Diversity....for diversity's sake.

In the last few years of my time in the Army, I was really was getting sick of being told I'm a racist, misogynist, etc because I was a white heterosexual Christian male. I've never endured a "sensitivity training" class where prejudices of blacks against whites was covered. You would think this was a racket...na, couldn't be that, could it.

From from the New York Times, an opinion piece (at least they called it than, not "news" on the front page) on how our veterans can bring "Much-Needed Sensitivity Training" to policing.

Military Vets Can Bring Much-Needed Sensitivity Training to Police Departments

Police departments across the country should draw heavily from military veterans to fill their ranks. Many already do this, but they should take it a step further and adapt the United States Army’s sensitivity training program, which soldiers take before deployment. This program includes mock engagements with communities, as well as religious and cultural classes.

The cultural and demographic divide between local law enforcement and the communities they police can be enormous. When there is a cultural gap as wide as the one in cities like Ferguson and the north side of Baton Rouge, inadequate training, military grade equipment and cell phone and body camera technology can turn neighborhoods into tinderboxes

Ideally, our police departments should focus on improving diversity within the force, but cultural training would also be good. Actively recruiting from the military could help on both fronts....

Yes, police forces do recruit from the services. They are already trained in many functions similar to law enforcement, have knowledge of weapons use and maintenance, are used to working in a team and thinking that's oriented to accomplishing a mission. And they are used to dealing with people different then themselves plus usually more mature than college students their age. And that had nothing to do with the diversity/multicultural horse manure that infected the bureaucracy beginning in the early 1990s.

I'm sorry Mr. Perkins, the issue in Ferguson or Baton Rouge was not "inadequate training, military grade equipment and cell phone and body camera technology can turn neighborhoods into tinderboxes." Ferguson was based on a bold faced lie, "Hands Up! Don't Shoot!," where a thug who had just robbed a store owner was walking down the street, attempted to take a cop's gun, and was justifiable shot by the officer. The tinderbox was created and lit by the usual race baiting poverty pimps like Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, B Hussein Obama and Eric Holder with his "Just-Us" Department, etc. In Baton Rouge, a convicted felon named Alton Sterling illegally carrying a firearm and selling bootlegged DVDs resisted detention, arrest, assaulted two officers and was reaching for a gun before he was shot. But that won't stop the usual suspect in trying to burn down a city, and in the case of Baton Rouge, murder three cops.

Perhaps Mr. Perkins, you're onto something. There are people who need sensitivity training, but it's not the cops. It the population in these ghettos. They need to know cops are sensitive to being threatened by people as we are trying to do our jobs, that they should be sensitive to the fact if you hide the criminals in the houses, they will only hurt themselves. Case in point, who was helped most by aggressive policing in New York back in the early 90s? Black and other minorities. They are the ones who live their those neighborhoods and need to help us catch the robbers, murderers, gang members. Unfortunately, too may people living in these ghettos will scream "Laws!" to help thugs they don't even know just because the police are after them.

Winning hearts and minds is part of the solution, but much like the alcoholic, the first thing is for the person to admit there is a problem. Until the people who live in these areas say they need to stop living like they are, and wanting to raise their kids for a better life, nothing will change.  And with a race baiting poverty pimp in the White House (and likely will continue in the near future), I don't see anything changing.