As I somberly savor my morning coffee today, I am transported back in time to the summer of 1965 between my junior and senior year at UCLA. The acrid smell of smoke hung in the air all over the LA basin as the reality of the Watts riots sunk in. We held our collective breath waiting for the spillover to the rest of the prosperous sections of Los Angeles. Those were times of tremendous uncertainty and upheaval. Sadly, I think little has really changed in 55 years.
I don't pretend know the sociological factors at play in Minneapolis, but I am familiar with LA in 1965. Rampant housing discrimination, high unemployment, overzealous police enforcement all contributed to a powder keg in East and South LA centered in the Watts section of the city. Eventually, the 'aggressive' arrest of an African-American male became the spark that set-off something like 6 nights of riots. Like most of these situations, it is always the underlying factors of everyday life that are the real cause, not the spark that gets blamed. The reality of being a minority in this country is something that I can only remotely identify with being a white male of 'privilege,' but I sure as hell can understand how the daily frustrations will eventually play out if not addressed.
If you look at our legal system, and I purposely avoid the term "justice system" because it is a far cry from that, you can frame many of our problems in a much clearer light. We already know that people of means have a major advantage in the system, and people without those resources suffer a disproportionate share of the unequal treatment. Do you really think Jeffrey Epstein for years got away his his behavior because he was innocent, or do you think his billions helped? If Michael Flynn doesn't get off the hook because of his resources and connections he will surely get a pardon.
People of color make up 37% of the U.S. population but 67% of the prison population. Black men are 6 times more likely to be incarcerated than white men. Sadly, the sentences for "identical crimes" results in longer sentences for men of color and Latinos. The U.S. prison population dwarfs the rest of the world. We have something like 5% of the population and 25% of the prison population. Our prisons are overflowing with non-violent crime offenders, mostly drug offenses, which account for the disproportionate prison population of minorities.
When Colin Kaepernick took a knee during his NFL game, he was quietly trying to send a message. That message unfortunately got lost in the "patriotic fervor" of disrespect to our flag rather than being focused on the real underlying problems faced by minorities. Maybe, if we listened to the real message and not the drummed-up pseudo patriotic bullshit, we might have confronted the reality of being a minority in this country.
I could go all morning on this topic, but my cynical side remembers that almost all of the recommendation of the McCone Commission report after the Watts riots were eventually relegated to the wastebasket over time. I am equally convinced that were another report be issued today, it would meet a similar fate. The climate for dramatic change does not exist in this country today. When will it? Your guess is as good as mine, but it is highly unlikely in the current administration of govern by tweet.
other cup of coffee is required to sadly digest last night's events.