Dallas

Five police officers are dead, killed by a black marksman. Exactly why Micah Xavier Johnson decided to begin a one man war isn't entirely clear but he apparently frequented extremist sites that called for the killing of police officers.

I've seen this all before. A rash of unjustified and questionable police shooting of black men followed by whack job calls for retribution resulting in dead police officers.

This isn't the way to accomplish change. This is just going to get a lot of people dead.

So what about Black Lives Matter, the group protesting police killings of black men in Louisiana and Minnesota? Are they a positive group for change for a negative group making matters worse?

To my mind the jury is still out on that one. I understand the concept that there is an implied "too" at the end of the BLM name. I just think it would be better if it was overt rather than implied.

Be that as it may, killing police officers is unacceptable. I can't think of a better way to turn people against you.

As I've told a number of black acquaintances, you can't win without white support. A lot of white support. Praise Martin Luther King Jr. all you want but without large numbers of whites being revolted and horrified by southern white tactics during the 1960s the Civil Rights movement might still be trying to accomplish it's minimum objectives.

Is racism completely done? Of course not and it probably never will be. But at least it's no longer a de jure fact of life. That doesn't help guys like Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, but it should give the rest of us some hope.