts of statistical controls such as whether the incident was indoors or outdoors, in a high-crime area, took place at night, and so on.
However, Fryer doesn’t find any racial difference in the cases where police offers actually shoot someone.
The debate over this continues, both on the streets and in academia.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/magazine-36826297
The disproportionate black on black crime also has its roots in oppression. No race has a monopoly on evil. There will be crime committed by all races but much of the violent crime committed by blacks in oppressed societies is caused by hopelessness and self-loathing born of systemic racism. If we have a more equitable society there will be less violent crime.
And that is why we focus on the racist system rather than black on black crime. One creates the conditions for the other. Hence if we make inroads into one we put a dent in the other.
I remember when OJ simpson was treated with kid glovesby the LA police dept in the early stages of the during the double murders investigation
All remember the Highway “chase” with vivid pictures of him being treated like royalty
45govt September 12, 2018 1:14 PM
Thanks for posting something substantive. Here is Fryer’s actual research paper. http://www.nber.org/papers/w22399.pdf
Dr. Justin Feldman from Harvard says that the research is “… highly flawed, however. It suffers from major theoretical and methodological errors, and he has communicated the results to news media in a way that is misleading.” https://scholar.harvard.edu/jfeldman/blog/roland-fryer-wrong-there-racial-bias-shootings-police
As you note, Fryer’s work has not yet appeared in a peer reviewed journal even over two years after first being promoted in the media, but he has made changes to the paper as recently as last January, presumably to address critiques from peer reviewers.
Fryer is not a criminologist, nor is Feldman. The discussion is political.
I knew that study had to be flawed. It would indeed be a miracle if the racial bias did not show itself in the shootings. It just wouldn’t be logical. In a perceived high pressure situation where there is less time for thought it would be even MORE LIKELY to manifest itself.
@ 45Govt
Freyer is at Howard University and HAS TO BE POLITICALLY CORRECT else the University WILL SUFFER THE BACKLASH of a Black University being uppity.
But as per the very item you used to quote I will requote “…Fryer’s research suggests that African Americans and Hispanics are SUBSTANTIALLY MORE LIKELY to experience force in their interactions with the police – such as having a gun pointed at them, being handcuffed without arrest, or being pepper-sprayed or hit with a baton. This racial difference is reduced, BUT DOESN’T COMPLETELY DISAPPEAR…”
What we IN THE COLOUR OF OUR SKING ARE PUTTING TO YOU IS THAT THIS IS INSTUTIONALIZED RACISM that operates insidiously and without restraint in America & the UK and Canada because it is a right of passage for white people.
You do not AND CANNOT SEE THIS BECAUSE YOU ARE WHITE but we live there from the time that we are born until we die.
“…In late 1959, John Howard Griffin went to a friend’s house in New Orleans, Louisiana. Once there, under the care of a dermatologist, Griffin underwent a regimen of large oral doses of the anti-vitiligo drug methoxsalen, and spending up to fifteen hours daily under an ultraviolet lamp.[2] When he could pass as an African American, Griffin began a six-week journey in the South. Don Rutledge traveled with him, documenting the experience with photos…”
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/52/Black_Like_Me.jpg
“…“Once again a ‘hate stare’ drew my attention like a magnet. It came from a middle-aged, heavyset, well-dressed white man. He sat a few yards away, fixing his eyes on me. Nothing can describe the withering horror of this. You feel lost, sick at heart before such unmasked hatred, not so much because it threatens you as because it shows humans in such an inhuman light. You see a kind of insanity, something so obscene the very obscenity of it (rather than its threat) terrifies you. It was so new I could not take my eyes from the man’s face. I felt like saying, ‘What in God’s name are you doing to yourself?” ― John Howard Griffin, Black Like Me
These white apologists WILL NEVER EVER UNDERSTAND irrespective of how eloquently you or i speak.
It is a Bridge Too Far
@Hal Austin September 12, 2018 2:10 PM
Both Fryer and Feldman are statisticians, the former in economics, the latter in epidemiology. As with all statistically based arguments, garbage in, garbage out. Police departments sabotage the collection of good data because it might make them look bad, so academics are reduced to constructing elaborate statistical arguments based on fatally flawed primary data.
@Mariposa, yes we all remember OJ literally getting away with murder and the cries of “loose the juice” , but I cannot recall the white riots or cries of racism at the white police for their kid glove treatment of the murdering POS and I suspect a lower socio-economic white perp might well have been shot.
PLT
Fryer is listed as a professor of economics. He is not recorded as a criminologist.
wondering why the man was looking intensely at me then I noticed my fly was down…. stop… that was 60 years ago a very different time…not totally different … but mostly different ….believe it or not a lot of the people you easily call racists voted for obama , the cops go about their jobs helping and protecting people of all stripes even though called racists and despised..by people like you. You know when your in a bar and a guy is dressed up like a chick and thinks he is fooling everyone in the place well I am suspect that people really thought this guy was black.or could fool real persons of color.As I said before it was a different time maybe people were stupider back then..
Are the public servants compiling the disaggregated crime database just making up stuff? Are theypart of some racist “deep state”?
Black males of prime age comprise about 4% of the US population but are responsible for more than 50% of all the homicides. Is this just some statistical sophistry?
It appears the American media is just beginning to catch up to me. This sort of analysis should have been published the day after the incident.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/09/amber-guyger-botham-jean-shooting-police-must-face-impartial-justice/
“This sort of analysis should have been published the day after the incident.”
Not everyone is wired to jump to the racist card. It IS because he was black that drives you, isn’t it?
They will be going over Jean’s history with a fine- tooth comb, if he has so much as a jay walking ticket they will want to make it look like he committed a felony.
The “why did he not comply”? is standard Police defense for unlawful shootings where black people are involved. Already we are hearing about he didn’t respond to her verbal commands even though she was in his apartment unlawfully and the jury may very well buy it, when it looks cut and dried get ready for a surprise.
@45govt September 12, 2018 4:29 PM
You obviously did not bother to read the article in National Review, which is a conservative magazine. They played no racist card just as I played no racist card. The article is about the fact that Guyger’s explanation makes no sense, that the police were wrong to delay 3 days in arresting her, that the charge should obviously be murder rather than manslaughter, and that upon entering Jean’s apartment she was breaking and entering so there was absolutely no reason for Jean to obey her commands as a police officer.
Hmmmm here is a respected conservative American magazine which makes exactly the same points as I did so you say they “… jump to the racist card.” Interesting.
Sargeant,
Why didn’t she listen to me is also the primary defence in domestic violence. It is the woman (usually the victim) who caused me to beat her up. Same thing with the police. These aggressive, big, muscular black men had me in fear and I shot him in order to protect myself and my colleagues.
Very curious when she turned lights on she saw it was not her apt then how could she see it was a black man and not the Cheshire Cat. Something doesn’t pass the sniff test but if anyone thinks that she not going to make up some justification no matter if it was another woman an Asian or a catholic she shot Like flight or fight she is stuck and has to come up with a reasonable scenario but it will be picked apart over time
@PLT, I continue to be amazed at your prosecution of this case…yes the author at the Nat Rev wrote a piece that agrees with your posts of these last few days but lo and behold he also agreed with one of my rebuttals of your main moot and too with some of the views of others (45govt and Lawson mainly)…so thus I ask…whats the big deal.
Your position that the entire affairs beggars belief is fully accepted (by me at least) but my disagreement with you is the line of reasoning you use to get to your place of comfort, so to speak.
Your agreeing author noted “There is a chance that the grand jury will increase the charge to murder, so the early manslaughter charge is tentative.” …and later went on to add the crucial rejoinder (my emphasis) …“What’s done is done, and the delayed arrest SHOULDN’T HAVE ANY ULTIMATE IMPACT on the prosecution…”
Reasonable and practical folks agree with your basic thrust that police officers must face the weight of the law when they commit crimes just as an average citizen must but you are being ridiculously provocative to argue that they will NOT be treated more defferentially at point of arrest. Frankly, it’s a NON ARGUMENT as its so unrealistic!
Your writer also offers this worthy summary: “…At present there’s no evidence that Amber Guyger woke up Thursday morning intending to kill anyone. One can certainly feel a degree of sympathy for a person who makes a terrible mistake. But sympathy must not be allowed to cloud the quest for justice. Guyger’s blue uniform should not grant her a single advantage in the investigation and prosecution to come.”
WHERE have you or any of us been given the impression that she will be granted any such advantage in the case to come ???
Let’s repeat with emphasis: “…the delayed arrest SHOULDN’T HAVE ANY ULTIMATE IMPACT on the prosecution…”
You make a huge rhetorical mountain of a tragic mole hill!
@de pedantic Dribbler September 12, 2018 6:04 PM
My rhetorical mountain is not about this single particular case… it is about the wider social context in which it takes place. Of course the delayed arrest should not have any ultimate impact on Guyger’s fate, but it has an enormous effect on the social context because not only must justice be done it must be seen to be done. The police conduct that “beggars belief” utterly destroys the ability of those police officers who ARE fair and unbiased to do their job effectively.
The foundation of civilization is not law, it is trust… the laws are just a bunch of rules that are impotent to create a just society in the absence of trust. Guyger made a tragic error… but it is her lies, the incompetence of her own department, the obfuscations of authorities, and the embarrassment of the Texas Rangers issuing a warrant which parrots the excuses of the perpetrator and does not mention the evidence of a single other witness… these are the things which demolish trust and thereby destroy the possibility of a just society.
If Americans cannot get a grip on the forces which propel these aberrations there is little hope for the survival of American civilization. That’s a pity, because for all its faults, there is much that is valuable about American civilization.
So you see my rhetorical mountain is even higher than you suspected.