Street Smart

A friend and I were talking about this column and how a person’s political perspective/philosophy evolves. I told my friend about my own journey. He was surprised (as are most people) to learn that as a teenager and then a young man, I had a very liberal perspective. Then, life happened! My perspective completely changed, and I became quite conservative based on all I was seeing and experiencing. When I told my friend my story, his immediate response was, “You’ve got to write that!” I decided to do just that because I think many conservative thinkers follow a similar path in terms of experience. This may end up being a two-part column because of space limits. Please be patient!

In my introductory column, I mentioned the fact I had grown up in a predominantly black neighborhood. I lived in this neighborhood from the time I was nine years old until I was seventeen. My first girlfriend was black and as were nearly all my friends. This was in the early 60’s to mid 70’s. Any student of American history will identify those as some pretty tumultuous times because of the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War. Because my neighborhood was made up of mostly black people, the Civil Rights Movement and race relations were a daily experience. My family was immersed in it and experienced a lot (the first time I was shot at was a drive-by in my best friend’s front yard. I saw this same friend’s father arrested for bank robbery in that same driveway). At the time, I aligned myself with my friends’ liberal perspectives. I had a very liberal attitude that I aggressively defended in dozens of arguments with my very conservative father. At the time, I was proud of the way I stood up to him; after all, I had the moral high ground, right? That’s certainly what I believed at the time. However, time marches on and things began to change.

My mom and dad both worked full-time. We didn’t have much money and I learned early that if I wanted something extra, I’d have to work and then buy it myself. If a person counts paper routes and mowing jobs, I’ve been working since I was 10. I got my first “real” job when I was 15. I was proud of the $1.35 I made an hour scooping ice cream. Nevertheless, I was initially really confused about the amount of money automatically taken out of my paycheck: taxes, social security, unemployment insurance, etc. I’d never experienced that before and had absolutely ignored my dad when he complained about it (after all…what did he know?). Time went on and I guess I was so wrapped up in being a teenager that I didn’t pay much more attention to my checks. As long as I had enough money for gas and partying what did I care? I was living with my parents so how much money did I really need?

In 1976, my girlfriend and I decided to move into an apartment together. That was a bad move and a real eye opener! All of a sudden, I was responsible for rent, groceries, utilities, etc., you know… all the things mom and dad had been paying for all along. I couldn’t get over the fact people actually had to BUY toilet paper and toothpaste! By this time, I had decided that I wanted to be a police officer. The military was downsizing after Vietnam, so I decided school was best for me. I enrolled in a local junior college.

My girlfriend and I could barely afford the car we had so I started riding my bicycle to and from work and school. I had to work full-time to pay the bills and carried a full load at school so I could graduate by the time I was 21 and apply to the Los Angeles Police Department (21 was the minimum hiring age and I was determined that the LAPD was the only department I wanted to work for). I rode that bike about 28 miles a day. I was working in the retail industry and, out of necessity, had really begun paying attention to how the little money I had was being spent. Interestingly, I had firsthand experience with how others were spending money in the stores where I worked. I was absolutely dumbfounded at how many people were on some sort of government assistance program! I can’t count the times I saw a person pay for his/her groceries with food stamps and then walk out and enter an expensive vehicle. Still, all this was just observation at this point and nothing that really changed my mind politically.

In 1979 I was hired by LAPD and became a patrol officer. That job gave me a front row seat to the most interesting show on earth! I wasn’t really struck by the violence or poverty that I witnessed; I’d seen much of that growing up. What struck me was the fact that very few of the people I encountered were doing anything to change their circumstances, despite the fact they could have if they chose to! As time went on, I began to re-evaluate my philosophy based on what I was seeing on a day-to-day basis.

That’s all I can fit in this column. More to follow in two weeks.

Blaine Blackstone is a retired Los Angeles Police Sergeant who enjoys the simpler life in Thompson Falls. He can be reached by email at [email protected].