This isn't an ideal case for outrage, that's why. At least not yet. Right now, we have a guy who had 10g of marijuana. Worth dying over? No, but having nothing but a bag of skittles, or being pulled over for not using a turn signal, is a better narrative. People are killed by police every week, it's too much for the populace to rage over every day. You don't have outrage over most people killed by police, black or white. This guy isn't an exception.
Some outrage should come when national news compares the two stories: Victim shot in the back, say coroners. Victim shot in the front, say officers. THEN you have the outrage. Not because of the color of his skin, but because the police are bypassing the justice system and lying about it. We're getting more and more stories where the police lie and, worse, the department protects them. But the outrage shouldn't be about Zach Hammond. We shouldn't carry signs with his name on it, or chant his name. We should add his name to the ever growing list of names of people killed by on-duty officers without due process. We push for more oversight, we push for more training, and we push for independent investigation of incidents. But that's small time outrage, with some real but, in the grand scheme of things, small change.
Is inequality a problem in our country? Yes, but right now not everyone says yes, people can ignore it. People need to stop saying "All Lives Matter" and "Black Lives Matter" are exclusive. It doesn't matter what the name of the movement is. Blacks and Whites aren't alone. Hispanics and Native Americans aren't alone. We're all working against each other when together we are stronger.
So if you want the movement to stop there, here's your slogan: Together We're Stronger. No matter what ethnicity we are, we call for police to be held to higher standards.
This is just one facet of American life where inequality shows itself. I bet you could start here with something small, then you carry that movement to the next obvious and somewhat related rally point: incarceration. Over 1 in 100 Americans are behind bars RIGHT NOW. Don't even bring race into it and you have something that ALL people can rally behind. Add in the fact that the prison population is 1 in 45 white Americans, 1 in 27 Hispanic Americans, and 1 in 11, 1 in ELEVEN, almost 10% of Black Americans are in jail (at least as of 2008, didn't look for more recent numbers)... you're on your way to a full scale revolution on your hands AS LONG AS you don't make it exclusive. Right now you have the current flashpoint (police brutality) to get the momentum, coupled with a larger problem that the rest of the world looks at and shakes their head (US incarceration rates) to get the world watching and cheering on the Americans fighting to fix themselves, next you hit with the big guns.
Poverty rates. This is the easy one. Don't even TALK about poverty rates for adults. Children get more attention, because they have NOTHING to do with their situation. Nobody can blame a kid for being impoverished.
22%. TWENTY-TWO out of a hundred. We're talking more than ONE IN FIVE children in the United States under the FEDERAL poverty line. http://www.unicef.org/media/files/RC11-ENG-embargo.pdf Check it. Now you've got everyone on your side. There's nowhere to run now, nobody is going to outwardly argue that almost a quarter of children being impoverished is a good thing. Nobody is going to say we shouldn't do something about it, and nobody i...
This isn't an ideal case for outrage, that's why. At least not yet. Right now, we have a guy who had 10g of marijuana. Worth dying over? No, but having nothing but a bag of skittles, or being pulled over for not using a turn signal, is a better narrative. People are killed by police every week, it's too much for the populace to rage over every day. You don't have outrage over most people killed by police, black or white. This guy isn't an exception.
Some outrage should come when national news compares the two stories: Victim shot in the back, say coroners. Victim shot in the front, say officers. THEN you have the outrage. Not because of the color of his skin, but because the police are bypassing the justice system and lying about it. We're getting more and more stories where the police lie and, worse, the department protects them. But the outrage shouldn't be about Zach Hammond. We shouldn't carry signs with his name on it, or chant his name. We should add his name to the ever growing list of names of people killed by on-duty officers without due process. We push for more oversight, we push for more training, and we push for independent investigation of incidents. But that's small time outrage, with some real but, in the grand scheme of things, small change.
Is inequality a problem in our country? Yes, but right now not everyone says yes, people can ignore it. People need to stop saying "All Lives Matter" and "Black Lives Matter" are exclusive. It doesn't matter what the name of the movement is. Blacks and Whites aren't alone. Hispanics and Native Americans aren't alone. We're all working against each other when together we are stronger.
So if you want the movement to stop there, here's your slogan: Together We're Stronger. No matter what ethnicity we are, we call for police to be held to higher standards.
This is just one facet of American life where inequality shows itself. I bet you could start here with something small, then you carry that movement to the next obvious and somewhat related rally point: incarceration. Over 1 in 100 Americans are behind bars RIGHT NOW. Don't even bring race into it and you have something that ALL people can rally behind. Add in the fact that the prison population is 1 in 45 white Americans, 1 in 27 Hispanic Americans, and 1 in 11, 1 in ELEVEN, almost 10% of Black Americans are in jail (at least as of 2008, didn't look for more recent numbers)... you're on your way to a full scale revolution on your hands AS LONG AS you don't make it exclusive. Right now you have the current flashpoint (police brutality) to get the momentum, coupled with a larger problem that the rest of the world looks at and shakes their head (US incarceration rates) to get the world watching and cheering on the Americans fighting to fix themselves, next you hit with the big guns.
Poverty rates. This is the easy one. Don't even TALK about poverty rates for adults. Children get more attention, because they have NOTHING to do with their situation. Nobody can blame a kid for being impoverished.
22%. TWENTY-TWO out of a hundred. We're talking more than ONE IN FIVE children in the United States under the FEDERAL poverty line. http://www.unicef.org/media/files/RC11-ENG-embargo.pdf Check it. Now you've got everyone on your side. There's nowhere to run now, nobody is going to outwardly argue that almost a quarter of children being impoverished is a good thing. Nobody is going to say we shouldn't do something about it, and nobody is going to ignore it. You don't even have to get the race stuff involved, this story is rage-inducing enough. News outlets can jockey to get the most click-baity headlines "15 US counties where the child poverty rate is over 50%!" "Which 3 states are graduating fewer students than 3 years ago?"
So the rally cry becomes Fix Child Poverty. What needs to happen for that?
Stop incarcerating their parents at, let's be honest, ridiculous rates. There will be a lot of push back from those who make money on the current system.
Continue the focus on high school graduation rates. We're up to 81% right now, on track to 90% by 2020, which is great progress, but the rate of poor children graduating is only at 71%, and growing at a slower rate than the overall progress. Having more parents around helps poor kids.
And at the risk of making it too political, you can bring in the minimum wage increases. A slow roll out over 3 years getting the state minimums up to a point where a 40 hour workweek at minimum wage will at least equal the amount a family needs to pay for housing, food, health insurance, and transportation. If that's $15 an hour, so be it, but this should be a state thing ideally. If the states don't do it soon anyway, the federal government will and there'll be a lot of states getting all upset about it. They might as well do it now.
Those three changes alone will, over a fairly short period of time, absolutely change the current landscape in the United States. The biggest change though will be the headiness of working together. Then we can move to the long term things to make sure the changes stick: election reform, congressional term limits, local governance.
So how do I personally do it? I know it's silly, but really just you vote and you make a LOT of noise with social media, which everyone is all about using. Meanwhile, the flashpoint of it all, police brutality, will be the first thing fixed by the current politicians in office who want to keep their jobs as they see their constituents being loud about the topic. You can't expect large numbers of people to call their representative, but they easily will tweet a hashtag. The news programs notice what's trending too.
So yes, blacks are incarcerated at a higher rate than Hispanics and killed by cops at higher rates than whites. That doesn't mean that everyone can't fight for change side by side. We need all of us together to make things happen, and by saying "We (You) should make (y)our own movement", all you're doing is making it easier for the current system to divide and conquer, because they have to do half the work.
So how about this for your movement: Together We Are Stronger.
I usually delete this stuff as I get close to finishing it, because I poke tons of holes in it and think I take too long to get my point across. I don't care though, I'm pushing Post Comment anyway.
This isn't an ideal case for outrage, that's why. At least not yet. Right now, we have a guy who had 10g of marijuana. Worth dying over? No, but having nothing but a bag of skittles, or being pulled over for not using a turn signal, is a better narrative. People are killed by police every week, it's too much for the populace to rage over every day. You don't have outrage over most people killed by police, black or white. This guy isn't an exception.
Some outrage should come when national news compares the two stories: Victim shot in the back, say coroners. Victim shot in the front, say officers. THEN you have the outrage. Not because of the color of his skin, but because the police are bypassing the justice system and lying about it. We're getting more and more stories where the police lie and, worse, the department protects them. But the outrage shouldn't be about Zach Hammond. We shouldn't carry signs with his name on it, or chant his name. We should add his name to the ever growing list of names of people killed by on-duty officers without due process. We push for more oversight, we push for more training, and we push for independent investigation of incidents. But that's small time outrage, with some real but, in the grand scheme of things, small change.
Is inequality a problem in our country? Yes, but right now not everyone says yes, people can ignore it. People need to stop saying "All Lives Matter" and "Black Lives Matter" are exclusive. It doesn't matter what the name of the movement is. Blacks and Whites aren't alone. Hispanics and Native Americans aren't alone. We're all working against each other when together we are stronger.
So if you want the movement to stop there, here's your slogan: Together We're Stronger. No matter what ethnicity we are, we call for police to be held to higher standards.
This is just one facet of American life where inequality shows itself. I bet you could start here with something small, then you carry that movement to the next obvious and somewhat related rally point: incarceration. Over 1 in 100 Americans are behind bars RIGHT NOW. Don't even bring race into it and you have something that ALL people can rally behind. Add in the fact that the prison population is 1 in 45 white Americans, 1 in 27 Hispanic Americans, and 1 in 11, 1 in ELEVEN, almost 10% of Black Americans are in jail (at least as of 2008, didn't look for more recent numbers)... you're on your way to a full scale revolution on your hands AS LONG AS you don't make it exclusive. Right now you have the current flashpoint (police brutality) to get the momentum, coupled with a larger problem that the rest of the world looks at and shakes their head (US incarceration rates) to get the world watching and cheering on the Americans fighting to fix themselves, next you hit with the big guns.
Poverty rates. This is the easy one. Don't even TALK about poverty rates for adults. Children get more attention, because they have NOTHING to do with their situation. Nobody can blame a kid for being impoverished.
22%. TWENTY-TWO out of a hundred. We're talking more than ONE IN FIVE children in the United States under the FEDERAL poverty line. http://www.unicef.org/media/files/RC11-ENG-embargo.pdf Check it. Now you've got everyone on your side. There's nowhere to run now, nobody is going to outwardly argue that almost a quarter of children being impoverished is a good thing. Nobody is going to say we shouldn't do something about it, and nobody i...
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