The secretary of Health and Human Services says ABOUT 3000 children were separated from their undocumented parents. That’s an estimate. They don’t really know how many children are in their custody. It’s chaos as several different agencies are trying to match children with parents, now that President Trump changed his mind about the whole thing.

Amazon sells millions of items, and can tell you exactly how many of each item they have in stock. But that’s IMPORTANT stuff, like doorknobs, hammers, cameras, and K-cups. When it comes to children, these little persons made in the image of God, the US government can only say, “Around 3000. We really don’t know. Give or take.”

It’s getting crazy out there. Suspicious, paranoid, and/or racist/bigoted/idiotic white people all over are calling the cops on black people who are doing absolutely nothing wrong. They are just Doing Stuff While Being Black. This is why we have the 911 phone system–so terrified white people can call the cops anytime they see a black person Being Black.

In recent weeks, white folks have summoned the police to deal with many instances of Blacks Doing Stuff While Black.

A Yale University grad student seen napping in a common area of a dormitory. Four police officers showed up. She was Napping While Black.

Three black women–two filmmakers and an artists–were loading suitcases into their vehicle, outside their Airbnb rental, when six police officers and a helicopter showed up. A white woman across the street had called 911 about a burglary in progress. Checking Out While Black.

Members of a black sorority were cleaning up trash along a highway–a section they had adopted near Harrisburg, Pa.–when a state trooper pulled up, lights flashing. Police received a call about women fighting alongside the highway. The women, dressed in the sorority colors of blue and gold, were dragging trash bags and debris in an area marked “Adopt a Highway – Litter Control Interchange Area.” They were Performing Community Service While Black.

A black doctor was playing rap music on a Saturday afternoon, and cops showed up at his door because somebody called 911 to complain. Listening to Music While Black.

A white woman called the cops on a black boy mowing yards.

A black engineering student, 18, used his debit card to buy a $349 belt at the Barneys’ Madison Avenue flagship store in New York City. He was arrested outside by undercover cops, who told him his card was fake. They cuffed him and took him to the precinct station. Although he had shown his ID to the Barneys clerk, Barneys reported him, apparently thinking no young black men could afford such an expensive belt. He returned the belt and got his money back. Shopping While Black.

Nordstrom’s called the cops about three black men who were shoplifting “handfuls of products.” The teens showed the police their receipts and let them search their bags. Buying Stuff while Black.

A local government official was sitting in his car in a wharf parking lot reading Christian books by C. S. Lewis and Timothy Keller. As he drove home, he was pulled over by cops, who said they’d been called about a “suspicious black man in a white car.” This was in Canada. Reading While Black. He said, “I’ve been pulled over for driving in my own neighborhood. I’ve gotten asked where I’m from, and when I tell them I’m from my hometown of Hamilton, Ontario, the question is where are you really from? As if I can’t actually be from here.”

A black man was drinking Arizona Ice Tea in a North Carolina parking lot when a cop approached and ordered him to leave the property. When he refused, he was tackled onto the blacktop and handcuffed. Drinking Ice Tea While Black.

A black man, Air Force vet, was walking with a golf club, which he’d been using as a cane for many years. A white policewoman ordered him to drop the club, and ended up handcuffing him and taking him to the jail, where he spent the night. Walking in Public While Black.

Three black teenage boys were waiting on a schoolbus, which would take them to a basketball game, when a police officer ordered them to disperse. They explained that they were just waiting on a schoolbus, but were nevertheless arrested, cuffed, and charged with disorderly conduct and obstructing the sidewalk. As they were being arrested, their varsity basketball coach arrived and tried to reason with the cops, but to no avail. Waiting While Black.

In Dallas, an NBC reporter (Indian) and photographer (black) had the cops called on them by someone reporting a “Hispanic-looking” woman and black man with a “suspicious white truck.” Doing Their Job While Black.

Five black women were golfing in Pennsylvania, and a white co-owner called the cops, saying the women were going too slow and asking that they be removed. A golfer in the next group saw nothing wrong, that their speed wasn’t slowing down his group at all. Golfing While Black.

A black man, 27, sat down in a skyway between two Minneapolis buildings to wait ten minutes for his kids to be released from a school which met in one of those buildings. Private security asked him to leave, and then called the police. Waiting On Your Child While Black.

None of these things would happen to me. Because I’m white. Don’t tell me there’s no such thing as white privilege.

Two Native American brothers, on a campus visit to Colorado State University, were pulled from the tour after a parent told a 911 dispatcher that their behavior was “odd” and that their dark clothing had “weird symbolism or wording on it.” She said, “They’re not — definitely not — a part of the tour.”

There is nothing admirable or civil in kicking somebody out of a restaurant, somebody who just wants to have a peaceful meal with family. According to the Red Hen restaurant owner, Sarah Huckabee Sanders left without a fuss. Good for her. She’s the only person in that story whose actions I respect.

Then I heard Maxine Waters’ speech, calling for this kind of stuff to happen on a widespread basis–in restaurants, department stores, gas station. As a Christian, that disgusted me. Just imagine where such attitudes and behavior would take us–actually, probably WILL take us, since this snake is now out of the bag. I’m expecting more examples of this kind of ugliness in the days ahead. It could even become the norm.

Michelle Obama has modeled, “When they go low, we go high.” Well, looks to me like liberals decided they prefer going low.

I agree with David Axelrod: “I am kind of amazed and appalled by the number of folks on Left who applauded the expulsion. This, in the end, is a triumph for @realDonaldTrump vision of America: Now we’re divided by red plates & blue plates! #sad.”

I read one columnist who said this public shaming is justified–that the Administration’s actions in separating immigrant families are so despicable, drastic action is needed. But you can contrive what I’ll call “justified outrage” over any administration, of any party, at any point in time. Republicans will always have the abortion issue–“They are killing children, so we’re going to hound them wherever they go.” Democrats have a range of issues to get outraged about against Republicans–militarism, racism, policies affecting poor children, and more. There will always be something.

Who will step in to calm this stuff? I see nobody. Normally, you would look to the President. George W. Bush played that role after 9/11 to calm the anti-Muslim hysteria, which could have resulted in terrible domestic violence against everyday Muslims. I admired that, and America needed it. But the current President has never shown any interest in calming anything. Instead, after the Red Hen situation, he played his typical 7th grade Mean Girl role, tweeting out his usual juvenile insults. We desperately need grownups. God help us.

Earlier this year, we (barely) recognized the 50th anniversary of the My Lai massacre. It was drowned out by the latest presidential tweets, but some attention squeaked through. Up to 500 Vietnamese–men, women, children, and infants–were massacred by a couple dozen American soldiers in two different hamlets. Some women were gang-raped and their bodies mutilated. It’s disturbing to think that Americans could do such a thing, but they did. WE did.

The entire world learned about My Lai. Learned what America was capable of. It’s a stain on our national character. But it was 50 years ago. There has been nothing similar since.

Then, during the Bush Administration, we had torture, Abu Graib, Guantanamo, renditions. We justified torturing prisoners, and we tortured a lot of them, routinely and repeatedly. News reports in countries around the world delivered the news–that the United States approved of torture. It shocked them, dashed their image of America.

Our current president approves of torture, but the nation won’t allow it. We’ve realized it’s wrong. Hopefully the world recognizes our about-face. And it’s been 15 years.

But now, in recent weeks, news outlets worldwide are showing pictures of US authorities forcing children away from their parents and taking them to special facilities. Most everyone, worldwide, is shocked by this. Don’t traumatize children: it’s kind of a universal value. And certainly don’t use them as bargaining chips to pursue a political agenda, as the administration admitted it was intentionally doing. I don’t think any of us are proud of this.

The world has seen, once again, that the United States is capable of great evil. And they are disappointed, because we’ve always stood for what’s right. And so much good still comes from us.

We stain our national character in other ways. We’ve got the world’s highest incarceration rate. Throw in the continual mass shootings, which no other nation experiences. We are among the world’s leaders in executing criminals, though most Western nations long ago rejected the death penalty. Throw in President Trump’s threats to use nuclear weapons, an idea the world, since the 1940s, has tried not to even whisper about because the consequences are so grave.

We bring shame on ourselves in so many ways. And we seem to keep finding ways to show the world that we are capable of great evil.

We claim to be a shining city on a hill. We usually have been. But that’s not what the world is seeing now. That really bothers me.

On Friday, President Trump basically admitted, “We’ll continue traumatizing children until you give me what I want.” He then outlined what he wanted–funding his border wall and other immigration policies. He saw innocent children, crying for their mothers and fathers, as a convenient bargaining chip. He admitted it. Administration officials tried to spin his words differently, as they are regularly required to do, but the President spoke plainly enough. He told us what was in his heart.