Changes

I saw this little hokey saying the other day somewhere out on the net and thought that it was pretty outlandish.  I mean after all, so far and by almost any estimate 2020 has generally been pretty bad.  I don't have to list or detail them all but its generally been one catastrophe after another.  So I was going to just pass it on by but the more I thought about it the more intrigued I became.  Now, I'm not some person who tries to look at the world through rose colored glasses or discounts troubles along the way, but I began to think what if all of these events and resultant angst could actually result in some changes.  What if all of the deaths, the businesses lost, the economic devastation, the lockdowns, the uncertainty, the curious moves by governments at all levels could actually stimulate some positive action.  What if this time something actually changed?

We've seen it way, way too many times in the last several years and decades.  Something big happens like a controversial death at the hands of police or some other all-to-common injustice, there is initial stunned silence, and then all hell breaks loose.  Riots, looting, protests, larger than life funerals, media frenzy, hopes and prayers offered all around, feel better hashtags...and then life returns to normal.  It's all so predictable and so tiresome.

But this time I thought might be different.  The murder of George Floyd was heinous by any measure.  And it was right there for all the world to see.  I wrote about it soon after it happened here.  There have been moments in our history that have served to come as an awakening.  Sometimes it didn't happen right away, the murder of Emmet Till comes to mind, but this one was so blatant, so over the top, so raw, and so unbelievably seemingly condoned by the officers present, that I thought maybe this event could be a catalyst for change.  As the days go by though, I'm becoming less and less sure and more and more jaded.  And I hate that.

As the events unfolded after the murder there were the predictable riots and looting but that seemed to abate in the wake of so many ordinary citizens coming to some awakening that there are a lot of examples of mistreatment of our black citizens in all areas of the country.  It's not new and it's not okay.  But in the past the event that caused the trauma of riot and protest seemed to be executed by a few and observed by most.  But in this case, there were and are a ton of people of all races standing up to say "no more".  That part has been heartening to see.

But what I think is happening now is that those on each end of the spectrum of the fight for racial justice are overplaying their hand.  First we saw the slogan "defund the police" emerge from many zealots on the left and in the Black Lives Matter movement.  I don't know if they were caught up in the moment or just so pissed that they thought they would press their case, come hell or high water, but it was a bad, bad mistake.  As a friend of mine likes to say, "that dog won't hunt".  If ever I've seen a terrible and tragic blunder in branding and marketing, "defund the police" is it.  It's almost case study bad.  The zealots on either end of the spectrum on any issue don't want to hear it, but that kind of rhetoric will turn off so many people that they won't even see past it.  Those who want to fight for real police reform (and most think that is necessary) have been drowned out by the zealots.  And so even if cooler heads are now trying to calm the storm and argue that "defund the police" never meant what it said, it's too late.  The reformers path now should be to distance themselves from this crazy slogan and anyone who utters it if they are going to have any chance to advocate for the kinds of programs, training, and funding that will be necessary to improve our police departments.  But I fear it's too late.

The second thing that the zealots on the other end did was take up the cry that "all lives matter" or "blue lives matter" to try and blunt what they perceived as a threat from BLM.  I'm a huge supporter of law enforcement and and believe that they should be funded, trained, and deployed properly to serve the community.  But in this moment, the cry is Black Lives Matter.  That doesn't take away from anything.  It's really just a cry for understanding.  So to see it as a threat seems to me to be reading the situation wrong.

There are two other things that have gotten attention that blunt the issue.  The first is dredging up the whole Colin Kaepernick thing about kneeling during the national anthem at an NFL game.  You have to be aware of this emotional issue.  And so a lot of folks now say he was right.  That he was kneeling for justice for black people and he was right.  And a few other folks have been raked over the coals for resisting that narrative.  You've probably seen the dust up with Drew Brees saying he could never support anyone who disrespects the flag.  And he got pilloried in the press and by some players.  Well, I'll just go on record right now as being in Drew's corner.  There are a lot of ways to express your frustration with the criminal justice system and to support racial justice, but disrespecting the flag is not one of them.  At least in my book it's not.

The other thing is this takeover in Seattle by a bunch of anarchists.  That is a whole other story and these guys are assholes who the Seattle government should never have allowed to occupy the area.  But they are clearly using the BLM and George Floyd issue as a cover for the their shenanigans.  They need to be called out, cleared out and put down.  Unfortunately, given the government in Washington, it's not going to happen anytime soon.

So where are we?  My big fear is that we're where we've been before.  The protests are fizzling, the zealots have taken over and demanded unachievable things, the majority is digging in in fear that the status quo will be upset, and we await the next episode which will surely come.

But I have seen a few glimmers of hope.  There have been a lot of companies responding to employe demand to pay way more attention to diversity.  There are a lot more people who have become aware and I don't think are going to leave this alone.  There are a lot more responsible people in government, media (although there aren't too many there), and business who are talking about ways to change the dynamic, which is good.

I've seen a few interesting proposals that I think are the kinds of things we need to see happen.  My good friend and priest who I have sometimes quoted here sent a proposal for the Episcopal Church to sell 50% of their property and invest it in education for black kids.  Now that's out of the box thinking!  His reasoning is that the church is declining and has lost about 50% of its members, so we don't need the property.  The Episcopal Church has a lot of schools.  So why not insist that in the future 50% of the student body comes from poor black families?  Why not indeed?  I would prefer that a blind admissions policy be adopted with a commensurate influx of minorities, but that's a detail.  His point is that this is a 20 year project and it can be done.  That's what we need.  Not something that will be a 2 or 3 or 4 year project but long term solutions with buy in from the population.  All churches should be looking at themselves pretty hard and deciding what is important.

I've seen proposals to vastly change the tasking of police departments to focus more on community policing and get them out of the jack of all trades that they do now.  I'm not an expert, but it makes sense to me.  Once again, I'm not an expert, but I've seen a lot of evidence that the police unions have a big responsibility in protecting cops who are identified with being abusive and having issues.  Like so many things, there aren't any simple answers here.  But somehow, a process that identifies and weeds out bad apples has to be implemented.

What Senator Scott and President Trump have done with economic opportunity zones focused on the black community has been a huge success and needs to be expanded.  Likewise, the prison reform programs that President Trump has implemented is making a difference.  School choice is a win for the black community but the education establishment and the teacher's unions will fight it to the death.  Good...bring it on.  I think they are on the losing side of history here.  Black employment must continue to be a priority because economics is a big part of this problem.

There are so many facets to this complicated issue that has been festering for 250 years that is not going to be solved overnight.  Much of it lies in the hearts and minds of Americans.  I fundamentally believe that most want to do the right thing.  I believe that most want us all to prosper and live the lives guaranteed by the Constitution.  But we've seen that many don't and that has impacted a whole segment of the population.  We've got to root out those people and provide help to the people who have been impacted by generations of neglect.  It's the right thing to do.