Welcome to the Long, Hot Summer version 2.0. It seems that America is in a position to revisit the famous 1967 summer of unrest and discontent.
Immediately following the deaths of two Americans, Alton Sterling and Philandro Castile, on July 5 and July 6, 2016, at the hands of police officers, demonstrations and marches broke out across America. The demonstrations, largely organized by the Black Lives Matter movement, took a deadly turn when 5 police officers were gunned down in Dallas, Texas, by a rogue sniper, who was unaffiliated with the BLM organization.
This has been the normal state of affairs in the United States for the last year, police shoot black suspect, demonstrations and even riots break out as a result. What can be done to quell this discontent? Can we learn anything from the riots of 49 years ago?
  

In the summer of 1967, 159 riots, or what they called “race riots” erupted in cities across the U.S. There were riots in Tampa, Buffalo, Cincinnati, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Detroit, New York and numerous other cities. This unrest prompted President Lyndon Johnson to establish the Kerner Commission, headed by Governor Otto Kerner Jr., of Illinois, to study the riots and come up with recommendations for future solutions to this problem. The results were simple: “Unless there are sharp changes in the factors influencing Negro settlement patterns within metropolitan areas, there is little doubt that the trend toward Negro majorities will continue.” and “Providing employment for the swelling Negro ghetto population will require ...opening suburban residential areas to Negroes and encouraging them to move closer to industrial centers...” also, “...we believe that the emphasis of the program should be changed from traditional publicly built slum based high rise projects to smaller units on scattered sites.”
Perhaps the most ominous-sounding recommendation was this: “(various) cities will have Negro majorities by 1985 and the suburbs ringing them will remain largely all white unless there are major changes in Negro fertility rates, in migration settlement patterns or public policy.” Why that is disturbing to me is the mention of fertility rates, which brings up the awful spectre of Eugenics; once again, the philosophy of elimination of so-called “inferior” races and genera.
  

Black Lives Matter is an organization that has sprung up in recent years in response to numerous deaths of black men and women at the hands of American law enforcement entities. According to mappingpoliceviolence.org, 102 black Americans were killed by police in 2015. Seems appalling, right? Yes, it is appalling, and unacceptable. Perhaps even more appalling, however, is this statistic, from lifenews.com, “ In the United States, the abortion rate for black women is almost 4 times that of white women. On average, 870 black babies are aborted every day in the United States.” That works out to nearly 8.7 times as many blacks killed in one day, as were killed by police, in the entire year of 2015!
Now, the abortion debate has gone on for quite a while in this country, with little resolution. It is fairly obvious that the pro-abortion groups are in favor of using abortion as a tool to “help” minority communities enjoy a higher economic standard of living. Noble, right? However, given the growing awareness, late as it may be, that black lives DO matter, and everything we can do must be done to preserve black people’s lives, this glaring disparity over the disposability of young children is unacceptable. How can we preserve the lives of these unborn black children, while still ensuring that they will not be an “unwanted burden” on their families and communities?
  

Well, enter gay marriage, and some creative compromising on the part of both sides of the abortion debate. Pro-lifers are routinely touting adoption as an alternative to abortion, but at some point, there will be a lack of traditional childless couples. What I propose is a special tax break, a 1% reduction of your tax rate, for any MARRIED couple that adopts a child, up to 3%. This would encourage same-sex couples to adopt up to 3 children, as well as traditional couples. This way, nothing has to be outlawed, you will still have the right to have an abortion, but there would be an incentive to carry your child to term, because he or she would not necessarily become a burden on the family, and also, a couple who really wants a child, but is unable to conceive naturally, will have a chance to love and raise that precious child.