“We must learn to live together as brothers,
or perish together as fools.”
Martin Luther King Jr.
The “Black Lives Matter” movement is a decentralized one, as is it’s opposition, and so the conflict between these two leaderless and loosely affiliated groups is bound to be replete with the atrocious behavior of armies without a chain of command. The shameful chant of the protestors at the Minnesota state fair of “Pigs in a blanket, fry ’em like bacon!” ought not necessarily be construed to reflect the attitudes of the entire movement, anymore than some of the clearly hateful and insensitive remarks of internet trolls should be taken to reflect the sense of the resistance to the movement. That being said, there has been little said on either side that would seem to lead us toward MLK’s admonition to live together as brothers, and sorrowfully, most of the rhetoric seems to be catapulting us ever more in the direction of perishing together as fools.
To say that the entire movement can’t be painted with the broad brush of being cop haters is not to say that it is in anyway balanced in its positions or actions. It is by and large a very left leaning group, and generally reflects the less than civil protest tactics typical of the far left. Critics of the movement, and a few liberals trying to straddle the fence, have attempted to extend the sentiment to all of mankind by bastardizing the slogan to include “all lives”, a modification unwelcomed by the “Black Lives Matter” folks. The mock outrage of many conservatives who insinuate that the singling out of black lives somehow indicates that proponents don’t believe other lives matter is actually ludicrous. If we say that we “stand with Israel”, that doesn’t infer that we don’t stand with well intentioned Palestinians, or with England, or with Canada. It only shows that we are aware that Israel needs and deserves to have us stand with them. Advocating awareness for breast cancer doesn’t mean one believes all other diseases are unimportant; it only shows that we have a passion to fight this one. Imagine if we responded to “Stand with Israel” with the rejoinder “Stand with everybody!”, or if we answered someone advocating for the fight against breast cancer with an insistence that all disease is bad. What if we told a rape victim that all crime is harmful? Or if we responded to a Hillary Clinton critic by reminding them that everybody lies. Diluting a sentiment is an ignoble way to diminish and dishonor the position being advocated, and rarely does it foster anything but animosity, being as it is, thinly veiled passive aggression.
If we allow vilification to ignite our anger, foolishness becomes a contagious disease. It is a vast disappointment that what should have been the one silver lining in having Barack Obama as President for two terms, a healing between races, has never really materialized, and a case could be made that the divisions have only widened. It should serve as a lesson that throwing money at a problem, or throwing our votes, is no substitute for the hard work of investigation, education, and qualification. We have more than a problem, we have a crisis. Black lives are in great jeopardy. Laying aside for the moment the accusations and fault finding, can we at least agree on that? Whatever the cause, the statistics are clear, black on black crime, abortion, conflict with law enforcement; black lives often end before they really get started, and that does matter. For many more whose lives go on, they are lives of struggle, poverty, and watching their children face the same jeopardy they themselves escaped. If a part of our body is injured, we can argue about what caused the injury, but in the end medical treatment is what is required, regardless of the cause. Cause is only useful inasmuch as it can be reliably determined, and needed to prescribe treatment. Injuries affect the whole, and infections spread; like the canary in the coal mine, we ignore the trials of the black community at the peril of our entire society.
The politics of race are unfortunate, and racial divisions are often reflective of political divisions. Blacks tend to vote as a block Democratic, which gives neither party much incentive to do more than pay lip service to their plight. Democrats have little to lose, and Republicans little to gain. The reality of this political conundrum is evidenced by how little real progress is made regardless of which party is in power. Money is exchanged for votes, but nothing is fixed. At some point, we need leaders who will set aside politics to come up with real solutions.
Possibly the most important area to begin with is education. Ultimately, education is the fire escape from the cycle of poverty in our inner cities. This is not necessarily a money issue, and really shouldn’t be a political one. In a building in Harlem there is a public school on one floor and a charter school on another floor. The makeup of students in the two schools is practically identical, 95% black or hispanic, high poverty rate; the major difference is that students at the charter school were chosen in a lottery where only one in ten applicants were selected. In the public school 0% of of students in grade six though eight met state proficiency for Math or for English. Not one student . In the charter school, a different story unfolded. Similar students achieved much better results: 96% were proficient in Math with 80% scoring at the advanced level, and 75% were proficient in reading and writing, compared to a 30% rate in the rest of the city. Excuses can be made, but numbers like this speak for themselves, even if you attended public school. Teachers at the charter school are paid less, so they tend to be young, inexperienced and transient. Administration at such schools are often promoted from the pool of young inexperienced teachers yielding a young inexperienced administration. Yet the results are astounding. Procedures at the schools seem rigorous by today’s standards, long school days, uniforms, high expectations, constant speaking with families, rigid discipline. As I looked into the procedures employed at the school, I experienced the same reaction that I did in watching the movie about Ben Carson’s life, Gifted Hands. That was the sense that it was pretty harsh, just like Carson’s mother’s iron hand. It’s not a school I would have sent my children to, no more than I would have regimented my children like Mrs. Carson… but I didn’t have to. It may be that this “intensive care” kind of education is the prescription for our malady; it seems to have been so in the Carson family. Democrats are too beholden to the teachers’ unions to acknowledge the answer under their nose. Republicans may be missing a political opportunity in not highlighting this issue. It’s a shame that we can’t capitalize on this type of success, refine it and revolutionize the education system. If our politicians can’t temporarily set aside party lines to rescue children, then they are beyond hope, and we need new politicians. Black lives matter.
IMHO: It would be an interesting contest if Carson were nominated. Obama was the first black president, but he could hardly identify with the situation of inner city blacks. As near to being “privileged” as a black man can be, living with his white family in Hawaii, Ivy League college, education was never left to a lottery for him. Carson on the other hand has lived it. Raised by a single mother in Detroit, escaping the cycle of poverty by the skin of his teeth, and sheer will, his identification with urban blacks is not a theoretical one. His qualification for leading the nation out of this racial morass is unique. It is for Republicans to decide if this qualification is enough to make-up for his lack of experience in other areas. Hopefully Carson can at least be a resource to whoever is elected.
Thomas Jefferson rightly said that “The cornerstone of democracy rests on the foundation of an educated electorate.” It has always been left to conservatives to preserve the high ideas of the Republic through the education of the electorate. The left’s task is always easier since giving people things is always easier than teaching people things. It is a disturbing development to see conservatives devolving into the emotional populism that has for so long characterized progressives. It’s as though we have at last decided that we are willing to play their game, as long as we can beat them at it; that we are good with an emperor as long as it is our emperor. There are no short-cuts to our republic. It’s hard work to educate the electorate, and as with all education it can be disheartening. There is nothing worse than a lazy teacher though, who blames his failure to teach on his ignorant students. Too often we have assumed whole segments of our population to be “uneducable”, when we have been unable or unwilling to find a way to teach them. We can find ways to teach our inner-city youth. We can find ways to teach our misguided electorate.
Animosity between races seldom extends to children. Something about their innocent faces touches all but the hardest of hearts. While Democrats take black voters for granted and kowtow to the teachers unions, the GOP has an opportunity to demonstrate that they care about children, and by so doing move toward the realization of a second emancipation, an emancipation from poverty that the Democrats have failed to produce. At a national level, Carson does seem to be the logical choice for this strategy, blacks are unlikely to follow a white Moses. Like any other group, blacks will likely provide their own saviors, as long as they have the liberty to do so. But whoever the candidate is, and whatever the political repercussions are, black lives do matter, and real solutions need to be found. If this wound is allowed to continue to fester, if this rift is not closed, if this cycle is unabated, the GOP will have missed a golden opportunity both political and cultural. If they can’t reach out to children they will continue to be oblivious as to why Jamal can’t read, and why blacks won’t vote Republican.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z50IXLstrDY Gifted Hands
Kevin – this blog brought back the video that went viral of the black “momma” going after her hoodied son with a fury that only “mommas” can understand when they see their children headed in the wrong direction and knowing instinctively the results that will ensue. We need an army of black and white “mommas” to unite in this common cause of saving our children. There were many good points raised here – especially the contrast between the schools. You used the word “harsh” regarding the charter schools – ask some of the seniors that came through the 1930s depression about “harsh.” Children were corrected and humbled quickly when they were getting out of line – and often in public even as we saw the mother in the video.