Readers Write (Aug. 14): Policing and race, Comcast and customer service

I read with great interest the two opposing opinions from former Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak and Katherine Kersten regarding policing in Minnesota and Black Lives Matter ("The moment of truth," Aug. 7). Oftentimes, two sides to an issue are perceived, but in reality there are many more views than just two. Here, we have a clearer line. If you support BLM, you are going with Rybak's view, which could be summed up as "there are lots of videos of black men being shot, so police are racist." Kersten's view states that blacks initiate more contact with police through their own choices to commit crimes; therefore, they have more negative interactions with the police. She backs up her statements with facts.

Folks, I promise you that this issue will never, ever get better if you align with Rybak. Only by acknowledging the facts can we ever hope to make things better. As it is now, Kersten suggests that increased crime and suspicion are a direct result of Rybak's view. We've seen it already, as adoption of lax policing efforts have already resulted in more crime, in Baltimore, Ferguson, Mo., and Minneapolis, as well as any other place BLM has a presence. I honestly don't see how one can deny the numbers. If the supporters of BLM continue to "deny til they die," as one black Ferguson resident stated that her black neighbors do, there can be no progress. My prediction is that some people will read Kersten's opinion, scoff, then continue believing a fiction, then wonder what we can do about policing, then the cycle will start again. Just a big, unbroken circle.

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I believe that the arguments made in Kersten's commentary completely miss the point. It's been suggested many times that blacks are arrested more often because they commit a disproportionate share of crime. But this statement, and the opinion piece as a whole, don't address the true issue.

The most important question we must address is why such a disproportionately high number of blacks in the U.S. are stuck in a social and economic situation where committing crime is more prevalent. The revelation that I've taken away from Black Lives Matter is that, rather than arguing about what it means to seek justice (whatever that means to you), we as a society need to figure out the underlying cause of the racial divide. I believe that the reason we haven't fixed this racial inequality, including the "achievement gap," is that it's a very hard problem. But the answer won't come unless we each do some real soul-searching.

Rather than stating that shootings are justified by statistics that show that one group commits crimes at a higher rate than another, let's look deeper into the underlying racial inequalities. Let's stop arguing our own point of view and ask ourselves what we are doing, or not doing, that perpetuates racism. How am I, a white person who never owned a slave or directed any racist remark at a black person, contributing to this seemingly intractable racial divide?

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Vividly demonstrated are the theoretical vs. the practical; the qualitative vs. the quantitative; the rhetorical vs. the specific — and, consequently, the limited degree to which logical actions can be implemented and accountability specified.

• Rybak advocates "common ground" and "fraternity," and acknowledges "we have failed to solve deeper issues." Kersten observes: Folks, it's "get real time" — we are paying a price for ignoring reality, including the demographics of crime.

• Rybak states that police in America are more likely to shoot a black man than a white man. Kersten states that nearly all black homicide victims are killed by other blacks — and that young black men are in danger all right, but not from police.

Liberals perennially advocate searches for "root causes." Rybak dabbles with crime and race reality and the failure to solve deeper issues when he theorizes that "an African-American woman holds her baby boy in her arms and wonders what extraordinary steps she must take to simply have him live to be an adult." But liberal politics and political correctness prevent honest confrontation of the fact that 7 out of 10 African-American boys are born to single mothers (although, America's "family breakdown" phenomenon is not solely a black one.)

Until such "deeper issues" are realistically dealt with by the political class, there is little basis for optimism as to alleviation of America's "crime and race" calamity.

Depending upon upbringing, background and learned values, I'm sure each of us reacted differently to the perspectives offered by Rybak and Kersten. My own take on the discussion leads me to conclude that is there is some truth in each of their viewpoints.

I've never experienced what it is like to be a black citizen in a predominantly white country, nor have black people likely experienced what it's like for a Jew to have experienced antisemitic remarks and comments. I'm sure Muslims, Asians, Hispanics, etc., each have regularly experienced similar prejudices and discrimination — the point being that each of us brings our own truths and attitudes based upon what we've experienced.

I don't believe most police officers target people of color. I believe that their behavior toward black people is a result of their experiences and conditioning based upon what they've been forced to deal with and respond to. In other words, there is some truth in Kersten's frankly stated comment: "Blacks are arrested more often, on average, because they commit a hugely disproportionate share of the crime." If Black Lives Matter were to acknowledge the high incidence of black crime, it would have many more people on its bandwagon, to be sure.

Similarly, I do believe that police react more quickly and violently to black offenders than to white offenders. They're likely to cut less slack to black offenders, so to speak, when it comes to arrest and use of force. The point being that there is truth in what Rybak says. I'm sure a police officer's first concern is to return home safely to his or her family each night.

The conclusion I've reached is that each of us — black, white, whatever — has to honestly assess our own attitudes and beliefs. I don't consider myself a racist, but then again, if I look at myself hard enough, do I have some racist attitudes? Most likely. Does Black Lives Matter have its own prejudices and racist attitudes toward white people? Again, most likely. For us to acknowledge our attitudes, views and faults may be the first step to address the bigger issues.

This is all reminiscent of the pre-breakup phone industry, in which telecommunication services were provided by the various Bell companies across the country. Baby boomers will certainly remember Lily Tomlin's character, Ernestine, whose slogan was, "We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company."