For decades, crime in America had been declining. Our cities became safer as murder, theft, and all manner of other crimes happened less frequently — all while, we might add, private gun ownership and concealed carry permits skyrocketed. That wasn’t coincidence.

Then George Floyd died under the knee of white Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin and all hell broke loose. The summer of rage saw many American cities literally lit on fire by angry and violent mobs bent on demanding justice or something. Murder drastically increased, especially black-on-black in our inner cities, and black neighborhoods were generally hit hardest by the violence and mayhem.

Chauvin was convicted of murder less than a year later, but it almost didn’t matter to the mob.

The Left launched an insane new “social justice” cry: Defund the police. Months later, after launching a record surge in crime, Democrats could no longer ignore the destruction wrought by anti-police policies and Black Lives Matter mobs, so they pretended they never had anything to do with defunding the police, even blaming Republicans for it.

Now we get this from Newsweek:

Authorities in Oakland, California, are being urged to “declare a state of emergency” by the local branch of a leading civil rights group, in response to a surge in crime that “overwhelming impacts minority communities.”

The call was made by the Oakland branch of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) in a statement that hit out at “failed leadership, including the movement to defund the police” and what they claimed was the local District Attorney’s failure to “prosecute people who murder and commit life threatening serious crimes.” Speaking to Newsweek Cynthia Adams, president of the Oakland NAACP, said: “We need the police!”

We quote that to highlight the language used by both the NAACP and the Leftmedia.

First, let’s marvel at the semantics. Newsweek tells us what NAACP stands for — “the Advancement of Colored People.” Just a couple of weeks ago, however, a Republican in Congress was denounced as a racist for using the term “colored people” instead of the Left’s new and approved formulation “people of color.”

You can’t put the adjective BEFORE the noun, you bigot! It has to go AFTER the noun!

We admit to finding that amusing.

But far more important than such word games is the acknowledgement from NAACP leaders that “We need the police!” We welcome them to the side of Rule of Law.

“Oakland residents are sick and tired of our intolerable public safety crisis that overwhelmingly impacts minority communities,” the Oakland NAACP added. “Murders, shootings, violent armed robberies, home invasions, car break-ins, sideshows, and highway shootouts have become a pervasive fixture of life in Oakland. We call on all elected leaders to unite and declare a state of emergency and bring together massive resources to address our public safety crisis.”

Despite the fact that the NAACP’s statement is a lengthy denunciation of crime and the policies that led to its increase, it strangely never mentions the word “Democrat.”

Who runs California, again? Oh, that’s right — it’s a one-party state ruled up and down the line by Democrats. That’s doubly so in Oakland. Like gun ownership and reduced crime, Democrat leadership and increased crime also isn’t a coincidence. Yet the NAACP has been at the forefront of the Democrat strategy for decades.

Call us crazy, but that doesn’t seem like a good way to achieve the “Advancement of Colored People.”

California Democrats have made it declared policy that policing crimes like shoplifting just isn’t worth their time. The predictable result is not only more shoplifting but a rise in other related crimes as lawlessness becomes a way of life for more people. Cops are leaving police departments and new recruits are harder to come by. Law-abiding conservatives have fled California in droves, leaving the state to the leftists who destroyed it.

Newsweek is ever the propaganda organ for the Democrat Party, however, so the magazine couched the NAACP’s statement with the patronizing phrase “what they claimed.” These are not random claims but provable facts. Thanks to an army of George Soros-backed district attorneys dedicated to not prosecuting crimes in the name of “social justice,” cities like Oakland and neighboring San Francisco have become cesspools of humanity where businesses have no choice but to leave.

The NAACP is right to be outraged by this and to demand accountability from city leaders. The statement says numerous right things. Then again, the national NAACP just issued a “formal travel advisory for the state of Florida.” Not California. Florida. Why? Because Governor Ron DeSantis is supposedly making “aggressive attempts to erase Black history and to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in Florida schools.” Good grief, what a bunch of lies.

Until inner-city residents including blacks are willing to sever their blind allegiance to the Democrat Party and work to restore mom-and-dad-headed families as the building block of society, and until the national NAACP gives up mindless attacks on Republicans, the Oakland NAACP can send all the outraged letters it wants and nothing will change.