@ABM
Trump is almost irrelevant to this topic. Sure, he continues to to decide and put up road blocks but the issue has been around long before him and will persist long after.
“HEALING”, is not what we need. Healing is what is needed when the threat of further injury is gone. We need action. We need to fix the problem. We need to change laws that make deadly violence by police too easy. Get away with chokeholds, make police responsible for their actions legally, make police departments and cities responsible for their police, require body cameras which cannot be turned off. We need to force accountability.
MLK and all the past leaders were who we needed. They were amazing and helped usher in civil rights changes unparalleled and fantastic leaps forward. But that was 50 years ago. 50 years of bias entrenchment, 50 years of minorities still not being treated equally. It’s time to dismantle the power structures and rebuild them with forethought to remove systemic racism from our foundation. Build anew.
You and I are in agreement that this is not Trumps fault. I think he adds to the problem but the problem was so large and looming that any of Trumps antics simply add fodder and shine a light on what problems already existed. For example, Trump didn’t militarize the Police, that began long ago. Trump is only highlighting those militaristic capabilities through his tough- on-left rhetoric.
But back to the main problem of systemic racis, let me try a clumsy football analogy:
When the US began and slavery was king, two opponents took the field, Systemic Racists(SR) on one side and the Free Equalitists (FE) on the other. The rule book then said that every down was played on the 1 yard line at the FE’s goal. Every day,SR would score and the running tally of SR victories rose. Advertisers want to spend on the winners so SR got paid much more and had better equipment protecting them. Years go by and the abolitionists start supporting FE. They help rewrite the rule book so now all downs are on the FE’s 20 yard line. But the games keep getting played and SR keeps racking up the wins. Now SR has a history of victories, most of the advertisers, most of the money and then comes Civil Rights.
Civil Rights Movement occurs and MLK, Malcom X, Rosa Parks, Medgar Evers and all the other civil rights leaders help get the rule book rewritten again. Separate but equal is struck down and desegregation continues.
But, even if the rule book might be written more fair, the lions share of add buys are for SR, the big-ass bank accounts belong SR, the refs were all put through school on SR dime and all the field camera angles are designed to make FE look bad and SR look good. The score by now is 400 victories by SR, maybe a couple by FE.
It’s no longer enough to just rewrite the rule book because everything is so heavily lopsided towards SR. The franchise’s need to be taken apart, piece by piece and then, mixing up all the players, changing the team owners, setting the bank accounts of both sides back to level ground. Then, perhaps, a more fair football league could be built.
Sorry, this was a clumsy attempt but I spent too long typing it to not post.