The best I can do for them, is to do the best I can for me.
The last post, “Dwight C. Wells,” sent me into a hell of a funk.
The black condition in America will not change until black people change their ways. I despair that this will ever happen.
The MLK Day debacle in Miami continues the pattern I’ve seen from the 1960s to the present, of black self-destruction betraying non-black goodwill: blacks engage in self-destruction, people get angry, and those who are angered who aren’t black are condemned as racist. I don’t know what conversation I can have with Dwight Wells to persuade him that it’s not wise for children to play in traffic.
The overall murder rate in the U.S. is 5.3 per 100,000; half of those deaths being black, but blacks being only 1/8 of the population; the black-on-black murder rate is 21.20 per 100,000, as opposed to 3.03 for whites. (For the derivation, see here.) A black person is seven times more likely to be killed by another black, than a white person is to be killed by anyone. This doesn’t seem to bother them. It bothers the hell out of whites.
Genetic factors may impair the development of emotional regulation: the murder rate among blacks in the U.S. matches that among blacks in South Africa. Certain other ethnic groups show the same deficiencies, such as the Travelers, who are white, and the Roma, who are white also. The same deficiencies also appear, however, in the lowest social strata of any society, regardless of ethnicity — or species.
Wikipedia says, “Adoption and twin studies indicate that 50% or more of the variance causing antisocial behavior is attributable to heredity for both males and females.”
Related: Wisdom teaching in poor black homes.
“Nature” and “nurture” are both karmic. One can change one’s karma; else everything Jesus taught was for nothing.
Saturday when I left church to walk back to the shelter, I was distraught. What can I possibly do about any of this? Or, at least, how could I get myself out of this funk? I would recall
— that I am best to focus my attention on what
I personally can
do now.
That kind of murder rate indicates a severe lack of love in that community.
Love for others, I’ve said many times, can only begin with love for oneself.
But where does self-love come from? As I have also said before, it’s so fundamental that most of us never give it any thought, or are even aware of it. At this moment, it seems to me it can be as simple as choosing to be happy. How can that not be self-love? How can one really love oneself if one will not do it? Choosing even as simple a thing as I saw this afternoon, to see the beauty or seek to the beauty that can exist in the world.
Related: Choose happiness
Then if I am to love those who live in distress in a world where love is hard to find, I likewise must begin with love for myself.
I need to be seeking a better life for myself.
Any laxness in this duty to myself is a laxness in my duty to these others.
What can I do for myself today?
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