Enraged, In Pain & Exhausted

 

It's time for honest leadership and a new direction

Protests, riots and looting have spread across the country with at least 150 cities seeing some form of protest activity. To be frank, I was only paying passing attention to it because the utter uselessness of it is so depressing. That’s not to minimize the underlying causes of the protests and violence, just a recognition nothing will come of all it. Well, at least nothing other than the affected neighborhoods becoming even worse ow. It seems likely that some of the looted and burned out businesses won’t come back. Maybe you don’t care about Autozone, but a year from now some poor fellow won’t get to work because he can’t get the part to fix his car. That’s the problem I’m seeing with so much of what’s going on. People on all sides are simplifying this down to a straightforward black and white issue. Nothing about race relations in America is that simple.

The police are the real heroes in this situation and these liberal big city mayors are too chicken shit to let them restore order. The police are the instruments of a racist system that oppress and brutalize minorities to maintain the status quo for rich white people. This is the gist of a lot of what’s being said out there and both statements are bullshit. From what a lot of people on the left are saying you’d think they want to disband the police. Police officers spend their careers dealing with society’s problems, usually with little thanks and little pay. They’re put in impossible situations in a system that’s set up for failure and we act surprised when they fail. At the same time I think it’s fair to say that police work draws people who like the sense of power they have as an officer of the law. Surrounded by people on both sides of the law who have lost faith in the system, underpaid and underappreciated, tasked with enforcing laws passed to create a sound-bite for politicians, used as a source of revenue for local governments, dealing with a public that is heavily armed and can turn on you at the drop of a dime for trying to do your job, I’m not sure how anyone can spend a career in law enforcement and get out with their mental health intact.

On the other side you have African American and Latino people, particularly young males, who are growing up in a society where they are suspect by existing. There’s a lot of reasons for this. Slavery followed by a century of Jim Crow laws and persisting legal and social discrimination. Generational poverty, red-lining, school to prison pipeline and probably a dozen other catch phrases I’m not adequately schooled on to speak intelligently. Taken together they represent a system designed to contain and deal with this population rather than to create conditions for advancement and prosperity. That’s not to say there haven’t been well intended efforts. Real progress has been made over the last century. The progress however has been incremental at best with frequent steps

backwards along the way. Trevor Noah of the Daily Show recently discussed the question of, “what good does it do to riot?” He turned it around and asked, “what good does it do not to riot?” If the system isn’t benefiting you, what is your motivation in maintaining that system.

Everything about the current situation, and race relations in general, is complex and difficult to truly comprehend all the interacting factors. I think this current round of violence took a lot of people ow guard. It’s not like it’s a rare occurrence for police to kill an unarmed black man in this country. Why did it set ow a storm this time? Any attempt to explain it will inevitably be incomplete, but there are a couple of important factors going on. In recent weeks we had the emergence of the video capturing the murder of Ahmaud Arbery. That killing took place weeks earlier but seemingly nothing was done until the video became public. There were reasons given for the delay. However, it’s clear a good ol’ boy killing an uppity black boy wasn’t a priority for the DA.

The Amy Cooper case in Central Park followed soon after. On the surface this was a situation where everything went right. Cooper threatened to weaponize her white privilege by calling the police on a black man who had the gall to request she stop breaking park rules concerning keeping her dog on a leash. In this case nothing happened to him while she has suffered considerable repercussions for her actions. Again Trever Noah helped me see the significance of this altercation. There’s the normal unspoken everyday reality of white privilege. However, in this video we see the conscious acknowledgement of this fact. Cooper felt entitled to put this black man’s life in jeopardy by exercising her inherent power as a white woman.

I also think you can’t discount the effect of a President who routinely uses racists dog-whistles to get his base worked up. Trump has built his political career on finding and exploiting divides in society which often fall along racial lines. By referring to people of color as low I.Q., making Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling protest into a culture war, referring to black majority nations as shit hole countries and telling black and Hispanic Congresswomen to go back to where they came from has created a hostile atmosphere in this country.

Economic distress is likely another factor contributing to the underlying tension. Years of seeing a booming economy that primarily enriched billionaires has added to the sense of economic injustice. This has gone on while Republicans gut programs designed to provide a social safety net for the working poor. Now with an economy in a tailspin it’s not hard to imagine that many feel they have nothing to lose.

Civil unrest happens when people become hopeless. It began with the pre-existing racial and cultural tensions inflamed by four years of Trump politics of division. Add the imagery of George Floyd being casually killed by police officers and it becomes clear why it became the touch stone to the current violence. For me the most painful thing about the whole situation is it’s all for nothing. Some burned out buildings and a couple of extra bodies aren’t likely to lead to the fundamental reforms needed.

One thing is certain though, with Trump in office we can’t even start to move in the right direction. Trump’s only response has been to double down on his get tough on crime rhetoric that led us to this point. A look at his website to see what criminal justice reforms he supports came up with zilch. Shockingly there doesn’t seem to be any policy proposals on his official website. In the “Promises Kept” section he highlights appointing conservative judges, providing combat equipment to local law enforcement and getting tough on street gangs. There is literally nothing about addressing any of the systematic problems inherent in the system.

Biden’s website couldn’t be more different. He talks about taking the profit motive out of the criminal justice system. He wants to reduce prison populations by decriminalizing drug possession, using alternative sentences and eliminating mandatory minimums. Biden is focused on crime prevention by providing opportunity for at risk youth. He also talks about using the Justice Department to address police departments with a systematic pattern of misconduct and use of prosecutorial discretion that follows racial patterns. In other words he wants the Justice Department to promote justice, what a concept.

The system took the entire history of our country to break. Joe Biden isn’t going to fix it in four years. However, the policy initiatives of the two parties make it clear the Democrats are the ones engaged with the problems that led to our present circumstance. The top to bottom overhaul of the system needed to prevent a recurrence of unrest is not going to happen. There are too many entrenched interests in the status quo. A journey begins with a first step though. Barack Obama was that first step. Trump represents a rest stop with a longing look back at the good old days when it was acceptable to bash protesters over the head with clubs and to send in the attack dogs. Biden is our opportunity to reject the past and restart our journey towards racial justice.