Two days ago, on Monday June 15, in a letter to the families of scouts, the National Committee for the Boy Scouts of America announced that is stands with the Black Lives Matter organization. Not only that, but they plan to introduce a new badge for diversity and inclusion, and that it will be an Eagle Scout required badge.
That letter through my wife over the edge. She was practically in tears. The scouts have been such a good thing for our boys (pictured above), but now the scouts have decided to side with an organization that, since its very inception, has used lies to denigrate their father (me) and his profession.
As a pro-law enforcement family, we are having absolutely none of that! Below is the letter I sent both to the organization as a whole, and to our local troop.
So long boy scouts, it was nice knowing you.
Dear Boy Scouts Of America,
I read the letter that was signed by the National Executive Committee yesterday, the letter in which you decided to take up the cause of Black Lives Matter (the organization), and to say I am upset is an understatement. As the father of two multiracial scouts, and as a recently retired career California deputy sheriff, it saddens me to see what has become of the scouts over recent years.
My wife and I were both very upset over the inclusion of girls in scouting a few years ago. Not because we dislike girls, but rather because it is important for boys and girls to have separate activities from one another. It is important for boys to have time to just be boys. But we stuck it out because the good things offered by the scouts outweighed that one negative.
However, this decision to force my kids to buy into the “racial injustice” garbage being pushed by the Black Lives Matter organization has seriously crossed the line. My wife was practically in tears yesterday because of it. Black Lives Matter, as an organization, is nothing but a grievance machine who only surfaces when the correct circumstances are present, those circumstances being a white cop killing a black person. They preach and scream about “racial injustice” but the instances they constantly point to have nothing to do with race, and everything to do with criminal behavior.
If black lives truly mattered to Black Lives Matter, they would be out in the black community trying to get black kids to avoid gangs and criminal behavior. They would be attempting to help law enforcement to get the cooperation of the black community to solve the murders of innocent black children who were caught in the crossfire of black gangs, but instead, the community insists that snitches get stitches so no one will give information to the cops, and countless murders go unsolved.
There is no great racial injustice in this country, other than the one being perpetuated by Black Lives Matter themselves. Black Lives Matter continually preaches that blacks are being discriminated against by law enforcement, but that is utter hogwash. In general, black males come into contact with law enforcement much more than any other ethnicity because black males are involved in crime at a hugely disproportionate rate.
Black Lives Matter screams about inequities at the hands of law enforcement and attempts to justify those screams by using raw numbers. They point out that blacks are only 13% of the population but are vastly over-represented in prisons and police shootings, which on its face is true, but it is incomplete data and is used to convinced soft-headed people who refuse to do any critical thinking. It is not a person’s skin color that gets them sent to prison but rather it is the person’s behavior, specifically criminal behavior. The same holds true for contact with law enforcement, up to and including the use of lethal force by the cops.
Let me be clear. I am not remotely attempting to excuse what happened to George Floyd. No cop I know has attempted to do so, and in fact, most of us have spoken negatively about that entire situation.
With that said, time for a little critical thinking (something I used to think the Boy Scouts of America taught our kids to do).
Every year, more blacks are murdered than whites, both in hugely disproportionate percentages and in pure raw numbers. In 2018, 7407 blacks were murdered in the US while only 6088 whites were murdered. Despite the fact that blacks only make up 13% of the population, far more of them were killed. Of those murdered blacks, 96% of them were murdered by other blacks. Like it or not, blacks are involved in violent crime at a much higher percentage than whites, thus it only follows that more blacks, percentage wise, come into contact with the cops.
Black Lives Matter screams that the cops are the greatest threat to the black community that there ever has been, but that is a lie. The plain truth is, the greatest threat to the black community are the black criminals committing all the crimes in the black community, up to and including all those murders. Yet this is something that Black Lives Matter refuses to acknowledge or address.
Up to this point, the Boy Scouts of America have already done a wonderful job of teaching our kids a diverse viewpoint when it comes to religion, cultures, and history. They have taught them the importance of giving to the community, of supporting and helping others, especially those in need. They have taught them the importance of service to our nation. All of this leaves me utterly baffled as to why the Boy Scouts of America feels the need to kowtow to an organization that uses lies to try and tear down the very fabric of this great nation.
During my 22 year career as a cop, I worked with people who came from all walks of life, of all skin colors, of all religions, of all genders and sexual orientations. A few of them grew up struggling in gang infested ghetto neighborhoods and later became a cop to try and help the very people they grew up with, only to be treated as a “race traitor” when they returned to their childhood neighborhood wearing the uniform.
During my 22 years as a cop, I had the occasion to successfully perform life saving first aid on two people. One was a Hispanic male in his 50’s whom I performed CPR on until the paramedics arrived, and the other was an eight (8) year old black boy who had drowned. I am proud to say both lived. One other instance comes to mind, one in which three white cops, one Asian cop, and one black cop all performed a live saving rescue of a Hispanic woman who had just been shot in the face. We ran up and pulled her off the porch despite the fact that the suspect was still inside the home, still armed with the gun he used to shoot the woman. Not one of us ever considered the skin color of the person who was in need. And yes, she also lived.
Those are just a couple incidents from my personal career. Every cop I know can tell you dozens of similar stories. When people need help, cops don’t stop to ask what color you are, nor do they care. The only people who seem to care about skin color are the people screaming that Black Lives Matter. ALL lives matter. The sooner people stop focusing on skin color and instead focus on being good citizens, which is a virtue I thought the Boy Scouts of America cared about, the better off everyone will be.
Effective today, my wife (who is NOT white) and I are withdrawing our two boys from the scouts. I can no longer allow them to participate in an organization that chooses to side with an group that denigrates my former profession, a profession that took so much from me in service of my community, a profession in which I lost quite a few friends who gave their lives while serving their community, and instead elevates the distorted half-truths pushed by an organization that seeks to eliminate all law enforcement from this country.
Sincerely,
Matt Silvey