Malice In Brooklyn

I'm depressed and disgusted by the killings of two police officers in Brooklyn as revenge for the death of Eric Garner yesterday.  The two officers - a Latino and an Asian who were patrolling the predominantly black neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant - were shot to death in their car by a black man who escaped to a subway station, shooting himself there before another group of policemen could apprehend him.

The killings have exposed not only a racial divide in New York City but a political one.  Mayor de Blasio has vowed to address the shootings and has expressed solidarity with the police - solidarity that the police would rather not join in.  Relationships between the New York Police Department and City Hall mirror the contentious bitterness between the police and Mayor Lindsay in the late sixties, just as the city was spinning out of control.  Is New York on the verge of another state of anarchy after twenty years or so of relative stability?      

I commend the Reverend Al Sharpton for specifically calling this double murder an act of an enemy of peace and justice and denouncing anyone who goes after the police out of revenge for Garner and Michael Brown.  But I'm sure there are some out there who won't listen; the police are afraid of a copycat-style act . . . or more than one . . . in the wake of the Brooklyn shooting.

America is increasingly becoming a multi-ethnic society.  As there are few if any examples of a nation of many different peoples governed by a democratic process that precede the United States, this country doesn't have much to draw on as it figures out how white, black, brown, yellow and red can live together peacefully and adhere to only the colors on the flag.  It's going to be a painful process to go through in trying to figure it out. :-(