Police reform and Black America: getting to the right path

Last Tuesday’s conviction of Derek Chauvin was a fundamental shift in police abuse cases towards Black Americans: a decades old problem that resulted in the murder of George Floyd, in Minneapolis, last year, and galvanized sympathy and world wide protests, all over the world. And, In America where race is never far from the surface, the guilty charges towards Chauvin, who knelt on Floyd’s neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds, the verdict represented a sea change in accountability.

Before the advent of body cams and cell phone video by bystanders, police literally got away with murder, but not this time.

It wasn’t just about the protests from the Midwest to Los Angeles, Detroit and Philadelphia, all with significant Black populations, or the verdict itself, but how America deals with its most intractable problem, race, as former President Bill Clinton once labelled  it.

The moral issue is also paramount, but so are the images of Black mothers keening in grief, as they mourn the loss of their children. We can say their names in our litany of grief and outrage, but the seemingly eternal struggle that began, as many say, with Emmett Till, the young Black boy falsely accused of whistling at a white woman, and whose brutal murder, in the 1950’s and whose open coffin was symbolic of the brutality that later evolved towards a sad continuum with Rodney King, moving on to Breonna Taylor, and onto Duante Wright, and now Andrew Brown, Jr. makes for a painful recollection.

The question for many is can this historical trajectory propel the United States towards not just police reform, but to also address the inequality that lies at the core of being Black in America.

A myriad of voices has taken to the airwaves, and while the memory of past wrongs has not been forgotten, this is also rightly seen as a starting point, and not the end, to redress wrongs.

President Biden summed it best when he cited meaningful efforts to “police reform” and  . . to tackle systemic misconduct in police departments. . .but it shouldn’t take a whole year to get this done.”

Many outside of the White House are  saying it shouldn’t also take 200 plus years to address the problem, and certainly the ghosts of slaves are present at the moment, some might be heard saying, “How long? How long, Lord?”

Looking at the role of lawmakers we have the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act as one significant step, but hopefully, not as the old adage states: “one step forward and two steps backward.”

The five points of this legislation: banning no knock warrants in federal drug cases, a national database on bad cops, with mandated collection, and the prohibition of racial and religious profiling and money redirected to community based policing programs is a foundational effort, and coupled with equality efforts can make a difference, in the lives of many Black Americans, but this is an effort that will be spread across decades.

The bill spearheaded by Rep. Karen Bass (D) California, progress is now hitting the political wall, a space where morality diverges, and politics emerges. And that space hits the numbers where after being passed in the House needs 10 Republicans in the Senate, before reaching the presidential desk for signature.

One question arises as Jonathan Chait outlined in a recent piece for New York magazine is this: should black protestors trust a system where they are underrepresented. It’s not simply a rhetorical one, but an effort that “will require fundamental reforms through democratic means.”

Basing his argument on the overwhelming whiteness of the Senate and its “greater representation to people who live in small states . . .[who] tend to be heavily white, this effectively gives white people far more power in the chamber than their share of the voting population.”

Once again, as he noted, we face the filibuster, non fiscal legislation such as this requires 60 votes, and that political reality may prove to be the end of this first step, since many in the GOP are now saying that the guilty verdict was based on mob rule, or rather the threat of mob violence, a reality for some, but which misrepresents the role of true justice, and a solid prosecution.

Another question: can the emotional toll and resonance be separated from the legislative process? It was done with the 1964 Civil Rights Act, by President Johnson, at great political cost to him; can it be done again?

Sen. Tim Scott, (R) South Carolina has been in discussion with Bass over a competing bill but one that has no outright ban on chokeholds, and was rightfully blocked by Democrats last June, not only for this omission, but also, not addressing “qualified immunity” does not fully address racial inequality.

The Rev. Kelly Douglas Brown once said after the Trayvon Martin shooting, which still rings true, “What became clear to me, and what is the disturbing thing, is that this moment we find ourselves in is not a moment. Black bodies that in this moment are under siege are part of a long history and narrative. It’s about how America has long identified itself as an Anglo-Saxon nation, and what supports this is white supremacy.”

In the midst of the Chauvin trial then there were more shootings that continued Rev. Douglas Brown’s trajectory. Added to the mix is the role of justice, rolling down like a river, but this time from the U.S. Justice Dept., that in the words of Attorney General Merrick Garland who announced a new inquiry “into possible patterns of discrimination and excessive force among,” the Minneapolis Police Department.

Which gives us pause.

Are we taking a collective breath? Or, are we hoping for the best? At what juncture can the intersection of race, class, justice and legislative action take place? For the better angels of our nature.

One sign has come from the Justice Department, where Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the following day, that he was introducing a new civil inquiry to establish “pattern or practice”, to determine “whether the Minneapolis Police Department engages in a pattern or practice of unconstitutional or unlawful policing.”

We also heard this: “yesterday’s verdict in the state criminal trial does not address potentially systemic policing issues in Minneapolis.”

Extending the tool of consent decrees, a long held tool to address civil rights violations, takes the nation further away from their near disuse under the Trump administration.

Going even further Garland is also investigating the Louisville Police Department, after the death of Breonna Taylor.

In the end, or more of the beginning, that the verdict will have to take a different path, is as Prof. Eddie J. Glaude, chair of Princeton University’s Department of African American History, who shared his thoughts with the media, based on his colleague Imani Perry’s book, “More Beautiful, and More Terrible”, that “we think about racial inequality not as intentional acts of discrimination that evidence themselves in our individual interactions; but that we “think about racial inequality as a kind of cultural practice.”

Moving ahead, can our efforts lead us away from this practice?

916,000 jobs for March signals help is on the way for US

On Friday, just in time for Easter, a gift arrived, but not a flurry of eggs from the Bunny, instead a fresh batch of nonfarm jobs from the US Labor Dept. March jobs report, providing enough nonfarm jobs to ensure that eggs can be a staple on American breakfast tables, with 916,000 new jobs, far exceeding conservative predictions of 650,000.

This gives credence to an economic recovery wrecked from the Covid pandemic which resulted in shuttered business across the country, and that seemed impossible to stop,, especially taking its toll on service workers, and their families, especially those employed in leisure and hospitality, and the accompanying food and beverage industry, threatening millions of people with eviction, and even starvation, as long lines appeared at local food banks.

The March report, accompanied by the American Rescue Pan, passed by the Biden administration, with $1400 stimulus checks, is now giving support to a level of recovery albeit while still holding 8.5 million less jobs, can create hope for the victims of the pandemic.

The unemployment rate ticked down from 6.2% to 6.0 percent and the news was celebrated by the White House, where Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh was present at Friday’s press conference where he noted, “That’s certainly good news for over 900,000 working men and families in this country.  We saw significant job growth in most sectors of our economy.  And it’s clear that the National Vaccine Program is not only saving lives, but it’s enabling more people to get back to work.”

A sizable chunk of those 916,000 jobs were from leisure and hospitality to the tune of 280,000, with an increase from its cousin, food and beverage with 176,000.  And, not far behind, according to The Hill, was “entertainment and recreation [that] added 64,000 jobs and accommodation added 40,000.”

Furthermore, giving added scores, despite the debates on school reopening, of those that did open, contributed 190,000 jobs to the good news.

Reaction to the report was mixed, but most felt that, “We fully expect that the pace of job gains will continue for months, and anticipating that the unemployment rate, now at 6 percent will be well below 5 percent by the end of the year,” wrote Mike Fratantoni, chief economist at the Mortgage Bankers Association, in a Friday analysis,” according to The Hill.

Unfortunately, the racial gap continues with Black and Brown workers lagging still far behind with 9.6 % and 7.9% respectively, compared to the 5.4 percent for whites. 

For most economists, and sociologists, this gap will have to be closed by significant investments in minority communities, something that has begun in earnest in cities like Chicago, but has not been replicated in other areas, principally other center cities, and Nicole Goldin, a non senior resident fellow at the Atlantic Council, noted to The Hill, “The extent to which the rebound is more inclusive will depend on how eventual legislation prioritizes investments. . .”. 

While the general unemployment rate did trickle down to 6.0%, the household rate, or the U6, was 6.9 percent, showing that an overall return to the 3.5 percent of pre pandemic times remains the baseline.

Other economists feel that while March showed good signs, there was still room for a cautious stance, including Daniel Zhao, senior economist of the career site Glassdoor, who told The New York Times, “March’s jobs report is the most optimistic report since the pandemic began,” but, “it's not the largest gain in payrolls since the pandemic began, but it’s the first where it seems like the finish line is in sight.”

For those workers with less education, gains are also seen, and The Wall Street Journal reported “those with less than high school diploma fell to 8.2% last month from 10.1 % in February. The caveat with this group was “the return of some lower skilled workers likely helped push down average hourly wages of 4 cents to $29.96,” they added.

In contrast the US economy lost 1.7 million jobs in March 2020, with a peak loss of 20 million in April, according to the Times. But, added to the good news is the caveat that the virus still remains a risk with covid cases surging, “as states have begun easing restrictions,” and the threat of a surge could force some states to backpedal.”

There is some assurance that this will not be a return from winter restrictions, because as Julia Pollack, a labor economist at the job site ZipRecruiter, who said to the Times, said, “this time is different, and that’s because of vaccines.”

Summing it up were a group of economists polled by the Journal who felt that employers will add an average “of 514,000 jobs each month over the next year, for a total of more than six million,” but despite the acceleration would “leave overall employment totals below where they stood before the pandemic.