Stopping violence: Listen to our police chiefs

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Violence in our disadvantaged communities struck again in Baton Rouge, this time taking the life of LSU basketball player Wayde Sims who stepped in to a fistfight to defend his friend just off Southern University’s campus last Friday night.
Sims was loved by many in Baton Rouge as he was “a young athlete from the community, playing at our great university — with potential and what he represented.”
When asked for comment, Baton Rouge Police Chief Murphy Paul said “I believe in my heart that we’re dealing with a young generation of men that needs a change of heart — and the only institutions that I know of that are in the heart business are faith and family. It starts at home.”
We should listen very closely to Chief Paul and other police chiefs, as they are on the front lines of the war zones in the disadvantaged communities of America. What is striking is that they are all giving us the same message; consider the following.
Former New York Police Commissioner William Bratton stated that “We have, unfortunately, a very large population of many young black people who have grown up in an environment in which the traditional norms and values are not there . . . Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s 1965 report (regarding the Great Society programs) warning that the disintegration of the black family could lead to other social ills such as the disintegration of values, was right on the money.”
Former Dallas Police Chief David Brown, an African-American, stated in 2016 that “ Every societal failure, we put it on the cops to solve . . . schools fail, give it to the cops; 70 percent of the African-American community is being raised by single women, let’s give it to the cops to solve as well. That’s too much to ask. I just ask other parts of our democracy along with the press to help us.”
There is a biblical saying that “you reap what you sow”. The disintegration of the disadvantaged family unit and the removal of God from our schools is now sowing much chaos in America. We need to take an honest look at the governments “Great Society” policies that over the last 50 years has encouraged out of wedlock childbirths and not working.
Religion and family are the traditional sources of authority, and guide behavior by establishing norms and imposing limits. We need to rebuild our disadvantaged family units and get back to the basics of teaching our youth the proper behavior standards — which, as Chief Paul stated, “it starts at home.”
Steve Gardes is a certified public accountant (CPA) and certified valuation analyst (CVA) with over 40 years of public accounting experience.