There has been a heartening, unprecedented national response to police violence stoked by the videotaped murder of George Floyd a year ago. This is a sharp rebuke to the usual militaristic police response that we have seen so often during slavery, after Reconstruction, Jim Crow, as well as the massacres and their aftermath in East St. Louis in 1917 and four years later in the Tulsa Race Massacre in 1921—and the Civil Rights Movement that continues today.
But we must bring more than anger, outrage and a litany of our grievances. We must speak about the opportunities for improvement if we are to reach our goal of uplifting the lives of Black people in this country. We must do a better job of speaking specifically about the inequities that are not seen in a viral video.
“Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some convenient season. It is today that our best work can be done and not some future day or future year.”
– W.E.B. Du Bois
As we began to see something of a racial reckoning in the United States about police violence and criminal justice, some states were closing schools to in-person learning, to the disproportionate detriment of Black and Brown kids. Our system of funding public education is largely based on local funding, leaving behind poor children—often with more unmet basic needs from the educational system—and benefitting more affluent students with the advantages of additional parental support and better-financed schools. In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court came within a single vote to uphold some lower court rulings that profoundly unequal funding violated the Constitution.
This is another stark reminder of the importance of the community building more sustained involvement in politics at all levels—local, state as well as national. We must also continue to remember that we should spend our dollars to support businesses that support our community and withhold them from those who do not.
There are no perfect solutions to the challenges of educating all of our children, regardless of need. High dropout rates among our most marginalized students have long-term consequences for our community that resonate in the entire region and indeed our entire society.
“Why is the advancement of people of color so often seen as a threat to the rest of America? It’s like white folks are afraid that the progress made by Black people will erase the 400 year head start they were given.”
– Tamika D. Mallory
It is widely accepted that we should start in early childhood, including home visits when necessary, quality childcare and pre-K. Child tax credits help reduce child poverty and of course more access to job training and higher minimum wages help uplift families.
As a practical matter, all of these issues gain more broad support if they are framed as class disparities rather than just racial discrimination. We must seize this historic pushback about criminal injustices and inherent injustices and inequity as best we can to make overall progress.
