Race is America is a fraught topic. Literally it has been so since our earliest days as a nation else our constitution would not have defined a black person as worth 3/5 a person (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-Fifths_Compromise). Progress has been made but in many respects we have never recovered from this original barbarous compromise.
Race is a topic one approaches with trepidation but here goes.
This summer's protests, violence and resulting backlash repeat a cycle we have experienced over and over. A cycle with similar results- not enough progress and the majority asserting its political will over the minority as the majority reacts with fear, grievance and resentment communicated through the ballot box (a place where the majority has an inherent advantage). I would strongly recommend reading Rick Perlstein's books documenting the political environment of the 1960s ("Before the Storm" and "Nixonland") or perhaps if one wants to focus more narrowly on Chicago "American Pharoah" a biography about Richard Daley. I cannot imagine what it would have felt like if the violence which occurred in the 60's had been amplified by social media the way they are today.
I get violence is not the answer. This a photo taken from my balcony of looters pillaging a coffee shop in the middle of the night 8/11.
MLK got violence was not the answer. Famously in his speech accepting the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize he called the award:
"a profound recognition that nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time: the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression...”
But MLK did not operate in a vacuum. He spoke in this interview a couple of years later of why violence might arise and also why race and ethnicity are flawed comparisons for some.
It is entirely feasible to oppose gratuitous violence and oppose Maoist cultural revolution like BS such as below:
BUT to also have tremendous empathy for the heartfelt emotional pleas from the folks below:
The NBA is interesting. It is an industry unlike most others, as it is an African American dominated industry. Everyone from the players who have tremendous power (like say the star leaders at an investment bank or law firm), to the management to the ownership respect that without African Americans there is no league in its current manifestation. This respect is prevalent not because so many AAs are the star players, but the managers and even owners as well. In other words it is like most industries except the roles of AA and whites are flipped.
The republicans are now in full throated, unabashed "instill fear, fan resentment and encourage grievance" mode. It appears to be their best and perhaps only hope to reverse their electoral challenges.
My hope is that Doc River's question does not fall on deaf ears. No responsible party condones violence but I perceive far too many of my fellow citizens cowering in the face of short term violence, the vast majority of which only impacts them vicariously and using it as an excuse to avoid confronting the long-term systematic racism permeating our nation. This has been a dynamic repeated far too many times in our history. It plays into the hands of demagogues and scoundrels.
What is the antidote? Perhaps a leader who gets the pursuit of justice, liberty and security is not a zero sum game to be traded one for the other:
As opposed to a leader who embraces division, fear and grievance. We have had leaders who embraced white backlash and law and order (see Nixon, Richard; Wallace, George amongst others) but never one who has embraced so cynically and with such apparent heartfelt gusto. Here is to hoping for better.
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