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Janalu Jeanes (Parchman)

Lance,

So sorry to hear about darling Dixie!  Your sweet son must be heartbroken.  

Did you tell him that he could go to the animal shelter to pick out another one soon?  There are SO many who would love to play with Christopher and give him hours of laughter and kitty kisses!  I hope it is a sincere possiblity for the two of you, since you already have the climbing tower cats love to tackle!

Little Dixie would want you to do that in her memory, I'm sure. 

Does he still have the little, white Westie too?

Boys need their buddies!  Bless his heart!  Tell him I'm pulling for him to twist your arm and give in!   He'll forever remember his time playing and cuddling with his critters, I can guarantee you.  I still remember fondly all of the fur-babies my siblings and I had.  Kids learn a lot from caring for them and loving them.

Hollis Carolyn Heyn

David Cordell

Sandra,

Yes, the Lenin statue is on private property, but what sanctity does private property have in the current environment? The radical left has been vandalizing, looting, and burning down private property for weeks, and the mayors of those cities have told the police to stand down. "Let the destruction continue!"

I propose that a rowdy gang of capitalists in Brooks Brothers suits take to the streets and destroy the Lenin statue.

Meanwhile, the geniuses in San Francisco toppled a statue of Ulysses S. Grant. Maybe it was because he had a slave, whom he inherited and freed before the Civil War.

And Boston is going to remove a statue of Abraham Lincoln.

https://whdh.com/news/mayor-supports-removing-controversial-lincoln-statue-from-boston-plaza/

The radicals have won. Their violence has scared the Democrat politicians into doing whatever the radicals want. "Either you remove a statue, or we will destroy it. Well, hell, we're not going to wait, and there's nothing you can do about it. Or at least there is nothing that you are willing to do about it."

When will the left stand up and say, "This is wrong"? Why can't Democrats and Democrat mayors criticize the destruction and the people who are doing it, and use force to stop it? Why do they care more about these bad actors than they do about the law-abiding citizenry?

And PULEEEZE don't make any reference to Tiananmen Square. 

These people are bullies, and there is only one thing that bullies understand -- force. Would there be collateral damage, i.e. innocents being injured? Well, if they are hangin' with the bad guys, then they are accessories.

Antifa and the like should be destroyed. They are domestic terrorists. 

David Cordell

Statues of six American presidents in London.

https://www.guidelondon.org.uk/blog/around-london/statues-6-american-presidents-london/

Kurt Fischer

I used to live in Tulsa and have been very interested in its history, both while there and since then.

I find it amusing that our "woke" generation has discoverd the Tulsa race riots/massacre in the 1920s.  This has not been kept a secret and many books have been written regarding the events.  Many of the books date back more than 20 years ago, so the notion that only now we are discovering this horrible truth is really not accurate.

What I find more interesting is the lack of historical context which exists even for those learning about and condemning the Tulsa event.  If you go to Google and look up Race Riots in 1920s and then follow on to the Wikipedia reference for Red Summer, you will find that in a narrow timeframe there were race riots in over three dozen cities in the US in 1919.  Tulsa was one of the worst cases that followed in 1921, but there seemed to be a national movement to attack blacks and their place in society.  This was at the peak of the KKK movement.  

Perhaps I'm being a bit defensive for Tulsa, but this really was a nationwide problem and very few large cities escaped from some form of rioting against blacks.  Those from New York City, Chicago, St Louis, Washington DC, etc should consider their own historic culpability before they condemn Tulsa as a unique instance.  Here, as in many of the recent events, there is murky history for most everyone involved.

David Cordell

Kurt,

You are right, of course.

Bringing up the Black Wall Street riots in Tulsa was all about undermining Trump and his rally. Same with Juneteenth. Hardly anyone outside of Texas ever heard of Juneteenth until Trump scheduled his rally on June 19th, and all the sudden it is the most critical date in the universe. OK. He changed the date. Now, is Tulsa never to be the host of a President for all eternity? 99 years isn't enough? 199? 499?

That's the most  troublesome aspect of slavery, other than slavery itself. The history will never go away. Slavery ended over 150 years ago. In another 100 years, it will be 250 years ago. In another 100 years, it will be 350 years ago. But it will never go away. It will never leave the conversation.

By the way, Biden's response when queried about the scheduling of the rally on Juneteenth was to confuse Juneteenth with the Tulsa riots. I saw the video clip, but I'm not sure it was widely reported.

https://nypost.com/2020/06/11/biden-conflates-juneteenth-celebration-with-tulsa-massacre/

Jerry May

HAPPY FATHERS DAY!!!

David Cordell

From George Will.

Wayne Gary

David,

Good video. I think TT would be very upset and scream and yell.  I posted it on his web site.

Sandra Spieker (Ringo)

Since you guys are such ardent supporters of George Will, you should appreciate this too.

Trump must be removed. So must his congressional enablers.

By 

George F. Will 

June 1, 2020 at 2:18 p.m. CDT

This unraveling presidency began with the Crybaby-in-Chief banging his spoon on his highchair tray to protest a photograph — a photograph — showing that his inauguration crowd the day before had been smaller than the one four years previous. Since then, this weak person’s idea of a strong person, this chest-pounding advertisement of his own gnawing insecurities, this low-rent Lear raging on his Twitter-heath has proven that the phrase malignant buffoon is not an oxymoron.

Presidents, exploiting modern communications technologies and abetted today by journalists preening as the “resistance” — like members of the French Resistance 1940-1944, minus the bravery — can set the tone of American society, which is regrettably soft wax on which presidents leave their marks. The president’s provocations — his coarsening of public discourse that lowers the threshold for acting out by people as mentally crippled as he — do not excuse the violent few. They must be punished. He must be removed.

Social causation is difficult to demonstrate, particularly between one person’s words and other persons’ deeds. However: The person voters hired in 2016 to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed” stood on July 28, 2017, in front of uniformed police and urged them “please don’t be too nice” when handling suspected offenders. His hope was fulfilled for 8 minutes and 46 seconds on Minneapolis pavement.

What Daniel Patrick Moynihan termed “defining deviancy down” now defines American politics. In 2016, voters were presented an unprecedentedly unpalatable choice: Never had both major parties offered nominees with higher disapproval than approval numbers. Voters chose what they wagered would be the lesser blight. Now, however, they have watched him govern for 40 months and more than 40 percent — slightly less than the percentage that voted for him — approve of his sordid conduct.

Presidents seeking reelection bask in chants of “Four more years!” This year, however, most Americans — perhaps because they are, as the president predicted, weary from all the winning — might flinch: Four more years of this? The taste of ashes, metaphorical and now literal, dampens enthusiasm.

The nation’s downward spiral into acrimony and sporadic anarchy has had many causes much larger than the small man who is the great exacerbator of them. Most of the causes predate his presidency, and most will survive its January terminus. The measures necessary for restoration of national equilibrium are many and will be protracted far beyond his removal. One such measure must be the removal of those in Congress who, unlike the sycophantic mediocrities who cosset him in the White House, will not disappear “magically,” as Eric Trump said the coronavirus would. Voters must dispatch his congressional enablers, especially the senators who still gambol around his ankles with a canine hunger for petting.

In life’s unforgiving arithmetic, we are the sum of our choices. Congressional Republicans have made theirs for more than 1,200 days. We cannot know all the measures necessary to restore the nation’s domestic health and international standing, but we know the first step: Senate Republicans must be routed, as condign punishment for their Vichyite collaboration, leaving the Republican remnant to wonder: Was it sensible to sacrifice dignity, such as it ever was, and to shed principles, if convictions so easily jettisoned could be dignified as principles, for . . . what? Praying people should pray, and all others should hope: May I never crave anything as much as these people crave membership in the world’s most risible deliberative body.

A political party’s primary function is to bestow its imprimatur on candidates, thereby proclaiming: This is who we are. In 2016, the Republican Party gave its principal nomination to a vulgarian and then toiled to elect him. And to stock Congress with invertebrates whose unswerving abjectness has enabled his institutional vandalism, who have voiced no serious objections to his Niagara of lies, and whom T.S. Eliot anticipated:

We are the hollow men . . .

Our dried voices, when

We whisper together

Are quiet and meaningless

As wind in dry grass

or rats’ feet over broken glass . . .

Those who think our unhinged president’s recent mania about a murder two decades ago that never happened represents his moral nadir have missed the lesson of his life: There is no such thing as rock bottom. So, assume that the worst is yet to come. Which implicates national security: Abroad, anti-Americanism sleeps lightly when it sleeps at all, and it is wide-awake as decent people judge our nation’s health by the character of those to whom power is entrusted. Watching, too, are indecent people in Beijing and Moscow.

Janalu Jeanes (Parchman)

As I read the words of George Will's piece printed above, spoken or written June 1, 2020, I think the key sentence to the whole opinion was when he said in his 4th paragraph, "In 2016, voters were presented an unprecedentedly unpalatable choice: Never had both major parties offered nominees with higher disapproval than approved numbers.  Voters chose what they thought would be the lesser blight."

So what was the choice of George Will, I wonder?  He doesn't say.  Perhaps he simply refrained from voting.

Did he choose Hillary Clinton, the unindicted criminal; guilty, it appears, of many questionable actions, though never successfully taken to trial?  Never taken to trial because of numerous cover-ups by deviously finagling Democrats or attorneys who managed to twist their facts like pretzels to concoct their presentations for those of us seeking the truth?

Trump may have a vulgar personality, but that, at the time of the election, was, in my opinion, a much more palatable choice than having the continuing criminal nature of Hillary Clinton.  Secretary Clinton has gotten away with, to a degree, many, many VULGAR actions that have greatly caused harm to our nation.  That is my opinion, but I know that I am not alone by a long shot.

If Mr. Will feels he is a much higher quality person and is a much more highly & appropriately educated person, then why doesn't he offer himself as a candidate?  He has had many years to do so.

As for electing better Congress members immediately, I wholeheartedly agree!  We need better Congress people in BOTH parties post haste!

Lowell Tuttle

Janalu, you guys haven't nominated Trump for re election yet.  Get with it and find a better boy.

Janalu Jeanes (Parchman)

Lowell,

You guys get with it and nominate a guy who is mentally competent, and don't rely on who the VP will be, which is an idiotic way to get the first woman president; a roundabout and devious way, if you ask me.

The first woman president should want to become president by winning the nomination and the election, rather than being given the office by way of default..

Wayne Gary

Lowell

Biden has said he will pick a black woman as a way of getting black votes.  He is not interested in the best choice just doing Quota/Affermative action.  Why not a Latino or actual native American?

David Cordell

Sandra,

You apparently think that if I agree with George Will on one issue then I must agree with him on all issues. Bad assumption. But I will apply it to you. You clearly agree with Will on Trump since you have bashed Trump  for four years. So, if you agree with Will about Trump, you must agree with the video that I posted.

Glad to know it!.

The Democrat party is supporting this outrageous behavior by its silence. Will you condemn the violence? Will you condemn mob rule? Will you condemn anarchists? Will you condemn the burning of a church?

A total of 14 people were killed last weekend in Chicago, including five children, in black-on-black violence.  You know George Floyd's name. Do you know any of their names? (As far as I know, none of those children ever held a loaded gun at the abdomen of a pregnant woman as George Floyd did.) One hundred were shot in that weekend in Chicago, a city that has had Democrat mayors since 1933. Apparently, those black lives don't matter. https://abc7.com/chicago-shooting-this-weekend-news-in-60-shot/6259880/

Statues of Washington and Jefferson have been torn down by mobs in Portland. Officials in Boston are planning to take down a statue of Lincoln. The New York Museum of Natural History is taking down a statue of Theodore Roosevelt, who created the National Park system. https://www.doi.gov/blog/conservation-legacy-theodore-roosevelt#:~:text=After%20becoming%20president%20in%201901,is%20found%20across%20the%20country.

That's the whole of Mount Rushmore.

This is the left. It is hatefully denigrating this country, and one of its tools is to denigrate and destroy the leaders who helped create and build it.

Now a Black Lives Matter leader is urging the destruction of all stained glass windows that depict Jesus as white. It makes me ill.

I have said that the first person who mentions Nazis loses the argument. But the silence of the Democrats is much like the silence of the average German as the Nazis took power.

Lowell Tuttle

it's pointless 

Janalu Jeanes (Parchman)

Lowell,

Finish your thought so that we can understand what you think is pointless.  Please.  I am curious.

Janalu Jeanes (Parchman)

David,

The Democrats believe that the main goal of Republicans is money, and that we don't care about morality toward those who don't have much.  At least that is what I've heard them say numerous times.

I disagree.  I became a teacher, so obviously it was not my aim to gain money, it was my aim to have a stable profession and contribute to society in a positive way.

As for my attitude toward the lesser among us, I'm always glad to contribute to anyone who truly needs help from unfortunate circumstances that have befallen them, but as for able-bodied folks who seem to be uninspired to 'get with it' and take advantage of opportunities, I'm not interested in giving to them just because they have little.  I think they are not acting as the Bible says they should or as they must.  As for foreigners coming here to partake of what we have built here, I believe that it is far better to send aid and educational folks to teach them in their countries, so they can improve themselves and ease their plight.  We can't absorb all who want to come here: there are just too many.  And for them to flee their homelands does not improve their homelands, rather it leaves behind spaces that will be filled by opportunists looking for an easy 'open' place to occupy in negative ways.

Also, for the foreigners who desire to come here and become Americans, I have no problem accepting them. They must enter LEGALLY, however.  No sneaking in and becoming a squatter!  They must follow our laws when entering, of course, just as we must do when entering their countries, should we want to live there.  To come here and not assimilate is harmful to our country, so newcomers must understand that they are to learn our language and find jobs to sustain themselves.

Do you agree with me, or do you see it differently?

Do you think Sen. Pelosi would agree with what I've stated here?

Sandra Spieker (Ringo)

David - my responses to you are in bold italic.

Lowell - You are probably right, but I needed the typing experience, it was a good brain exercise.

Sandra,

You apparently think that if I agree with George Will on one issue then I must agree with him on all issues. Bad assumption. But I will apply it to you. You clearly agree with Will on Trump since you have bashed Trump  for four years. So, if you agree with Will about Trump, you must agree with the video that I posted.

Glad to know it!.

You made some pretty strong assumptions about me David.  I thought that if you liked one video made by George Will, you might like another view point. Excuse my blatant transgression.

The Democrat party is supporting this outrageous behavior by its silence. Will you condemn the violence? Will you condemn mob rule? Will you condemn anarchists? Will you condemn the burning of a church?

A total of 14 people were killed last weekend in Chicago, including five children, in black-on-black violence.  You know George Floyd's name. Do you know any of their names? (As far as I know, none of those children ever held a loaded gun at the abdomen of a pregnant woman as George Floyd did.) One hundred were shot in that weekend in Chicago, a city that has had Democrat mayors since 1933. Apparently, those black lives don't matter. https://abc7.com/chicago-shooting-this-weekend-news-in-60-shot/6259880/

You also make the assumption that all Democrats (liberals – alt left – whatever is the going label) are not disgusted and outraged at violence, looting and vandalism.  Well, just for your information I don’t condone violence, but do feel empathy toward those who have been victimized by racism.  I am deeply saddened that five children have died as a result of “black on black” violence.  For that matter, I hate it when white people drown, shoot, or poison their own children out of revenge, or if they suffer from a mental illness.  I think it is sad we don’t know all of their names either.  I also feel that beefing up the police with military style weapons and increasingly using brutal tactics will not solve the issues of poverty, mental illness, or racism.  We need to spend wisely to help those who suffer from circumstances they can’t control.  Locking them up is not the answer.  Driving them into submission with fear is not the answer either.  We need to come together and talk sensibly on how to solve these issues instead of blaming political parties.  George Floyd paid his debt to society for the loaded gun on the pregnant woman years ago, but apparently it has not been forgotten and is used as an excuse to justify his death over a $20 bill.  Once you screw up you are done if you are poor, black and live in the wrong neighborhood.  And yes, the burning of any church, mosque, temple or sanctuary is unacceptable and is definitely worthy of condemnation. 

Statues of Washington and Jefferson have been torn down by mobs in Portland. Officials in Boston are planning to take down a statue of Lincoln. The New York Museum of Natural History is taking down a statue of Theodore Roosevelt, who created the National Park system. https://www.doi.gov/blog/conservation-legacy-theodore-roosevelt#:~:text=After%20becoming%20president%20in%201901,is%20found%20across%20the%20country.

That's the whole of Mount Rushmore.

This is the left. It is hatefully denigrating this country, and one of its tools is to denigrate and destroy the leaders who helped create and build it.

Now a Black Lives Matter leader is urging the destruction of all stained glass windows that depict Jesus as white. It makes me ill.

I have said that the first person who mentions Nazis loses the argument. But the silence of the Democrats is much like the silence of the average German as the Nazis took power.

 The statue issue has hit home here in Weatherford.  Yesterday I spent the better part of a morning watching our local Commissioners Court online meeting to determine the fate of the Confederate Statue that has been sitting on the courthouse lawn for the last 100 years (sometime in the 20’s it was dedicated.  The Daughters of the Confederacy are arguing amongst their local chapter and the state chapter as to who owns it.  Apparently the county does not (there is no record).  I watched as a dozen or so citizens of the county spoke for removing the statue.  One, quite eloquent young black man, who has lived here all of this life related how two of his ancestors were hanged on that same lawn.  I can only imagine how it must feel to walk past that statue if I were him.  The only argument for maintaining that statue is for history’s sake, that and to honor the dead soldiers of not just the civil war, but only the Confederacy.  The local chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy (who showed up with Confederate flags and armed to the teeth with assault rifles on the courthouse lawn to protest) want to reclaim it as their own and move it.  I celebrate that.  However, our commissioners decided to do nothing at all.  Tabled.  To find out who owns it.  Now it is down to money.  These feelings that people have are now going to fester and division will remain and grow deeper.  They had a chance to make everyone happy, and they blew it.

As for Roosevelt on the horse with an Indian on one side and slave on the other….well you can see where I am going with that one.  History.  Rushmore was taken from the Indians.  It is sacred ground to them.  Like burning a church.

The left, the right.  I am an American.  I want freedom for all.  I am tired of watching innocent until proven guilty die in the hands of police without benefit of trial no matter who they are.  I am sick and tired of someone labeling me of no caring when I care deeply. 

I have no idea if Jesus was white.  Wasn’t he a Jew?  I am not an expert on religion, never have claimed to be.  If you like a white Jesus, I will celebrate that too.  Stained glass windows are works of art and should be protected.  It would be against the law to deface or destroy them.  Duh.

David Cordell

Lance,

Hollis and I are on different sides of the political middle. Plus, she is in the humanities and I am in business. Business  professors are less likely to be leftists, but you can bet that the vast, vast majority of humanities and social sciences professors are well on the left. I never talk about politics in class except when there is some issue that directly affects the course's subject matter, e.g. proposed change in corporate tax rates, and then I try to present both sides. I don't want any student to feel that they can't express their opinion because they know that I would be on the other side.

Sandra,

I haven't heard ANYONE justify the murder of George Floyd. Are such occurrences endemic in the United States? Absolutely not. The perpetrator was an individual, albeit with three silent observers, whose boss is a black chief of police.

Note that Dallas has a black mayor, a black chief of police, and a black sheriff. Houston has a black mayor, a Hispanic chief of police, who had made clear his dislike of President Trump, and a Hispanic sheriff (Harris County). Are there problems with the police? OK, Democrat, who run all of the cities, what have you done to fix the problems in your domains?

You stated, "Well, just for your information I don’t condone violence, but do feel empathy toward those who have been victimized by racism." Your comment is the common response from the left -- deflection. Do you not see that the second part of your sentence is a contradiction of the first -- an implicit justification of the violence? How about this? "I absolutely condemn the violence, wanton destruction and defacement of private property and public property, including monuments, committed by supporters of Black Lives Matter, Antifa, and other leftist groups. I further condemn acts that impair private buinesses in their lawful operation." You can throw "right wing" in there if you want to, but the amount of destruction by right wing groups pales in comparison. 

As I have noted George Floyd didn't deserve to die, and the officer was a murderer. It is unfortunate that Floyd chose not to follow the instructions of the officer to get into the police car, but as noted, that doesn't justify the officer's actions. 

Did Rayshard Brooks deserve to die? The video shows officers who were very calm up to and including the time when they tried to arrest Brooks, who then fought with them and stole a stun gun and shot it at them. By the way, the Atlanta police chief at the time was a woman and the mayor is a black woman. The elected DA is a black man.

It appeared to me on the video that the officers tried to restrain Brooks in a defensive manner, i.e., they tried to restrain him as he tried to escape, but didn't try to beat the crap out of him. Ironically, Brooks might still be alive if they had demonstrated that type of police brutality. You stated that police are "increasingly using brutal tactics." I don't think there is any evidence of that. I strongly suspect that just the opposite is true. I am amazed at the equanimity that police have shown in the face of abusive protesters. 

----------------

I have had the opportunity to visit the interior of St. John's Episcopal Church in D.C. on two occasions. It is adjacent to and on the north side of Lafayette Square, which includes a large statue of Andrew Jackson. On the south side of the square is Pennsylvania Avenue and the White House. President Trump was criticized for walking over to the church and holding up a Bible for a photo op.

The photo below shows the Lincoln Pew. The plaque in the background is enlarged in the following photo.

Malicious protesters painted the initials for "black house autonomous zone" on the columns.

Matthew 19: 24 -- A famous quotation from Jesus:  "Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

I'm not sure what Jesus would have said about grafitti vandals of churches, but he sure didn't like the money changers at the Temple.

Hollis Carolyn Heyn

I do not talk about current politics in my classes.  The works I teach explore and expose the best, worst, the strange, the evolving of ideas, trends of literary periods archaic through modernism.  I leave to the students their own drawing conclusions about the present, seeing parallels of the past with present, suggesting humanity is evolving or devolving.

David Cordell

Lance,

I don't think anyone can get through college without having a professor who tries to indoctrinate students. I sure didn't. To be candid, diversity of thought is not sought on faculties. On many campuses--probably most--overt conservatives need not apply in most departments. I'm sure there are many small schools that have a conservative bent, but not many large research universities.

But when it comes to math, engineering, sciences, business, and a few others, politics doesn't come into play. Of course, that doesn't mean that a professor won't throw in a comment now and again.

--------------

When we lived in Houston, we saw the musical Jekyll and Hyde before it went to Broadway. I have a DVD of a live production with David Hasselhoff in the lead, and we are watching it now. He's actually pretty good.

David Cordell

Some of us remember ventriloquist Jay Johnson, who graduated a couple of years ahead of us at good ol' RHS. You may know that ventriloquist Jeff Dunham is also a graduate of RHS. Here's a photo of Dunham with his favorite dummy, Walter. I've never seen Dunham perform in person, but I was reminded of him when I was watching the news this morning.

Wayne Gary

David

We went to 2 very different universities with very different political views.

I went to A&M which is conservative and which is opposite from Texas.  A&M with its large military presence is still considered a conservative school.

(Please note I did not use the standard A&M reference as tu). When I was a freshman in the Corps the only abreviation I could use is "tu"). Now it has the George HW Bush Library. You should have seen the line of students standing on the raod when Bushes's casket ws moved from the railroad to the library.

I rember when SMU wasworking on getting the Bush Library ther ws a letter from their Faculity senate and the Bishop opposing the library because SMU is liberal and they felt theBush Library would have a conservative influence which they could to tolerate. So much for free exchange of ideas.

Lowell Tuttle

I’m white; I survived my youthful crimes

By Krista Vernoff

When Iwas 15, I was chased through a shopping mall by police while a store owner shouted, “Stop, thief!” I had thousands of dollars of stolen merchandise on me. I made it to the parking lot and hid between the cars before I was caught, booked, tried, sentenced to six months of probation, and required to see a parole officer weekly. I was never even handcuffed.

When Iwas 18, I was pulled over for failing to use my turn signal. It was 2 a.m. and I was driving away from a bar I wasn’t old enough to be in with a car full of obviously drunk teenagers. When the police officer asked me to blow into a breathalyzer, I pretended to have asthma and insisted I couldn’t blow hard enough to get areading. The officer rolled his eyes at my lie, then asked my friends to blow, and when one of them came up sober enough to drive, he let me move to the passenger seat of my car and go home with just a verbal warning.

When Iwas 19, I got angry at a girl for flirting with my sister’s boyfriend and drunkenly attacked her in the middle of a party. After people pulled us apart, I waited until everything seemed calm and then swung a gallon jug of water, full force, at her head. The police were never called.

When I was 20, with all of my strength, I punched aguy in the face while we were both standing two feet from a cop. The guy went to the ground and came up bloody, screaming that he wanted me arrested, that he was pressing charges. The police officer pulled me aside and said, “You don’t punch people in front of cops,” then laughed and said that if I ever joined the police force he’d like to have me as a partner. I was sent into my apartment and told to stay there.

Between the ages of 11, when I started drinking, and 22, when I got sober, my friends and I were chased or admonished by police on several occasions for drinking or doing illegal drugs on private property and in public. But I have no criminal record. We were a pack of white kids — male and female — and when they came, we screamed, we ran, we resisted arrest. When they caught us, they drove us home to face our parents and sleep it off.

I was a teenage alcoholic from a troubled home. My family did not have money, we did not have any law enforcement connections. I was navigating physical and emotional abuse at home, drinking away the pain, and mimicking the violence. I needed real help, but it would be years before I would get it. If you’re wondering if I flirted with the cops in any of these instances, I didn’t. I did not have the wherewithal to flirt with police or try to play the system. I was a mess.

If I had been shot in the back by police after the shoplifting incident, in which I knowingly and willfully and in broad daylight ran from the cops, would you say I deserved it?

What about if my drunk, white boyfriend was shot for repeatedly making the cops chase him across golf courses where we were trespassing at night?

I’m asking the white people reading this to think about the crimes you’ve committed. (Note: You don’t call them crimes. You and your parents call them mistakes.) Think of all the mistakes you’ve made that you were allowed to survive.

Think of all the times you were given the benefit of the doubt.

The police in my stories deescalated each situation. They found ways to protect me from my broken, stupid, violent, drunken, youthful self. They found ways to let me have a future. Because I am white, I got to grow up, get sober, make amends, mature, get therapy, get an education and make something of my life. Because I am white, the trajectory of my life was not derailed by juvie, jail or prison. Because I am white, I lived to tell my stories.

In this country, we’re not supposed to get shot for drunkenness, we are not supposed to be choked to death by police for selling cigarettes or passing a counterfeit bill. The system that lets me live and fatally shoots Rayshard Brooks in the back while he runs from police is a destructive, harmful system that needs to change. Don’t defend it. Use your privilege to change it. Use your privilege to demand an equal and just America in which black people are also allowed to survive and surmount their mistakes.

Vernoff is showrunner and executive producer of ABC’s long-running series “Grey’s Anatomy,” along with its spin-off “Station 19.”

This letter was in the Chronicle this morning.  Perspective on what might be called, (as Hollis amonished me once,) "systemic" cultural symptoms.