The Hard Thing

It has been discovered in the field of quantum physics that the subatomic world behaves much to the contrary of the macro world. One of…

It has been discovered in the field of quantum physics that the subatomic world behaves much to the contrary of the macro world. One of the ways in which it behaves so differently has been demonstrated many times in what is called the ‘double-slit’ experiment. The experiment shows that there are two ways a particular object can behave. It can present itself as a wave, or, alternatively, as a particle. Both are equally valid results, yet both are quite distinct from the other. The only thing that appears to be making the distinction between the two are the method of how this object is measured or observed. There are many other extrapolations that can be made from this exhibition of quantum mechanics but for this piece’s purposes the exposition of this phenomenon will be concluding here. If one zooms out to observe our macro world, specifically the world of politics and government one is met with a similar dilemma. Let us, now, turn our attentions to the gross injustices that have occurred recently; the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, which are the latest in a string of publicized police abuse. Additionally, there is the killing of David Dorn, a retired police officer, and the sudden rise of anti-Semitic violent crimes in the past five years that have received markedly less legacy and social media attention than the aforementioned events. Now, we can view each of these instances as tragic yet unrelated. But, if we change our method of measurement and alter the way in which we observe these instances then an institution of suppression, violence and silence will be revealed. The possible ways in which this institution can be identified and dissolved are myriad, but I’d like to spend some time exploring how to start dismantling this oppressive institution we all toil under. This is the hard thing.

This first point will be controversial. The data on police killings and use of force in departments across our nation shows quite clearly the bias our police officers have against the black community. In fact, the statistics that are available show that there is no evidence of systemic disproportionate abuse to any race by the police across the country. Additionally, the numbers show that when adjusted for percentage of violent crimes committed that police use lethal force on whites more than any other race. These encounters number highest in volume, and in percentage. Another hard truth is that the black community, while only responsible for about 14% of the country’s population, is responsible for 43% of all violent crime in the United States as the most recent data suggests. It is at this junction that the hard thing makes its first appearance. It seems easy to assume that our police forces are irrevocably bigoted because that is the consistent narrative set forth, but I implore everyone to dig a little deeper. Racism is undoubtedly still alive in the world, and our nation is no different, but I do question whether it runs rampant in any current legislation today. I think there is another force at work of which I will make a point later. But upon exploring further we must question why one of our communities is, if you will, punching above its weight class in violent crime, and what are the necessary steps to reduce these statistics. It is imperative we determine and address the legacy of slavery, and Jim Crow and the lasting impact they have left in our black communities. It should be unacceptable to everyone that a minority population be responsible for close to half of the U.S.’s violent crimes.

Everyone who watched the death of George Floyd unfold on video was rightly disgusted. However, it was wrong to assume that Floyd’s murder was an act charged by racism. We don’t know if Derek Chauvin would have acted differently if it was a man or woman of any other color that was beneath his knee. The name Tony Timpa is surely less familiar to the American public. A white man that suffered a similarly egregious act of police brutality, but received significantly less media attention, and to my knowledge no one protested after his killing. Timpa suffered from mental health disorders and called the police on himself when he was off of his medication. Timpa did not receive the help he desperately needed but instead was arrested and was suffocated under the weight of Dallas police officers. We must question why Timpa’s name and his killer aren’t on the lips of protesters. Surely, police reformation, and police abuse are a problem that belongs to every American regardless of color. Perhaps, the most disturbing aspect of the Floyd murder was how avoidable it could have been. Based on Chauvin’s disciplinary record it is unconscionable that this man still had a job on the force. For too long, police unions have protected unfit officers from being relieved of their duties. Furthermore, stat keeping and transparency regarding use of force in police departments needs to be prioritized. The Federal Bureau of Investigation compiles use of force statistics but participating in the reports by local departments is only encouraged, not mandated. President Trump signed an executive order incentivizing additional training for police departments but being better prepared for the job of protecting and serving American citizens shouldn’t be optional. For years, the doctrine of qualified immunity has limited the citizens’ protection against police indiscretions. But police should be better trained, and higher qualified, not removed. A recent Princeton study showed that adding police did reduce crime, but I would insist that police reform should carry much more weight than just throwing a few more bodies at the problem. Some are espousing the idea of abolishing the police altogether, and many in the media are referencing Camden, NJ as a successful example of a city that removed their police force and had lower crime rates. What actually happened is entirely different. Camden did have success in reducing crime rates, but their police reform consisted of transferring the city department into the county, ending generous labor union contracts and allocating more police onto the streets; rightly contradicting the narrative we’ve all been fed. Who stands to gain from distributing misinformation? It’s worth noting that the cities that have experienced the worst turmoil, and the greatest unrest during this period have had Democratic mayors, and representatives consistently for at least half a century. This is not an indictment on all Democrats, but more the Democratic party. The people’s party, or peoples’ party, has been commandeered long ago. Promises to protect and represent the individual, the marginalized have only served to get most of them reelected but no lasting change has been affected. For an example, three years ago Flint, Michigan was allocated a federal grant of $100 million to replace public water infrastructure. Fast forward to March of 2020 and there are $87 million left in the federal fund. This is six years after reports of thousands of Flint residents were exposed to dangerous amounts of lead in their drinking water. The inefficacy is appalling, and the lack of pressure Flint, and Michigan’s leadership have received from the media, and the federal government to start treating its citizens like citizens in a developed country is reprehensible to say the least. It’s with these accounts that we start to outline the institution that is in power. This is how we identify the enemy at the wheel. The hard thing is observing this suppressive institution at work, and not limiting our scope of measurement to a singular instance.

In George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London he presents a theme that underlies the state of the impoverished that I believe is as relevant today as it was in the 1920’s when he first observed it. Orwell experienced the extortion of the laboring class while working as a plongeur in Paris hotels. Workers were subjected to abysmal conditions, and unsustainably long shifts. The conditions were deliberately established by the upper echelon of society to make it improbable, while hoping for impossible, for the dishwashers, the laborers to accumulate wealth and liberate themselves. Orwell likens the difference between blacks and whites to the same difference separating the poor from the wealthy. Nothing at all. He describes a millionaire as a dishwasher in a new suit. He described the ruling class as constructing the lives of the lower class in the shape of a treadmill. Such a system would keep the poor busy, but never advancing anywhere. I’m willing to assert we live in a broadened version of this same scheme today and have been for decades. Today, the roles have been expanded. The elite, the ruling class, are the legacy media, the oligarchs, and elected officials of the highest order. It’s the general population en masse that have become the dishwashers, and the agent of our occupation is not limited to manual labor. No, our stride is lengthening as the pace quickens on our treadmill that is constructed by this false divide. As long as we’re toiling against each other, corporations, and government officials profit and live above the fray. The Constitution was written and amended with the purpose to promote and protect the rights of the individual, and we should always seek to improve upon this document when it fails to do these things. While it still may be possible for the individual to break free of the class in which you were born it is not the individual of which the ruling class is concerned. By reducing the individual to the percentage of the population of which they most closely represent the individual is then stripped of all identifying characteristics. When the masses have their sights trained on each other their gaze predictably will not rise to meet their oppressors. Contingent upon these conditions is the status quo, and it feels as if we’ve begun to sprint and we can’t reach the controls to slow down.

In the past five years the most frequented target of hate crimes in America’s three largest cities, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, are Jews. Recently, there were a string of violent beatings of Jews in New York City. David Dorn, a retired black police officer, was trying to keep a store from being looted and was killed by a rioter in the process. The list of injustices goes on, but you’ll notice that only the select few events that fit the institutional narrative are put to the megaphone. There is a measurable unwillingness to call out that which is perceived to be detrimental to the cause. Political pundits and government officials on the left are reluctant to admonish rioting and looting. Violence doesn’t simply become abhorrent when you empathize with the victim just as it does not become admirable when you share the values of the aggressor. Propaganda abounds. Violence is not being condemned as it should be. There is a half quote of Martin Luther King Jr. circulating that seems to illustrate his support for rioting. The words he spoke immediately preceding the edited quotation were in fact unequivocally condemning violence. It is not hyperbolic to liken the social climate we’re enduring to Maoism. Constant revolution is a key tenant of Maoism, and we’re seeing it demonstrated daily where a new offence is perceived and consequently cancelled. Statues are being torn down no matter the person they represent, and books are being burnt. Words and phrases that were formerly innocuous are being proscribed due to their perceived offense. To further illustrate the point, Mao preached that laws were made in the streets by the people while he remained in office for over thirty years. Meanwhile, indicative of the legacy he established, a cultural genocide is underway in China, and Americans can’t be bothered. And freeing Tibet only mattered when you were in high school. The stories that get promulgated are only ones that achieve the desired effect. A few short years ago it was revealed in part by Edward Snowden that the federal government had unparalleled access to citizens’ private information, and virtually unbounded surveillance on any individual in the United States. If Americans protested every actual injustice regardless of political implications imagine what a world we would devise.

At the March on Washington in 1963 there were nine scheduled speakers. Four of which were white. Jewish-Americans, and white Americans numbered in the hundred thousands amongst a black majority that day. One year later, the Civil Rights Act was signed into law. In 1971, comprising of mixed races and genders, Sly and the Family Stone gave us There’s a Riot Goin’ On. Proof that beautiful, important things happen when we are all united as equals. Now, as much as ever, we must band together. Our individuality is being stripped from us; our cultures are being watered down. We must resolve to uncover what it is to be an American. Malcolm X wanted his people to be given land to establish a new country. Unfortunately for us all, there is no new land, no final frontier where we can begin anew. For many in America, there is no ancestral home which to return, no promised land we once knew that beckons eternally. We cannot yet raze our fields while the soil is still fertile. There is still hope. This is not Egypt and be wary of anyone who claims to be Moses. We must first check our tools of measurement; we must change the ways in which we observe and learn not to affirm our biases. It is imperative we do not acquiesce to those who insist on driving us apart. Instead we must come together and do the hard thing.