Judge not, lest we be judged

Subject: Judge not lest we shall be judged 

Watching the trauma of rioting in America, ostensibly race riots since the police brutality seems directed at African Americans one has to question the whole ethos of the  'American Dream' the idea that if you worked hard you could make it.
The resentment black Americans feel is that, this isn't true and only a few cases, Barack Obama being the most sensational exception, for the bulk of them life is invariably one of hardship. Poor educational facilities,   overcrowded cities leading to inadequate accommodation, a sense of disillusionment with few job opportunities and above all the sense of discrimination due to the colour of their skin. This of course also describes a large section of the white working class but they don't have the luxury of skin colour to rally around, nor the historical image of Jim Crow or the pent up dislocation of ancestry and the misery of slavery.
The story of slavery, the rounding up and exportation of thousands of Africans to work in the cotton fields is a story which feeds their sense of disenfranchisement. Taken by force from their villages and their ancestry in Africa, disallowed any rights in their new country, they were placed in a bubble where the rights of the Constitution in the new Colony were denied them and they were left for two centuries and more, stateless.
Now with a statute book more in their favour they are still denied justice and it is only the capture of video footage which reveals the brutality meted out to them by a few 'redneck' policemen.
Of course it goes beyond that since the act of the bigoted policeman is backed by an establishment within policing which sees skin colour and black people as being on the other side, the enemy in their daily business of keeping people within the law. The ghettos within so many cities in America are black ghettos, the violence towards the police in those cities comes from black people and with the use of drugs, makes a strong man even stronger. Wrestling a large powerful man to the ground is a job which thankfully we are never asked to do and if we were we would probably run a mile. In the war zones of the inner city the balance of power between law enforcement and the gangs is often on the line and with everyone being tooled up with guns and knifes, is it any wonder that the procedure of arrest breakers down.
We are too ready to judge what goes on from our armchair and the security of our home we condemn so much without knowing the facts which in this case are clear thanks to the video but what is not clear is what went through the mind of the policeman and why.
Was the man powerful, did he fear for himself if he released the pressure on him. In this case he was surrounded by fellow officers and therefore he wasn't in danger but what of last nights shift when he had to confront two guys in a dark ally and ended getting roughed up. Maybe it was simply a question of prejudice and a brutal streak in the officer who saw his chance to make a point the odds being in his favour but I'm sure there are many instances when the odds are reversed, which over time clouds the normality we expect of people doing the job we don't want to do, perhaps daren't do. Like all lessons acted out in situations we are never faced with, we perhaps shouldn't  judge too quickly.