When I worked for New York-based banking giant Citibank in downtown Dallas, it was a common joke that America was simply “fly-over” country between big cities that actually matter, like New York, Chicago, Dallas, etc.  It was stereotypical to think of the urban cities as civilizations with barbarians banging on the gates.  Indeed, we referred to Dallas as “Dallas, USA” because it didn’t seem to really belong in extremist Texas.

The ambush of Dallas police officers leaves me heartbroken.  It was not an external assault by the great unwashed, uneducated masses in the Texas countryside.  It was an internal assault by a different set of unwashed, uneducated crazies.  The fact that this tragedy was just another crazy guy with a gun should not obscure the cancer of race relations in America, which has been growing all my life.  It defies cliche-thinking.

The problem of race relations is not a simple matter of racism.  One other factor is that police departments have been saddled with myriad anti-terrorism duties and supplied by the Federal government with more and better weaponry than I ever had in the Army.  The mindset of police is “to serve and protect.”  The mindset of the infantry is “to kill and destroy.”

Another problem is that some things really can desensitize an impressionable mind, especially young impressionable minds.  I doubt the Founding Fathers imagined freedom of speech would ever be used to produce games that glorify killing, especially to young impressionable minds.

Perhaps the biggest obstacle to solving the big problem of race relations is that it is not a unique big problem that we don’t solve.  There are other big problems that we don’t solve, such as reforming the tax code or making any tiny adjustment to the Second Amendment.  We cannot even schedule a vote on big problems, much less solve them.  The object of democracy is to win elections, not to solve big problems.

Mostly, I just grieve for my wife’s hometown!