We all matter
Watching what has unfolded over the past week while sitting out east takes me back to Hurricane Katrina when we watched what happened in the stadium and throughout New Orleans. It was horrific and my guess is that there was more victims that we did not hear about because nobody recorded it. We felt helpless and horrible.
Our daughter walked from Central Park to Union Square last night in one of the many protests that people came together for across the country. We need to see more of this where we hear the peoples anger and their voices say enough is enough.
This past week was so upsetting, horrible and incredulous. This is a time bomb ticking and it has been ticking for way too long. We are seeing sparks set off but I fear something else will come of this unfounded killings.
I certainly don’t know the answer but we all live in this country, regardless of race and religion, and should acknowledge and respect each others rights based on the laws set forth in this nation. We all matter.
Comments (Archived):
I posted a comment on Fred’s blog that I think is appropos. Peggy Noonan writes, “Cynicism doesn’t just make everything worse; it creates a new kind of bad. It kills, for instance, the idea of merit. You don’t rise through talent and effort; you rise through lies, connections, silence, the rules of the gang. That gives the young an unearned bitterness. That is a terrible thing for adults to do, to deprive the young of the idealism that helps them rise cleanly and with point.”That’s at the core. Young people are cynical in different ways. Some, like your daughter perceive injustice in terms of police violence. Others I know perceive injustice in different ways. But, at the core, they feel helpless as people with connections are able to skirt the system/norms. But, older people are cynical too. They see things happen that they know are wrong and also know if they tried to get away with similar they would face different consequences.Entrenched systems; political, bureaucratic and corporate take away from idealism and hope. Now, it’s creating anger and it just isn’t sitting inside one movement.
The anger is so deep and layered.
Yup, and it’s different. Your daughter’s anger is different than my daughter’s anger-or the anger from middle aged people I meet in small towns. Yet, it’s all anger and it’s manifesting itself in ugly ways.
The income inequality gap between white families and black or latino ones is just too staggering. That is the root of the problem, in my opinion. The US is one of the richest, most technologically advanced countries in the world, and with more billionaires and millionaires than anywhere else; yet….25% of its population lives in poverty…and most of them don’t even have proper healthcare.It start there, really.http://www.demos.org/sites/…”in 2011 the median U.S. white household had $111,146 in wealth holdings, compared to just $7,113 for the median Black household and $8,348 for the median Latino household.”
That’s definitely one of the bigger issues. It also began a long time ago when we did not embrace black culture instead we expected them to be white. That goes back to post slavery.Next thing we did was incarcerate young black men for drug use. We are seeing a reaction to multiple layers of prejudice that has built and built up
Read this from a conservative. I think it’s true, and really resonates. http://www.redstate.com/leo… A couple of excerpts: “Now imagine, for a minute, that your parents instead grew up as black people in the 50s or 60s in one of the many areas where police were often the agents of – let’s call it what it was – white oppression. How might that have changed, for understandable reasons, the way not only those people but also their children and their children’s children interact with the police? More importantly, how might it impact the belief that police will ever be held accountable for abuses of their power? ” AND “Here’s all you need to know: since 2000, NYPD officers have shot and killed about 180 people. Only 3 of those officers was even indicted for anything and only 1 was convicted, for a non-jail time offense. And these statistics are fairly typical of the nation at large.” Sums it up pretty well though shooting officers isn’t going to do anyone any good. Getting convicted for crimes and not having two systems of justice would also help.
A big part of this is the media. It’s good and bad. Good in the fact that it exposes injustices/abuses to a broader segment. But incredibly bad because, over time, the general public thinks what the media talks about is the “norm”. Which couldn’t be further from the truth. All the media talks about is the .01% of bad in the world. Not the 99.99% good.
And, as you know, there is a culture of incarceration in our country, second to none with a hugely disproportionate number of Black and Latino men incarcerated. Police now receive more training in how to kill a suspect than how to talk them down other ways. Also, there should be entire units of mental health workers on police forces that are responding to complaints involving psychotic and homeless who require a sophisticated mental health responses vs. random violence back at them. Being a cop is tough. But we as a society make it tougher on them but not training them properly to do the very real people they have to deal with.
agree 100%
Diversity is not just something that you talk about, but it’s something that you’ve taken meaningful action on. The proof of that pudding is in your portfolio, and the founders behind the companies you fund.Many thanks.
Thanks Brandon
I know you are smart enough to realize that “all lives matter” negates your full understanding of your White Privilege, It is so important to see out of our regular myopic boxes. Hence I am interested to learn your fellow posters information about the economics of it all. But also hope that others, especially WP like myself, will get a full understanding of Black Lives Matter. So that we can ALL Take Action to Change the systemic problems of hate and violence on every platform
black, hispanic, latino, asian, white too…had all (and perhaps not as often) harassed by the police. i understand every single side of this equation. we all matter.
Mariah wrote a great piece today that all white people should read. It’s a fantastic resource and she’s done us such a service by putting it together:https://medium.com/@Lighted…
really great piece.