Just when I think that I’m inclined to think that as a society that we’ve reached the level of being immune to shock value, I find that the bar is progressively lowered further with each passing day. The reality of each passing news cycle seems to dictate that we are powerless to stop this slippery slope that we collectively find ourselves sliding down.
We seem to go from crisis to crisis without the proverbial wound ever being able to adequately heal before the next one is foisted upon us. We were still in the process of trying to make sense of what transpired in Newton, Connecticut, when a manifesto posted on Facebook written by former LAPD officer Christopher J. Dorner became the latest sobering news headline to grab our attention, horror and disgust.
As with anything, there are many layers to the proverbial onion as Dormer’s rage was directed at the LAPD terminating him from their ranks in lieu of claims that he falsified a report of a civilian being abused by a fellow officer. It was the contention of Dorner that the LAPD hasn’t changed since the Ramparts and Rodney King days, when the department was known as a bastion of institutional racism. Logically speaking, Dorner’s opting to utilize violence and murdering innocent people as forum to enunciate his rage over his perceived his treatment at the hands of the LAPD doesn’t add up.
Admittedly, racism is a noxious ugly thing, but sadly we shouldn’t be surprised when it rears its ugly head, but it is incumbent on the person who is on the receiving end of racism to be bigger than the institution or individual(s) that would attempt to strip away their humanity and relegate them to the status of worthlessness.
As a person of color I would be remiss to say that I haven’t encountered the harsh reality of racism during my time on this Earth, it has happened more that I care to admit. There have been instances where I’ve been called everything but a child of God, but fortunately my parents taught me early on that I had to have enough sense for myself and for those people that I would utimatelty encounter that would have a pronounced shortage of it. Fortunately, it never drove me to the point of blinding and unrelentless rage.
Sadly, it was the intent of Dorner (he claims) in this misdirected rampage to get his name and his reputation back. Rather than doing what he said he aspired to do, he made another name for himself, that of a madman.
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