Honesty

In the sea of misinformation, hysteria, and incompetence, this is maybe the most honest article you can read summing up the past four months.

Four Months of Unprecedented Government Malfeasance

May/June 2020 • Volume 49, Number 5/6 • Heather Mac Donald

Heather Mac Donald
Manhattan Institute

Heather Mac DonaldHeather Mac Donald is the Thomas W. Smith Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. She earned a B.A. from Yale University, an M.A. in English from Cambridge University, and a J.D. from Stanford Law School. She writes for several newspapers and periodicals, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The New Criterion, and Public Interest, and is the author of four books, including The War on Cops: How The New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe and The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine Our Culture.

The following is adapted from a lecture delivered on June 18, 2020, for a Hillsdale College online symposium, “The Coronavirus and Public Policy.”

Over the last four months, Americans have lived through what is arguably the most consequential period of government malfeasance in U.S. history. Public officials’ overreaction to the novel coronavirus put American cities into a coma; those same officials’ passivity in the face of widespread rioting threatens to deliver the coup de grâce. Together, these back-to-back governmental failures will transform the American polity and cripple urban life for decades.

Before store windows started shattering in the name of racial justice, urban existence was already on life support, thanks to the coronavirus lockdowns. Small businesses—the restaurants and shops that are the lifeblood of cities—were shuttered, many for good, leaving desolate rows of “For Rent” signs on street after street in New York City and elsewhere. Americans huddled in their homes for months on end, believing that if they went outside, death awaited them.

This panic was occasioned by epidemiological models predicting wildly unlikely fatalities from the coronavirus.

On March 30, the infamous Imperial College London model predicted 2.2 million deaths in the U.S. by September 1, absent government action. That prediction was absurd on its face, given the dispersal of the U.S. population and the fact that China’s coronavirus death toll had already levelled off at a few thousand. The authors of that study soon revised it radically downwards.

Too late. It had already become the basis for the exercise of unprecedented government power. California was the first state to lock down its economy and confine its citizens to their homes; eventually almost every other state would follow suit, under enormous media pressure to do so.

Never before had public officials required millions of lawful businesses to shut their doors, throwing tens of millions of people out of work. They did so at the command of one particular group of experts—those in the medical and public health fields—who viewed their mandate as eliminating one particular health risk with every means put at their disposal.

If the politicians who followed their advice weighed a greater set of considerations, balancing the potential harm from the virus against the harm from the shutdowns, they showed no sign of it. Instead, governors and mayors started rolling out one emergency decree after another to terminate economic activity, seemingly heedless of the consequences.

The lockdown mandates employed mind-numbingly arbitrary distinctions. Wine stores and pot dispensaries were deemed “essential” and thus allowed to stay open; medical offices were required to close. Large grocery stores got the green light; small retail establishments with only a few customers each day were out of luck. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer notoriously used her red pen within megastores to bar the sale of seeds, gardening supplies, and paint.

It was already clear when these crushing mandates started pouring forth that shutting down every corner of the country was a reckless overreaction. By mid-March, two weeks before the Imperial College model was published, Italian health data showed that the coronavirus was terribly lethal to a very small subset of the population—the elderly infirm—and a minor health problem to nearly everyone else who was not already severely ill. The median age of coronavirus decedents in Italy was 80, and they died with a median of nearly three comorbidities, such as heart disease and diabetes. The lead author of the Imperial College model has admitted that up to two-thirds of all coronavirus fatalities would have died from their comorbidities by the end of 2020 anyway.

Three months later, this profile of coronavirus casualties still holds true. Public health interventions could have been targeted at that highly vulnerable population without forcing the American economy into a death spiral.

DISINFORMATION

By now it is impossible to attribute the media’s failure to publicize the facts about the coronavirus to mere oversight.

Every story that does not mention, preferably at the top, the vast overrepresentation of nursing home deaths in the coronavirus death count—above 50 percent in many countries and 80 percent in several of our states—is a story that is deliberately concealing the truth. Casual readers and viewers have been left with the false impression that everyone is equally at risk, and thus that draconian measures are justified.

The media have been equally uninterested in the scientific evidence regarding outdoor transmission. Coronavirus infections require what Japan calls the three Cs: confined spaces, crowded places, and close contact. The fleeting encounters on sidewalks and public parks that characterize much of city life simply do not result in transmission. And yet if you briskly approach someone on one of Manhattan’s broad and now empty sidewalks, the oncoming pedestrian may lunge into the street or press up against the closest wall in abject fear if you are not wearing a mask. You may be cursed at.

The public health establishment has been equally complicitous in creating this widespread ignorance. It has failed to stress at every opportunity that for the vast majority of the public, the coronavirus is at most an inconvenience. The public health experts did not disclose that outdoors was the safest place to be and that people should get out of their homes and into the fresh air.

Not coincidentally, the experts’ newfound power over nearly every aspect of American life was dependent on the maintenance of fear.

While the U.S. death toll from the coronavirus has been demographically circumscribed and lower than the previous flu pandemics of 1968, 1956, and 1918 when adjusted for population, the economic toll has cut across every sector of the country and every population group. Whole industries have seen their capital wiped out overnight.

Despite a better than expected employment report in early June, the long-term effects of the shutdowns and the continuing mandates to socially distance will prevent a full economic recovery for years to come. Forty-four million Americans are still out of work. Supply chains have been thrown into chaos. Fresh fruits and vegetables are being plowed under and livestock burned uneaten for lack of access to processing plants and markets. Small businessmen who have put their life savings into creating a service that customers want have seen their hard work go up in smoke. Without rent from their retail tenants, commercial landlords can’t pay their taxes. City budgets have been decimated. The additional $8 trillion in public debt taken on to try to substitute for the private economy will depress opportunity for generations.

And what has been the response to this economic carnage on the part of our ruling class? Branding strategies! Politicians have put cute names on what has been a taking of private property on an unprecedented scale. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo calls the state lockdowns “New York on Pause,” as if commerce can be indefinitely suspended and then magically resuscitated with the flick of a switch.

The politicians’ ignorance about the complexity of economic life was stunning, as was their hypocrisy. To a person, every elected official, every public health expert, and every media pundit who lectured Americans about the need to stay in indefinite lockdown had a secure (“essential”) job. Not one of them feared his employer would go bankrupt. Anyone who warned that the effects of the lockdowns would be more devastating than anything the coronavirus could inflict was accused of being a heartless capitalist who only cared about profits.

But to care about the economy is to care about human life, since the economy is how life is sustained. It is a source of meaning, as well as sustenance, binding humans to each other in a web of voluntary exchange. To its workers, every business is essential, and to many of its customers as well. Even judged by the narrowest possible definition of public health—lives lost—the toll from the lockdowns will exceed that of the virus, due to the cancellation of elective medical procedures, patients’ unnecessary fear of seeking medical treatment, and the psychological effects of unemployment.

In May, politicians started inviting a few scattered sectors of their state economies to reopen, with blue state governors and mayors being particularly parsimonious with their noblesse oblige. These blue state officials invoked “science” to justify yet another arbitrary set of guidelines to determine which businesses would be allowed to start up again and when. “Science,” we were told, dictated the timetable for reopening, based on rates of hospital bed vacancies and new infections.

In fact, the numerical benchmarks, enforced with draconian punctiliousness, seem to have been drawn out of a hat—they certainly had no evidence behind them. But even with official reopenings, many customers will be long reluctant to resume their normal habits of consumption and travel thanks to the uninterrupted fearmongering on the part of the media, the experts, and elected leaders.

Being fantastically risk averse is now a badge of honor, at least among the professional elites. A young tech columnist for The New York Times wrote an op-ed in May about cancelling a restaurant reservation in Missoula, Montana. Missoula County had been virus-free for weeks, and Montana’s case load had been negligible. Nevertheless, the columnist experienced a panic attack after booking a table, contemplating the allegedly lethal risk that awaited him in the reopened restaurant. Rather than being ashamed of his cowardice, the columnist was proud, he wrote, to have bailed out of his reservation in order to continue sheltering in place.

The absurd social distancing protocols make operating many businesses and much of city life virtually impossible. The six-foot rule is as arbitrary as the “metrics” for reopening. (The World Health Organization recommends three feet of social distance, and many countries have adopted that recommendation.) Keeping customers and employees six feet apart will render a city’s basic institutions unworkable, from restaurants to concert halls. The Metropolitan Opera has cancelled the first half of its 2020-2021 season while it figures out how to maintain social distancing among audience members and on the stage. Every other performing arts organization will face the same almost insuperable dilemma.

My 34-story apartment building in Manhattan, like many others, has imposed a one person per elevator ride rule, even though the elevator interiors are more than six feet across. I invite anyone who may also be waiting for an elevator to share my ride up; no one has ever accepted the offer, even though both I and my invitee are masked. Nor has anyone ever extended such an offer to me. Now translate this hysteria to Manhattan’s massive office towers. If New York City ever fully reopens, a similar social distancing rule for office elevators will lead to lines of workers around every midtown block each morning. As long as this fear lasts, city life is not possible.

FROM COLD WAR TO HOT

Then the cities started burning. What had been a cold war on the economy and civic life became a hot war.

Government officials, having shut down commerce due to unblemished ignorance of how markets work, now enabled the torching and looting of thousands of businesses due to the shirking of their most profound responsibility: protecting civil peace.

On Monday, May 25, a video of the horrific arrest and death of a black man suspected of passing a forged $20 bill in Minneapolis went viral. A police officer kept his knee on George Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes as Floyd begged for help breathing. Floyd was already handcuffed and thus posed a minimal risk. The officer ignored Floyd’s distress even as Floyd stopped talking or moving.

The officer’s behavior was grotesquely callous and contrary to sound tactics, and the officer will be prosecuted and punished under the law. His behavior was not, however, representative of the overwhelming majority of the ten million arrests that the police make each year. Indeed, there is no government agency more dedicated to the proposition that black lives matter than the police. Nevertheless, within 24 hours, the violence had begun.

On the night of Thursday, May 28, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey ordered the city’s Third Police Precinct evacuated as the forces of anarchy descended upon it for a third day in a row. The building was promptly torched, sending a powerful sign that society would not defend its most fundamental institutions of law and order.

Soon cities across the country became scenes of feral savagery. The human lust for violence, the sheer joy of plunder and destruction, were unleashed without check. Police officers were shot at, run over, slashed with knives, and clubbed; two current and former law enforcement officers were killed in cold blood. Police cruisers and station houses were firebombed; courthouses were trashed. Looters drove trucks through storefronts and emptied the stores’ contents into the back of these newly repurposed vehicles of civil war. ATMs were ripped out of walls; pharmacies plundered for drugs.

Blue state governors and mayors ordered law enforcement to stand down or use at most (in New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s words) a “light touch” with the rioters. By the time these progressive public leaders realized that something more forceful needed to be done, it was too late. The fire of sadism and hatred could not be contained, but would have to burn itself out. Belatedly imposed curfews were universally ignored: why should anyone obey an edict from a government that refused to protect human life and livelihoods?

Perversely, the rioting exhibited features of the coronavirus shutdowns in even more literal form. If before, businesses were boarded up due to bankruptcy, now they were boarded up to prevent further theft. Small businesses, lacking the resources to outlast the shutdowns, now saw the final depletion of their inventories. The fortress mentality in residential buildings from coronavirus hysteria was replaced by an actual fortress, as building managements hastily erected plywood barriers over lobby windows and doors. The hyped-up fear of going outside into allegedly virus-infected public spaces became a justified fear of leaving one’s fortress and being sacrificed to the mob. Shelter-in-place became a necessity, not a product of government overreach. The fall of night became a source of terror for ordinary citizens and business owners.

Previously, securely-employed public officials breezily dismissed their constituents’ anguish over unemployment and growing business failures. Now those same officials, safe behind their security details and publicly-owned mansions, foreswore the activation of the National Guard and military. None of those officials owned businesses, so they faced no loss either from economic quarantine or from physical rampage.

DOUBLE STANDARDS

One thing did change markedly between the coronavirus lockdowns and the riot lockdowns, however: elite wisdom regarding social distancing. The politicians, pundits, and health experts who had condescendingly rebuked business owners for reopening without official permission, who had banned funerals and church services of more than ten people, and who had heaped scorn on protesters who had gathered in state capitols to express their economic distress, suddenly became avid cheerleaders for screaming crowds numbering in the thousands.

Most remarkably, public officials overtly admitted to choosing the forms of assembly that would be allowed based on the content of the protesters’ speech. Mayor de Blasio explained that protests over “400 years of American racism” are not the same as a “store owner or the devout religious person who wants to go back to services.” While the store owner or worshipper may be “understandably aggrieved,” he conceded, their grievances must still be suppressed in the name of coronavirus safety. Not the grievances of the protesters and rioters, however. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy congratulated the Black Lives Matter activists and distinguished them from mere “nail salon” entrepreneurs protesting their ongoing business stasis. The two are in “different orbits,” Murphy said.

The politicians’ hypocrisy was a mere warm-up for that of the public health establishment. These were the people whose diktats had inspired the lockdowns and whose allegedly supreme knowledge of medical risk was allowed to cancel all other considerations in maintaining a functioning society. Nearly 1,200 of these same experts, including from the CDC, signed a public letter supporting the unsocially distanced protests on the grounds that “white supremacy is a lethal public health issue that predates and contributes to COVID-19.”

One could just as easily argue that a global depression, induced by the gratuitous crushing of trade and the hollowing out of capital, is a lethal public health issue of at least equal magnitude. But it turns out that public health is as much about politics as it is about science.

This shameless reversal should have torpedoed the lockdowns once and for all. If it turns out that mass gatherings were now not just allowable but to be encouraged, no rationale remained for preventing restaurants and stores from reopening. But instead, once media attention became a little less monomaniacally focused on the anti-police agitation, the familiar chorus rose up again, directed at everyone else: Stay socially distanced! Wear your outdoor masks! No gatherings of more than a few dozen! No entering “non-essential” stores! The same arbitrary “metrics” for business reopenings were still in place and still being enforced.

By now, the collapse of government legitimacy is complete. For three months, public officials abdicated their responsibility to balance the costs and benefits of any given policy. They put the future of hundreds of millions of Americans in the hands of a narrow set of experts who lack all awareness of the workings of economic and social systems, and whose “science” was built on the ever-shifting sand of speculative models and on extreme risk aversion regarding only one kind of risk.

The public officials who ceded their authority to the so-called experts were deaf to the pleas of law-abiding business owners who saw their life’s efforts snuffed out. They engineered the destruction of trillions of dollars of wealth, through thoroughly arbitrary decision making. And then they stood by as billions more dollars of work burned down. Public order and safety, equal treatment under the law, stability of expectations—all the prerequisites for robust investment have been decimated. The failure to quell the riots means that more are inevitable. Any future business faces possible destruction by another lockdown or by looting—which it will be is anyone’s guess.

The coronavirus lockdowns demonstrated our leaders’ ignorance of economic interdependence. After the riots, that ignorance has been shown to run far deeper. It is an ignorance about government’s most fundamental obligation: to safeguard life, liberty, and property. It is an ignorance about human nature and human striving.

Property and capital are not soulless abstractions, easily replaced by an insurance payout, as the rioters and their apologists maintain. (The Massachusetts Attorney General noted that burning is “how forests grow.”) Capital is accumulated effort and innovation, the sum of human achievement and imagination. Its creation is the aim of civilization. But civilization is everywhere and at all times vulnerable to the darkest human impulses. Government exists to rein in those impulses so that individual initiative can flourish. America’s Founders, schooled in a profound philosophical and literary tradition dating back to classical antiquity, understood the fragility of civil peace and the danger of the lustful, vengeful mob.

Our present leaders, the products of a politicized and failing education system, seem to know nothing of those truths. Pulling the country back from the abyss will require a recalling of our civilizational inheritance.

Down the Drain

I've come to the conclusion that President Trump really doesn't care if he's reelected or not.  And after some of his recent head scratching actions, I almost think he would just as soon retire to his place in Florida and live the good life.  His rhetoric is as divisive as I've ever seen it and he seems tone deaf when it comes to some of the cultural and social upheaval occurring in the country.  His leadership in the pandemic has been very weak and in this like almost everything else he sees everything as a personal attack on him.  It seems like every week there is another "tell all" book that rakes him over the coals.  It's not that these books mean anything, it's that they are a distraction and he gets all wound around the axle over them.  I've just never seen anyone trying so hard to torpedo his own chances.  And the media smells blood in the water every hour of every day and attack him relentlessly.  I really don't know how he takes it and maybe he's decided he doesn't want four more years of this shit.  If the Dems put up almost anyone else but Biden, he'd already be toast.  There's still time I guess but I don't see him changing.  I'm sure that there are a lot of people like me who can't really even imagine voting for Biden, but there are way more that he is making the decision easy for.  I'm not at the "turn out the lights the party's over" stage yet...but I'm close.

What Now?

On May 25, 2020 George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis policeman who kneeled on his neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds while others stood by and watched.  On June 13, 2020 Rayshard Brooks was shot and killed by an Atlanta policeman as he escaped from being detained and fled through a parking lot after stealing the officer's taser.  There is video of him pointing the taser at the officers before he was shot.  These two events are not related but they sparked widespread protests.

Since then things have deteriorated.  You've seen it.  Rioting and looting have been common.  The Black Lives Matter organization and movement has taken over as a face of the demonstrations.  Unfortunately there are making outrageous demands like defund the police, among others, that tend to drown out any rational thought toward dialog and progress.  There have been "autonomous zones" set up in various cities in which there is no order and police will not venture.  Seattle and New York City seem to be the epicenter of takeovers, defacing and destruction.  Peaceful protest leading to constructive dialog which leads to change seems to have gone away. At least for now.  I keep thinking (hoping) that we will get past this craziness and start talking...but I'm not really sure.

Politicians have become as polarized as I've ever seen them.  Senator Tim Scott, who is black, tried and failed to get some police reform measures implemented.  The Democrats wouldn't even talk about it.  The Democrats also refused to vote for a measure condemning violence and looting.  They are on opposite ends of the spectrum and I'm not sure what reconciles them.  Trump seems to have lost control.  He continues to be his own worst enemy (especially on social media) and his combative, arrogant attitude is not playing well.  The Dems are pulling out all the stops to find and accuse him of everything under the sun.  Because of his personality he takes everything personally and goes high and right.  And that usually only harms him.  I'm not making any predictions because it's impossible to tell, but he better get his shit together or he'll be defeated in November.  And if that happens we'll have the weakest President in history right when, in my opinion, we need steady strength.  But honestly so many people seem just exhausted by the Trump show and may just vote for a change.  Who knows.

Add in the reemergence of Covid 19 at frightening proportions and life can be overwhelming.  We are returning to shutdowns, restrictions, and dramatic impacts on our way of life.  The state and local governments most greatly impacted seem to be a choosing a piecemeal, inconsistent and sometimes incoherent approach.  Closing of bars and beaches makes sense but allowing thousands of protestors in close proximity is okay?  Incoherent.  And I’m not sure what they are doing but the federal government seems to be not very present.  I’ve heard some state officials say that their hospitals are  approaching max capacity and PPE is becoming a problem.  So what have they been doing the last few months?  Wouldn’t it have made sense for state and federal governments to have been working together to ensure they have excess capacity?  Obviously rhetorical questions but pretty relevant.  Don't know where we're going now but in my circle of friends and in my family, it's all about the kids.  How do we ensure that the kids can get back to school and experience school as it's meant to be?  That is our priority.  I hope that the school districts and the teacher's unions are listening...but I'm not sure they are.

But back to the racial issues.  Like so many things I think it comes down to personal action.  You can watch and listen to all the various news accounts, you can be heartened or outraged by the latest actions of those out on the streets, you can write your political representatives til you're blue in the face.  But really it takes each individual taking whatever action they can to really understand the issues and then working to help others and try to impact your little corner of the world.  As I've said before on this blog, I've been inspired and hopeful at times and disgusted and disappointed at times.  But I've decided I can do two things.  I can be open to learning and understanding and I can use that understanding to perhaps work in areas where I can make a difference.  My wife and I are seeking information and are open to broadening our horizons.  We took a class this morning called "Dismantling racism...one insight at a time".   The instructor provided some really thought provoking questions and sprinkled in some history and relevant facts.  He provided some resources for us to explore which might provide more insight and understanding.  And that couldn't hurt.

But I have to say that it's difficult to get past the destruction and radical actions of some of the protestors.  I don't think I'm untypical of many people in society today who want to live in a better country when it comes to race relations, but doing something becomes problematic in the face of violence, wanton destruction, and outrageous demands.  I can't even pay attention when mobs are roaming the streets.  I can't even consider actions when police and governmental leaders are being demonized and even killed.  I can't even pay attention when statues and memorials are being destroyed and defaced with no regard to who or what they memorialize.  So while I will quietly work for more personal understanding, I'm not sure I can get to the next step of action in the face of such anarchy.

I'm not sure where we go from here.  Until things quiet down and we can get to constructive dialog there are two things I'm holding onto.  The first I heard today and the second is timeless.  I heard this quote in the class today.  "Not all are guilty, but all are responsible."  I and so many others aren't guilty of past sins, but we are responsible to fix what we can and do better in the future.  Many, many people want to do that, if we can get to a dialog.  I understand that many don't and we'll just have to live with that and hold people accountable.

The second is a speech I refer to periodically and it actually gives me hope.  It's Lincoln's second inaugural speech and is copied below.  Lincoln is by almost any measure our greatest President.  That is because of two things.  He held the Union together and he freed the slaves, although as I'm learning there are an awful of of flaws in the 13th Amendment that have resulted in terrible unintended consequences.  This speech lays out where we need to go.  He died before he could get a good start.  Maybe it's time we finished the job.

"Fellow countrymen: at this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends is as well known to the public as to myself and it is I trust reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

"On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it ~ all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place devoted altogether to saving the Union without war insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war ~ seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.

"One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves not distributed generally over the union but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen perpetuate and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered ~ that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses for it must needs be that offenses come but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which in the providence of God must needs come but which having continued through His appointed time He now wills to remove and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him. Fondly do we hope ~ fervently do we pray ~ that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword as was said three thousand years ago so still it must be said 'the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'

"With malice toward none with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan ~ to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

Monuments and Statues

One of the big things in the news lately is the odd phenomenon of protestors and anarchists desecrating, defacing, and destroying monuments and statues around the country.  I say odd because it's really sort of a new tactic.  I guess maybe we've seen some of this in the past, but it seems to be something that those who feel the need to protest and destroy seem to think is effective.  It's not.

In the scheme of things, a protest is an effort to bring people around to your way of thinking.  In a country as big and diverse as ours, change only comes by changing the way some majority of the people think.  Especially in America change can't be forced.  It can't be forced by the government.  It can't be forced by the mob.  It can't be forced by slogans.  It can only occur when there is some agreement and belief by a significant body of people that change is appropriate.  But in my view the protestors are blowing it.

First we saw the phrase "defund the police".  As I said on other posts this is a huge blunder and maybe the worst marketing/branding mistake I've ever seen.  As soon as that phrase pops up, the vast majority of people turn away.  And even if some of the more rational voices in protest try to explain, try to bring up reasonable reform, try to distance themselves from it...it's too late.  Their only solution is to totally divorce themselves from that ridiculous and emotionally charged phrase.

Now we see the legitimate protestors being jumbled up with the anarchists.  Antifa has smartly taken up the cry from BLM and has distorted that message to be perverted to their own.  The reason for that is that Antifa methods and actions are so outrageous, so offensive, so damaging that they see cover in the BLM movement.  Because here's the deal. After the George Floyd murder and resulting protests, the BLM movement had a lot of potential allies.  A large number of people in the country have recognized the oppression and inequality that our fellow black citizens have faced.  They are sympathetic and they want to "do something".  I've seen more of my friends, colleagues and acquaintances than I can believe voice that very thing.  I've seen people reaching out and wanting to understand, take action and seek change.  Many, many people want to get involved and take some action (which may be undefined today) to positively effect change.  But when things are uncertain, the tendency is to be reluctant in the face of that uncertainty.  Whether they know it or not, the good people who are sincerely protesting racial inequality have been lumped with the anarchists and that will do them damage.  If people sitting at home watching who are sympathetic and want to see change can't tell the people protesting for racial justice from the anarchists, the anarchists are winning.

  

Over the last several days we've seen a part of Seattle deteriorate into a chaotic, fascist state.  We've seen statues and monuments of Christopher Columbus desecrated and destroyed.  I wrote a post about Columbus last year that still applies and you can read it here.  We've seen statues and monuments of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson pulled down.  Probably most oddly we saw the statue of Ulysses S. Grant, a key opponent of slavery and a President who did a lot of advance the lives of slaves after emancipation, destroyed.  That makes no sense at all, except it fits with the narrative of destroy everything connected with the country.  This weekend we have seen that statues of Francis Scott Key, the author of the Star Spangled Banner and Father Junipero Serra, a Jesuit missionary in early California days were toppled.  And of course we've seen a lot of statues of heroes of the Confederacy desecrated and destroyed.  The Confederate statues and monuments have been controversial for quite a while and we've seen a growing movement to take action to move them out of the public view.  Personally, I'd be in favor in moving them to a place, community by community, that is more appropriate than a public park or venue for all to see.  These things are historical and deserve to be preserved to tell the stories.  But I'm sympathetic to our black citizens who might have to walk by them every day and relive that horrible history.  The city of New Orleans has done a good job with this as they've moved a lot of Confederate statues to more appropriate places.  They didn't destroy them, they moved them.  Big difference.  But I get that there are many who strongly disagree.  So be it.  In time the situation will be resolved.  But most don't believe the resolution comes when violent mobs pull down a statue.

All of this is in addition to the ongoing protests and riots that aren't getting huge coverage in the media, but they are there.  The media is way more focused on how big Trump's rallies are and what is his latest outrageous screwup to indicate what a genuine asshole, traitor and criminal he is...according to them.  But I digress.  The point is that when good people are protesting and urging legitimate change in an area that cries for change and they get lumped with anarchists who want nothing more than to destroy, their cause will become diluted and lose inertia real fast.  Because while many average folks, both white and black, will buy in to helping with legitimate and rationalized change, they will not stand for the destruction of their society and way of life.  They may be patient.  They may not want to get involved when the destruction is far away and lightly covered in the media.  They may even be willing to suffer insults while trying to understand how to help.  But protests and change are one thing, destruction and devastation are another.  

The anarchists (Antifa) deserve to be punished and destroyed.  There is no place in our society for them.  A lot of people look to the Trump and the federal government to "do something".  But this is really a state and local government issue.  And if the state and local government won't do anything, then it will continue.  I hope (and believe) that at some point enough people will be fed up that they will vote in officials who will take decisive action against these assholes.  And by decisive, I mean strong, harsh action that will squash them.  And the BLM protestors, the sincere ones, deserve to have their voices heard and to be allowed to build a movement that will stimulate change for the better.  But as long as they align themselves with things like "defund the police" and the anarchist movement they will be stymied.  Their voices will be drowned out.  And that's too bad.  Because it's a message we all need to hear.

Shocking

I don't watch 60 Minutes every week as some of their stories have lost the legendary balance.  But I'm always drawn to at least the beginning to see what they are covering.  Last night they had a story on the race massacres in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1921.  I sat watching this 12 minutes story and was stunned.  Stunned is the only descriptor.  I thought to myself, "how had I never heard of this".  Take a few minutes to watch this.  It is deeply disturbing that something like this could have happened in our country in 1921.

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.

The Message We Need

With the unfolding of events over the last several days we've been inundated with analysis, articles, photos, meme's, and 24/7 coverage.  It becomes difficult to sift through all the narratives.

I've previously posted articles on this blog from a Priest who served our church many years ago.   I think this is his best, exactly at the time I (and maybe you) need it.  He is as wise as they come.  His message today is frankly, from my perspective, the best writing I've seen about our current troubles.  He presents a calm, hopeful, fair and ultimately uplifting message that I would expect, but don't always get, from clergy.

Lessons Learned on the Civil Unrest

The first thing I usually do when I awake in the morning is to check the internet for any news updates. For the last several days, the EOIR (Executive Office for Immigration Review) has sent out announcements that read: “Due to civil unrest, the [city] immigration court will be closed today.” Imagine that, even federal courts have had to shut down because of all the turmoil in the country.

We are going through a horrific period in American history – not the worst by far – but horrific, nonetheless. Cities are war zones, police are being shot and killed, stores, cars and buildings are burned, vandalized and looted, the estimated rebuilding cost is in the billions of dollars, and even churches are not immune to attack – St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City was desecrated and St. John’s Episcopal Church, Lafayette Square in Washington was set on fire with the “F” word graffitied on church walls. If you are like me, you suffer from a broken heart.

As it happened, in my Morning Prayer on today, Psalm 46 was one of the readings. This was Martin’s Luther’s favorite psalm, and he wrote “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” based upon it. I commend it to you as we pray for our country:

God is our refuge and strength, 

a very present help in trouble. 

Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth be moved, 

and though the mountain be toppled into the depths of the sea; 

Though its waters rage and foam, 

and though the mountains tremble at its tumult. 

The Lord of hosts is with us; 

the God of Jacob is our stronghold. 

I want to offer ten lessons that may help us get through these tumultuous times. 

First, there is wide agreement in the country that George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin, while three other police officers looked on but did nothing. This is such a clear-cut case of murder that the District Attorney could have filed murder charges almost immediately. The fact that he waited until Friday precipitated the anger, rage and suspicion that has led to civil unrest. How different things might be now if by Tuesday Officer Chauvin was charged with murder, arrested and put in jail without bond.

Moreover, the Murder 3 charge is too low – the officer should be charged with Murder 1 – there was clear intent to kill. I will not go through the details of why Murder I is justified, but as one prosecutor told me recently, you always aim high in the initial charge. In this case, the prosecutor aimed too low – a bare minimum. Sadly, the District Attorney is incompetent. So, it is not surprising that the Attorney General of Minnesota, Keith Ellison, has taken over the case.

Second, the good news for the Floyd family is that they have retained an excellent civil rights attorney, Benjamin Crump, to represent them in collecting damages against the City of Minneapolis. No one can bring back the life of a loved one so cruelly murdered, but at least there will be compensation for a grieving family. I would expect the compensation to be in the millions of dollars. 

Third, racism is a sin. I should not have to remind any Christians that God hates prejudice, discrimination, and any kind of racial superiority. Every human being is made in the image of God, and therefore deserving of equal treatment under law. A question that needs to be asked is, “If George Floyd was white, would the police officer have treated him in the same way?” The answer is definitely not. He might have been handcuffed, but he would not have been forced to the ground with the police office putting his knee on Mr. Floyd’s throat. The officer was treating Mr. Floyd like a wild animal and not as a human being who posed no physical threat. 

Fourth, racism is embedded in the United States – and we have to deal with it. This is very painful to write, because there are many good things about America, and for all our problems, millions still want to come to this country, but few want to leave it. And yet, for all our progress on race, we continue to live with the vestiges of slavery and segregation. 

We need to remind ourselves that slavery came to the American colonies in 1619 and was only abolished after a Civil War that cost up to 750,000 lives. After the war, Reconstruction was an attempt bring about equality between blacks and whites in the southern states, but that was halted after President Grant left office. With the Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson (1892) ruling that “separate but equal” was constitutional, we legalized segregation – separate water fountains, separate schools, separate passenger railway cars, separate sections on buses and in restaurants. Even in northern states, blacks and whites lived in separate neighborhoods and mostly attended separate schools. 

Only in 1954 did Brown v. Board of Education rule “separate but equal” unconstitutional, but it would not go quietly into that good night. The southern states resisted, and Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy had to use federal troops to ensure blacks went to the schools of their choice. In the 1960’s, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, then the Voting Right Act, and then the Fair Housing Act to undo vestiges of discrimination – and still there was resistance. Northern states resisted busing that would have allowed black and white children to attend the same schools. Affirmative action also came under attack that would have ensured black representation in our colleges, universities and workplaces. 

By 2020 we have made considerable progress as a nation. We have had a black President, 13 percent of Congress is non-white, and even South Carolina (the first state to secede from the Union) now has a black United States Senator, Tim Scott, who one day, I hope, will be President. We have black mayors of some of our nation’s most important cities – Chicago and Atlanta, for example. There is still, however, a long way to go – and no where has this become more evident than in our policing of black communities. We need to do better – better recruitment, better training, better oversight of police. 

Finally, I don’t know if reparations for slavery is a viable answer to the race problem in America. The cost for meaningful reparations might be as much as 14 trillion dollars. Then, there is the question of other disadvantaged groups in America, such as Hispanics and poor whites in rural areas – do we include them? Perhaps the answer is a just society for everyone, however we get to that goal.

Fifth, as bad as the present civil unrest is, it has been much worse at other times in our history. Here are some of the worst riots in recent times:

• Watts, Los Angeles, August 11 – 16, 1965 – There were six days of rioting and looting that resulted in 34 deaths and 3,500 arrests.

• Newark, New Jersey, July 12-17, 1967 – The riot was prompted by police beating a black cab driver by the name of John Smith. There was massive property destruction and looting resulting in 26 people dead and hundreds injured. This was the “beginning of the end” of Newark as a great city (its’ school system was one of the best in the country) and a massive exodus of white people to the suburbs. 

• Detroit, July 23 – 27, 1967 – There were 43 deaths, 2,000 buildings destroyed, and 7,300 people arrested. Similar to Newark, this was the beginning of the end of the once great motor city and resulted in a “white flight” to the suburbs.

• Los Angeles, April 29 – May 4 – This was the riot in the aftermath of the Rodney King beating by police officers caught on camera, and the subsequent acquittal of all the police officers at trial. 63 people died in this riot.

What is happening now on the streets of our cities is heartbreaking, but let’s keep our perspective: compared to other incidences of civil unrest, the loss of life in these disturbances has been very low. In fact, as I write this, there are more police deaths than protestors or rioters. 

Sixth, there is enough blame to go around for everyone – no one comes off looking good. The Mayor of Minneapolis ordered police to abandon a precinct rather than defend it, resulting in its complete destruction. This sent a signal to rioters that they could engage in burning and looting with impunity. The Mayor of New York allowed stores and buildings in Brooklyn and Manhattan to be vandalized and looted, with police doing little or nothing – almost a thousand stores destroyed – and all the while the Mayor claimed it was “peaceful protest.” Even Governor Cuomo had to take issue with the Mayor. The President meanwhile gave an excellent speech on Saturday at NASA, but too few Americans heard it. Unfortunately, some of his other rhetoric and tweets have been acerbic and not helpful to calming the situation. 

It is easy for us to become highly partisan in this situation. We need to resist that tendency. When the civil unrest ends, there will be time to examine what went right and wrong, and what government can do better to respond to an incendiary situation. For now, I would remind all of us what St. Paul said in Romans, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” – we are all sinners, fallible, prone to mistakes, with hearts less than pure. The great Russian Alexandre Solzhenitsyn put it best when he said, “The line between good and evil runs through every human heart.” We all need a little more humility and a willingness to engage in self-examination about our rhetoric.

Seventh, we are living in a post-modern world where very little of cable news reporting – CNN, MSNBC and Fox – reflects the truth. News reporting has become opinion, spin, and commentary under the pretense of being objective. “Truth” is what we say it is and how we understand it or want it be. It is “truth” from a particular perspective to further a particular purpose. Frankly, I believe cable news does more to endanger democracy in America than any other institution.

St. Paul referred to the devil as “the father of lies.” The devil will always try to distort the truth, mislead and misinform, all under the pretense of being fair, objective and reasonable. All of us might do well to read George Orwell’s 1984 or Animal Farm – even back in the late 1940’s Orwell understood the dangers of our modern technological age. You might also read C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man – a somewhat dated titled but the book zeroes in on the modern age and its dangers. We are becoming more divided in America now than perhaps at any time since before the Civil War, and cable news and the internet are largely responsible.

Eight, we can all affirm the right of Americans to protest racial injustice. Most of the protestors are doing just that – protesting racism in America as reflected in the murder of George Floyd. God bless them for their passion for justice. I remember Pope Paul VI saying, “If you want peace, then work for justice.” Without justice, a society will never enjoy peace. 

Unfortunately, in addition to legitimate protestors, there are two other groups – anarchists and looters. I hope we will all agree that breaking windows, setting fires and stealing goods is not acceptable or justifiable under any circumstances. It doesn’t take many people for a legitimate protest to go bad – Lenin said it took only five or ten percent to change the entire thrust of a protest. In the present case, it is more likely 20 or 30 percent. The tragedy is, that a good cause can get subverted by a minority, and the focus is no longer on the original injustice (the murder of George Floyd) but on stopping civil unrest. 

The good news is that the President does have the authority to go after these bad apples – whether they be Antifa or some other groups. While the President cannot legally and unilaterally declare Antifa a domestic terrorist organization, the Department of Justice has many legal tools to prosecute such groups, including use of RICO – Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act. RICO has been used to combat organized crime, and even to go after corrupt labor leaders, but it can be used wherever a group is organized to commit crime. In addition, the President can use the Insurrection Act to call up the military to take charge of uncontrollable situations if state and local officials are unable or unwilling to do so. The Insurrection Act was used by President Eisenhower against Governor Orville Faubus of Arkansas who resisted school desegregation, and President Kennedy used it against Alabama Governor George Wallace. President George H.W. Bush also used it in his time in office.

Ninth, a friend just called me and asked, “Is it possible to be a Republican or a conservative, and be a member of the Episcopal Church?” I was startled by the question and answered, “Of course, it is – we welcome everyone.” She replied, “But when I see the Bishop of Washington attacking my President but not saying a word of criticism against the arsonists who tried to burn down St. John’s Episcopal Church, I am concerned that the bias in our church is making it increasingly difficult for me to remain.” I understood her concern, but I did point out Presiding Bishop Curry’s much more balanced statement about the President standing in front of St. John’s Church. I also said that not all bishops – and certainly not all clergy – think alike. The Diocese of Washington is a very liberal diocese, but that is not the norm everywhere. So, to my dear friend and to any of you upset at the reaction of church officials to the President, hang in there and stay with us. There is room for all in the Episcopal Church, and no one is excluded – left or right or middle.

Tenth, what we all need to do – and I hope you are doing it now – is pray for our country that peace and justice will prevail, and that violence and discord will cease. Pray for our leaders – and yes, pray for President Trump. He needs our prayers at this difficult time. Pray also for the governors and mayors who are trying to balance the right of peaceful protest with maintaining public safety and order. We need to lower our voices, listen to one another, and engage in what the late Reuel Howe called, “The Miracle of Dialogue.” As Americans we can find common ground and act on common values to build a just, prosperous and peaceful America where the dignity of every human being is affirmed and the rights of every American are upheld.

The Rev. Dr. Gary Nicolosi

June 2, 2020

I Can't Breathe!

By now you've seen the horrific photos and videos of the takedown and murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis Policemen.  By any measure or analysis, there really isn't any doubt that the police used excessive force that resulted in the death of Mr. Floyd.  I know, I know...let the investigation run it's course.  They deserve due process.  I wasn't there and don't know the circumstances.  Blah, blah, blah.  But bottom line...they killed him.  If you watch the video that has gone viral, you can hear him pleading that he couldn't breath.  And you can see the look on the face of the policeman that screams at me that he really doesn't care.  That is an opinion, but I don't see how you could come to any other conclusion.  Of course after this story exploded in the news, there was outrage and cries for justice.  In these kinds of incidents, action is never swift enough.  The four officers involved were terminated from the police force and an investigation was begun almost immediately to determine facts of the incident and next steps.  But of course, the photos, videos and witnesses meant that the whole thing was going to go viral, and go viral rapidly.  Before they knew it, Minneapolis had a shit storm of rage on their hands and it has spiraled out of control.  There have been riots, looting, businesses trashed, buildings burned and numerous injuries.  It quickly became too much for the police force and the National Guard has been called in today.  The hope is that there will be order and calm restored.  We'll see.  People are outraged to a degree I haven't seen in quite some time and could continue the looting and burning for several days.  Meanwhile the police officer most identified with the murder and the guy with his knee on the neck of Mr Floyd for such a long time (almost 9 minutes), has been arrested and charged with murder among other things.  I've heard that the other  officers involved may face charges also.  Only time will tell.  

This whole thing has become all too familiar.  Depressingly familiar.  During the last several years there have been too many instances  of black men and boys killed by the police that have resulted in varying levels of public outrage.  Some have been pretty straightforward and some a bit more murky.  But the thing that has been common as the years go by is that they all contained video and photographic evidence.  As more and more people have a video camera in their pockets, literally everything in life winds up being videoed.  And so this week when Mr Floyd was callously murdered, it was right there in video for all to see.  And the rest, as they say, is history.  As before, there have been expressions of outrage.  But that only goes so far.  I am so over expressions of solidarity through hashtags.  Thoughts and prayers are just that...thoughts and prayers and not much else.  There have been peaceful demonstrations against the treatment and the violence.  But those only go so far.  They should be effective in providing an outlet for the frustration and a chance to express feelings.  But when the signs are put away and everyone goes back to work and school, the frustration is still there and continues to build.  And too often they erupt in violence.  Some of it's spontaneous and some of its planned.

A word about the riots.  They have spread across the country.  There have been riots and looting that have burned and destroyed neighborhoods and lives.  Mostly black neighborhoods and black lives.  And those only serve to set back the efforts of good people trying to come to grips with answers.     They feed the crowd that focuses on any excuse to minimize the event that caused the outrage.     There is widespread reporting that many these riots have been organized and orchestrated by ANTIFA groups and white supremacist groups.  These guys are plainly criminals and there is no place for it.  And the people engaging in it should be dealt with swiftly and severely.

The Mayor of Atlanta has a very powerful statement about riots that are burning her city.  I can't  add anything.

The rioting is difficult to understand or condone for someone who has never been close to being so frustrated, so outraged, so hopeless that they have to do something.  Anything.  That's not to excuse it, but to try and understand it.  The problem with what these protests have evolved to is that they are no longer about Mr Floyd.  This is just destruction and looting.  Here's another person's take on rioting..."And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity."  Martin Luther King, Jr.

So what are we to make of this?  From my perspective it's another sad episode in the sorry tale of race relations in this country.  And frankly, it appears that there isn't much that anyone can do about it.  We have lived with this scourge for hundreds of years.  Slavery was our original sin.  We argued and fought over it for the first 100 years of our country's existence that finally culminated in the Civil War, the bloodiest war in our history.  Neighbor against neighbor, brother against brother, fighting to the end for something that both sides passionately believed in.  But the end state didn't resolve much. Oh, the Emancipation Proclamation was passed and several amendments to the Constitution were passed to guarantee civil rights, but when President Lincoln was assassinated and Andrew Johnson ascended to the Presidency, it pretty much sealed the fate of the black population for the next 100 years.  Johnson was a rabid segregationist and torpedoed every effort for the country to heal and for blacks to begin the road to equality.  So for the next 100 years (100 years!!) we had Jim Crow.  If you've read anything about this history you know it's about as shameful, if not more, as the era of slavery.  And then came 1965 and the Civil Rights Act.  That was supposed to bring about equality with the stroke of a pen.  Be we know it doesn't work that way.  So for the last 55 years we've been on a long, slow, tortured path to achieving the dream of equality.  There have been successes, there is general day to day harmony in many communities, and we see increasing integration month by month, year by year.  But we're still not close to where we should be.  

I think there are some truths that must be faced.  Some hard truths.  Some truths that are generally difficult to discuss.  Whites and blacks don't get each other.  We can be friendly, we can marry, we can be neighbors and classmates, we can socialize, but at the end of the day there are social, racial and cultural barriers that are almost impenetrable.  An interesting thing to me is that economic parity between particular whites and blacks can go a long way towards understanding, but there are still barriers.  And they are fundamental.  Now don't get me wrong, on an individual basis, whites and blacks can be as close as brothers and sisters, but generally as a group, there are barriers.  And I have to say that whites will never understand the plight of blacks.  They can't.  They can't relate to sending your kid off on a date and worrying if he's going to come back alive.  They can't relate to being followed in a clothing store and being asked to see the receipt for purchases when they walk out of the door.  They can't relate to sitting in a restaurant waiting for service that will be slow in coming.  They can’t relate to the incomprehensible injustice of asking a woman to leash her dog in a public park and her reaction is to call the police because you’re threatening her.  Or innocently pumping gas at a gas station when police cars show up and start questioning you because a white person called them.  They can't relate to the absolute necessity to educate your kids and especially your boys on the dangers they will face simply because of the color of their skin.  They can't relate to accepting inferior schools in their communities because that's what the system provides.  They can't relate to their male population being unemployed or in prison at alarming rates.    They can't relate to the number of their daughters who are raising their children on their own.  They can't relate to all the tiny little prejudices that blacks experience every single day while just trying to live their lives.  While not recognizing their own blindspots, too many whites believe they are colorblind.  They will say they "don't see color" while not recognizing the vast differences and inequities present in front of them.  And as a result they become part of the problem that they don't see.  If this discussion causes you to scratch your head a bit and wonder if I'm either crazy or maybe have a point, take some time to do some soul searching.  There are a ton of books, articles, movies and other material that address these issues.  And like I said, it's not comfortable.  Here's a couple of recommendations of a movie I've recently watched and a book I've recently read that caused me to ask myself those uncomfortable questions.  Check out a movie called, "The Hate U Give".   It's pretty basic but tells an interesting story.  And the book is by Jody Piccult called "Small Great Things".  Check them out.  There are a lot of other issues but these seem to me to be the biggest.  And these things don't solve themselves overnight.  It's going to take a long time.  A real long time.

I also think there are a lot of people who believe that the answers lie in more government, more legislation, more money, more programs, more bureaucracy.  These things have been proven not to work.  Especially at the federal level, we don't need more of anything.  What we need is better, not more.  When we all get treated equally by the government, then we all have a stake in the outcome.  The experiment called America won't work unless we all buy into it.  And buying into it means having a sense that the playing field is level and anyone can achieve.  It seems to me that when the government provides more of whatever it is to some over others, they are trying to influence outcomes.  I don't think that's America.  We need to work on influencing starting points and playing fields.  And then let the chips fall where they may.  There will be winners and losers.  Always.  That's life.  But that it's so predetermined isn't.  But once again, I'm not sure there's a way to fix where we are today.  The systems, the bureaucracies, the expectations, the limitations, the advantages, and so many other things are institutionally tipped one way or the other.  The other piece of this issue that frequently gets ignored is the issue of personal responsibility.  The more level the playing field becomes, the more important personal responsibility becomes because everyone has an increasing sense of being responsible for their own lives.  Unfortunately, when the government assumes so many functions in our lives, it's easy to minimize the level of personal responsibility required to succeed.  The reason everyone admires a young black kid who strives and overcomes and achieves success in school and his or her life is because everyone knows the playing field isn't level.  That for some kids the climb is steeper and littered with roadblocks.  So when they make it, it's a big deal.   

There is one common thing in all of the incidents we've heard about in which black men and boys are killed.  And that is the police.  Now don't get me wrong, policemen and women are heroes.  99% of them are great people doing a very tough and dangerous job.  They should be honored, applauded, paid well and used as examples for our children.  But that doesn't mean we turn a blind eye to the bad apples.  If I were a local government official in any city, county or state around our country, I'd be asking some pretty tough questions.  A case can be made that every police organization in our country should be conducting very tough audits of their personnel with the intent to weed out anyone who has exhibited behavior that could be deemed prejudicial or racist.  And then there should be some very direct and comprehensive training on what is acceptable and what isn't.

Another aspect of this horrific issue is media involvement and blame.  Like so many things in our society, the media has evolved.  Unfortunately the evolution of he media hasn't been good.  It appears to me that they care about two things.  First is making every story as sensational as possible to generate headlines and revenue.  Second is to cast the story in a light that reflects their prejudices.  So  they've departed from just providing facts.  That doesn't sell.  And it doesn't promote their views.  As they shape and mold their stories, many times it drives people to their respective corners.  And that doesn't promote any sort of dialog that solves issues.  But like so many other things, I'm not sure there is any going back.  

So what do we do?  Throughout my professional career and even in many organizations I volunteer in the most frustrating, routinely non-answered question is...so what do we do?  When asking what we do most think we need to think about big, systemic, earth-shattering change.  But at the personal level, and that's where all of this really is, I think we need to ask what we can do to try and help with needed changes.  First, I think we can run toward the fire.  The natural propensity is to turn away.  To ignore uncomfortable or unjust things. But all things happen fundamentally on a local, personal level.  We have to stand up.  We have to hold people accountable.  What would have happened if one of the police officers in the group detaining Mr Floyd would have said stop?  What if one of them would have raised the alarm of abuse?  Or at the end, what if one of the police officers present would have arrested the policeman with his knee on Mr Floyd's neck?  What would you do if you were there?  Would you have stood passively by or tried to do something?  Think about that.  You never know when it will happen, so be ready.  

How will you change your view of racial injustice where you see it, where you live?  How will you know it?  Who will you hold accountable?  How will you educate your children?  How will your actions allow you to sleep better at night?  Maybe an honest dialog with some friends of a different race is in order.

When you see people of color reacting to injustice in ways you think are outrageous, will you try to understand or scoff that they are only hurting their cause?  And I'm not saying excuse criminal behavior but rather to at least try to understand.  Or when you see them being resigned to injustice maybe because it's happened so many times and will happen again, will you boldly stand with them?  Will you be the one to say...no more?

When you see opportunities to help level the playing field what will you do?  Are there kids in your sphere who you can influence to climb the long, steep mountain?  And will you be there for them when they trip and lose their way?

What other things can you do?  Look around.  Don't shrink from action.  Again, have an honest dialog with friends who don't look like you.

This has been a long and rather painful blog post.  I know many won't agree nor see things the way I do.  And that's okay.  But the tragic death of Mr Floyd seems to me to be somewhat of a tipping point.    There is almost universal agreement that this horrific incident should be condemned.  And that condemnation is not enough.  If this death causes people to look inward and resolve to work for change, then maybe that's all we can expect.

Paddle Boarding

We tried this one time when we were in Hawaii.  There is a definite technique to it.   I remember that it wasn't difficult to get up but it takes some work to stay up.  The stress is in your legs and it's a great  leg workout, especially thighs and butts.  And I thought at the time that paddle boarding would be a great sport to take up if you wanted to work on your legs and tone your butt.  Apparently I was right!

When We Emerge...

When I started this blog, I would routinely quote Peggy Noonan and reprint her columns that I thought were particularly poignant or presient.  Over time and as Trump lived into the Presidency she has become, if hot a "never Trumper" at least a vociferous critic.  And I think most of her criticism has to do with style and cultural impact.  I believe she remains at her heart a conservative and a Republican.  And there have been many, many times over the last three years when I've very much resonated with her dismay at Trump's remarks, tweets, and persona.  But I guess the difference is that as a guy who is just a casual observer and living life in a larger context than the NYC or WDC bubble, I keep my eye steadfastly on the other side.  The damage they would do to the country is, to my mind, just as important to focus on (if not more important) than the shenanigans of the President.  And how Trump acts is so dependent on media that truthfully I give him a pass most of the time because I know it's all a reaction to their shameful behavior.

But I soldier on reading her columns hoping to find a gem once in a while.  Today is that day.  I think her column in the WSJ this week is really good.  It's not earth shattering, it's not breaking news, it's not all things for all people, but the message seems to me to be from her heart and can apply to so many of us.  And for me if on the other side of this pandemic, we emerge a simpler, kinder, more loving people, then we're so much the better for it.  It might be true and it might not.  It's one person's opinion.  But I'll take it.

A Plainer People in a Plainer Time
As the lockdown forces us to turn inward, we rethink what’s important and what we were meant to do.

By  Peggy Noonan
Updated May 22, 2020 2:13 pm ET

We’re easing up. Good, it’s time. Spring is here, summer’s coming. You can pass any well-meaning restriction and do your best to enforce it, but great leaders work with human nature, not against it. People need to be together, out in the air, in the sun, and if you don’t let them they’ll find a way anyhow, and then everybody will have to fight.

All 50 states are to varying degree unlocking. How citizens do this will determine the size and severity of second and third waves. It’s almost all in our hands. A report this week from a scientist who helped discover SARS said that a lab experiment confirms what common sense always suggested: Wearing a mask can substantially reduce disease transmission and viral loads. If we all do that one small thing, chances are we’ll get through OK.

How could we not? Especially after we’ve just done something so big.

What we did—essentially shut down a great, complex, modern nation for two months out of concern that people would become sick—had never been tried before. It’s something new in history. We will look back on it, however it turns out, with a certain wonder.

In those two months we learned a lot. How intertwined and interconnected our economy is, how provisional, how this thing depended on that. And how whisperingly thin were everybody’s profit margins. The well-being of the West Side block depends on human traffic, which depends on restaurants and bars, which depend on the theater being open. It was a George Bailey economy: “Every man on that transport died. Harry wasn’t there to save them, because you weren’t there to save Harry.” Every economy is, in the end, and if you’re interested in economics you knew this, but not the way you know it after the business catastrophe of 2020.

But the biggest things I suspect we learned were internal. No matter what you do for a living, when you weren’t busy introspection knocked on the door and settled in. Two different men, professionals, both blinked with surprise as they reported, unasked, that they can’t believe they have their college-age kids home again and they’re all together and they have dinner every night and play board games. They were so grateful. They had no idea this was possible, that it would make them so happy. That it had been missing.

People have suffered. They’ve been afraid. The ground on which they stand has shifted. Many have been reviewing their lives, thinking not only of “what’s important” or “what makes me happy” but “what was I designed to do?” They’ve been conducting a kind of internal life review, reflecting on the decision that seemed small and turned out to be crucial, wondering about paths not taken, recognizing strokes of luck. They’ve been thinking about their religious faith or lack of it, about their relationships. Phone calls have been longer, love more easily expressed, its lack more admitted.

It has been a dramatic time. We have stopped and thought about our lives, and our society’s arrangements. We have applauded together, for the first time, those whose jobs kept our towns up and operating, from nurses to truckers. We’ve rethought not only what is “essential” but who is important. All this will change you as a nation.

Here is what I am certain of. We will emerge a plainer people in a plainer country, and maybe a deeper one. Something big inside us shifted.

Superficially, the hair is scruffier, the roots grew out, but you can almost hear people thinking eh, our time is finite, our money limited—maybe that’s not gray, it’s silver. Maybe that new fringe is my silver lining. We’ve grown used to soft clothes, gym clothes. I have three outfits in daily rotation and I keep them folded on a window ledge, like a child laying out her clothes for school. I like the simplicity of this. I shared it with a friend. “That’s what I do!” he said. “And I don’t want to stop!” We watch TV news and home studios, light makeup and spectral lighting and think OK, sign of the times.

The world has admired and imitated America’s crisp chic, but I see an altering of the national style. For reasons economic and existential a new simplicity is coming, glitz leaving. (All this would be especially true for those over 40, but according to the Census Bureau that’s more than half the country.)

Fashion is a sliver of life. Maybe you approach it as the fun of glamour; maybe you see it as a way of paying tribute to life by making it even more beautiful. Maybe you see it as vanity, chasing youth. But it’s a leading indicator of a nation’s mood, and it will be changed by what we’ve experienced.

We’re getting pared down. We’re paring ourselves down.

I asked Andre Leon Talley, former creative director at Vogue, whose new memoir, “The Chiffon Trenches,” is about more than fashion, if he saw it as I did, knowing he’d disagree. But no. “I think more people will be dressed, when we come out of this pandemic, in almost Amish stoicism—a simple uniform of basic wash and dry. It’s going to be difficult for fashion to exist as a mainstream addiction.”

Vogue, he noted by email, has just published a new issue. “For the first time in ages there is no celebrity cover choice, no high-fashion model in near perfection of dress and grooming. There is a red rose, photographed by the late Irving Penn, which symbolizes more than a mere trend of dress.” He called the cover “iconic.” To him it symbolizes “the larger issues of life”—nature, gardens, fresh flowers.

When he speaks to people in fashion, “they are not even concerned with acquiring the new.” “Women are wearing neat, coordinated exercise gear or track suits as they walk off the extra pounds gained from self-quarantine.”

This, he said, is the mood: “I recently saw a video of Amish men moving a big red barn across a field. Instead of having it raised on a flatbed, 300 men wearing black simply picked up the full-size barn and moved it across a field. That was so moving to me. The idea of how humans can be so resourceful, based on strength and their cultural roots. Amish people are elegant, yet they adhere to traditions that have been passed down generation to generation.”

Women “will always want to look smart, neat and well groomed,” he said. “There’s nothing like a woman who has put on a simple white cotton button-front shirt, a simple skirt, and she has taken a beautiful cotton or linen or silk scarf and neatly knotted it at the chin or the nape of her neck. That is what I mean when I say Amish stoicism. The pioneer genes shall prevail, and women will focus on the essentials: nurturing their children in the arc of safety (homes and schools) providing food (driving to breadlines and food banks) and making do with what is already in the closet. Everything old will be suddenly new again.”

We will lose, for a while, our old patina. We will not much miss it.

America is about to become a plainer place. Maybe a deeper one, too. Maybe that’s good.