#The Essential Kerner Commission Report

[xtruss]

The Bombshell Political Report So Shocking A U.S. President Tried To Pretend It Didn't Exist! LBJ Tried To Torpedo The Official Kerner Commission Record. Instead It Became A Bestseller

— May 10, 2024 | Jelani Cobb

President Lyndon Baines Johnson listens during a meeting in the White House Cabinet Room, March 26, 1968. LBJ Presidential Library.

When President Lyndon Baines Johnson created the [Kerner] commission in July 1967 it was tasked with understanding what had happened up to that moment. Nearly two dozen uprisings or, in the antiseptic language of the report, “civil disorders,” had occurred between 1964 and 1967, with the largest and most destructive taking place in the Watts neighborhood in Los Angeles over the course of five days in August 1965.

Kerner has endured not simply for its prescience but also for the breadth of its analysis of the moment when it was conceived. The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, which became more commonly known as the Kerner Commission—a reference to then-governor of Illinois Otto Kerner, who served as its chairman—was created by President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Executive Order 11365 on July 28, 1967. The order was issued as entire stretches of the city of Detroit lay smoldering.

On July 23, 1967, a police raid on an after-hours bar in Detroit sparked an explosion in which residents hurled rocks and bottles at police and culminated in a nearly week-long uprising marked by arson, looting, and forty-three deaths. Just eleven days earlier, the city of Newark had detonated following the assault on John Smith, a Black cab driver, by white police officers. The reactions in the community were immediate and incendiary. In the chaos of social retribution that ensued, twenty-six people were killed and hundreds more injured, while the city sustained an estimated ten million dollars in damage.

Newark and Detroit were just the most notable of more than two dozen American cities that ignited in revolts in that summer of 1967. It appeared as though a valve of the city reservoir had been opened. An apocalyptic fury, the response to decades of discriminatory policy and centuries of racial exploitation, suddenly spewed out in American cities.

Johnson charged the eleven-member Kerner panel with answering three questions: “What happened? Why did it happen? What can be done to prevent it from happening again and again?” These were Johnson’s precise words. Addressing these questions, however, would mean answering dozens of subsidiary questions the roots of which lay deeply tangled in American history and public policy.

The members themselves represented a cross section, albeit not a representative one, of domestic interests. Chaired by Kerner, the second-term Democratic governor of Illinois, the commission included two of his fellow Democratic elected officials, Congressman James Corman, the fourth-term representative of California’s twenty-second district, and freshman senator Fred R. Harris of Oklahoma. They were joined by three Republicans, New York City mayor John V. Lindsay, Rep. William M. McCulloch of Ohio’s fourth district, and Edward Brooke, the freshman Massachusetts lawmaker and the sole African American serving in the United States Senate at the time.

By current standards the commission was overwhelmingly white (nine of the eleven members) and male (ten of eleven). Katherine Peden, the commerce secretary of Kentucky, was the sole female commission member. Roy Wilkins, the political moderate and executive director of the NAACP, joined Brooke as the only Black people at the table. In addition, I. W. Abel, president of the United Steelworkers of America, represented labor in the proceedings, and Herbert Jenkins, the police chief of Atlanta, Georgia, represented law enforcement. Charles Thornton, the CEO of Litton Industries, spoke for the manufacturing sector.

President Lyndon Johnson (seated, center) shakes hands with members of the Kerner Commission. July 29, 1967. White House Photo Office Collection, LBJ Presidential Library.

What differentiated the Kerner Commission from the outset was the historical scope of the investigations: the members were not seeking to understand a singular incident of disorder, but the phenomenon of rioting itself. Despite the heterogeneity of interests, if not the bipartisan backgrounds, of the members, the concluding report spoke with a strikingly unified voice about the problems that the various committee participants sought to understand. And that voice was an unabashedly integrationist one. Their most immediate and salient observation was that, even though the police had been involved in these most volatile incidents, American cities were not simply facing a crisis of policing. Rather, police were simply the spear’s tip of much broader systemic and institutional failures.

[T]he Kerner Report noted that the “problem” had been, first and foremost, inaccurately diagnosed. The so-called Negro problem was, in fact, a white problem. Or, as the report noted in one of the oft-quoted sections of the summary, “What white Americans have never fully understood—but what the Negro can never forget—is that white society is deeply implicated in the ghetto. White institutions created it, white institutions maintain it, and white society condones it.”

In a best-case scenario, Kerner would have become a kind of guidebook for the War on Poverty policies then being enacted by the Johnson administration. In more practical terms, the commission recommended new community-based guidelines covering how police needed to interact with citizens of “the ghetto,” as Black communities were dubiously classified in the report. It devoted an entire chapter to the ways in which justice should be administered in the course of riots; it suggested a national network of neighborhood task forces, local institutions that could bypass the bureaucracy and red tape of city administration and head off problems before they erupted into crises. It suggested “neighborhood service centers” to connect residents of these communities with job placement and other forms of assistance and proposed expanded municipal employment as a means of diminishing chronically high unemployment in these areas.

Perceptively, its members suggested that the monochromatically white news media that reported on these uprisings was also a symptom of the bigger problem. That social upheaval that had been created by overwhelmingly white institutions and maintained by said white institutions was then investigated and reported upon by yet another overwhelmingly white institution constituted, in their assessment, a racial conflict of interest. They closed with a raft of specific recommendations for housing, employment, welfare, and education. Kerner was possibly a victim of its own meticulousness. The report brims with suggestions. One reason why its proposals were not realized might be that it simply made too many of them.

The commission could not have known when it released its findings in March 1968 that it was issuing a preface, not a postscript. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated the following month, and more than one hundred American cities exploded into just the type of violence that the Kerner Commission had sought to understand if not prevent. [T]he Report was fated, from the moment it reached shelves, to operate more crucially as a forecast than a review. “Our Nation,” it warned in 1968, “is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal.”

— Excerpted From "Introduction" By Jelani Cobb, From The Essential Kerner Commission Report, Edited By Jelani Cobb, With Matthew Guariglia.

[narrowtriangle33-blog]

Conservatives, even when all of the facts are in your face, you still deny the reality of systemic racism.

"I mean really? What in the hell makes a group of people with a history of enslavement , genocide and apartheid in order to achieve what they have belive they have been so sucessful that they can lecture others. Without enslavement, genocide and aparthied, whites in America would have very little, if anything." "People in this forum have the opinion that blacks should do things like whites and if we do so, we can make it in America. So then what we need to do is orchestate a bloody coup, confiscate all property owned by whites, jail all whites who oppose the coup, write a new constitution that declare citizenship and it's protection only for non whites, make whites chattel for the forseeable future, make it illegal for whites to reald, own property or access information and create laws where if whites get out of line they can be beaten and killed." "Because this is how whites have done it." "In another forum, I stated that the root cause of the problems blacks face is white racism. One of the whites there decided to say this: “The root cause of the problems faced by most blacks today are people like you who misidentify or ignore the real problems they face to further their own personal agendas.”" "'This is another of the long, long line of idiotic comments made by right wing whites. White racism was determined to be the problem 53 years ago by the Kerner Commission."

""What white Americans have never fully understood but what the Negro can never forget--is that white society is deeply implicated in the ghetto. White institutions created it, white institutions maintain it, and white society condones it."" ""White racism is essentially responsible for the explosive mixture which has been accumulating in our cities since the end of World War II."" "But the excuse will be made about how that was 50 years ago, and that stupid ass song will be sung titled, "That was in the Past."" "On February 26, 2018, 50 years after the Kerner Commission findings, the Economic Policy Institute published a report evaluating the progress of the black community since the Kerner Report was released. It was based on a study done by the Economic Policy Institute that compared the progress of the black community in 2018 with the condition of the black community at the time of the Kerner Commission. Titled “50 years after the Kerner Commission,” the study concluded that there had been some improvements in the situation blacks faced but there were still disadvantages blacks faced that were based on race." "Following up on this, Richard Rothstein of the Economic Policy Institute wrote an op-ed published in the February 28th edition of the New York Daily News titled, “50 years after the Kerner Commission, minimal racial progress.” It had been 50 years since the commission made their recommendations at that point, yet Rothstein makes this statement: “So little has changed since 1968 that the report remains worth reading as a near-contemporary description of racial inequality.”" "So 3 years ago the same conclusion was made. "The root cause of the problems blacks face is white racism."" "On October 24, 2013, the Kellogg Foundation sent out a press release about a report they had done entitled, “The Business Case for Racial Equity”. This was a study done by the Kellogg Foundation, using information it had studied and assessed from the Center for American Progress, National Urban League Policy Institute, Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies and the U.S. Department of Justice."

“Striving for racial equity – a world where race is no longer a factor in the distribution of opportunity – is a matter of social justice. But moving toward racial equity can generate significant economic returns as well. When people face barriers to achieving their full potential, the loss of talent, creativity, energy, and productivity is a burden not only for those disadvantaged, but for communities, businesses, governments, and the economy as a whole. Initial research on the magnitude of this burden in the United States (U.S.), as highlighted in this brief, reveals impacts in the trillions of dollars in lost earnings, avoidable public expenditures, and lost economic output.” "The Kellogg Foundation and Altarum Institute In 2011, DEMOS did a study named “The Racial Wealth Gap, Why Policy Matters”, which discussed the racial wealth gap, the problems associated with it along with solutions and outcomes if the gap did not exist. In this study DEMOS determined that the racial wealth gap was primarily driven by policy decisions." "“The U.S. racial wealth gap is substantial and is driven by public policy decisions. According to our analysis of the SIPP data, in 2011 the median white household had $111,146 in wealth holdings, compared to just $7,113 for the median Black household and $8,348 for the median Latino household. From the continuing impact of redlining on American homeownership to the retreat from desegregation in public education, public policy has shaped these disparities, leaving them impossible to overcome without racially-aware policy change.”" Harvard. "“Racial inequality in the United States today may, ultimately, be based on slavery, but it is also based on the failure of the country to take effective steps since slavery to undermine the structural racial inequality that slavery put in place. From the latter part of the nineteenth century through the first half of the twentieth century, the Jim Crow system continued to keep Blacks “in their place,” and even during and after the civil rights era no policies were adopted to dismantle the racial hierarchy that already existed.”" "HOUSING DISCRIMINATION AS A BASIS FOR BLACK REPARATIONS, Jonathan Kaplan and Andrew Valls, Public Affairs Quarterly" "Volume 21, Number 3, July 2007" "McKinsey and Co. “It will end up costing the U.S. economy as much as $1 trillion between now and 2028 for the nation to maintain its longstanding black-white racial wealth gap, according to a report released this month from the global consultancy firm McKinsey & Company. That will be roughly 4 percent of the United States GDP in 2028—just the conservative view, assuming that the wealth growth rates of African Americans will outpace white wealth growth at its current clip of 3 percent to .8 percent annually, said McKinsey. If the gap widens, however, with white wealth growing at a faster rate than black wealth instead, it could end up costing the U.S. $1.5 trillion or 6 percent of GDP according to the firm.”" "Citigroup" "Cost Of Racism: U.S. Economy Lost $16 Trillion Because Of Discrimination, Bank Says" "Nationwide protests have cast a spotlight on racism and inequality in the United States. Now a major bank has put a price tag on how much the economy has lost as a result of discrimination against African Americans: $16 trillion." "Since 2000, U.S. gross domestic product lost that much as a result of discriminatory practices in a range of areas, including in education and access to business loans, according to a new study by Citigroup." "Specifically, the study came up with $16 trillion in lost GDP by noting four key racial gaps between African Americans and whites:" "$13 trillion lost in potential business revenue because of discriminatory lending to African American entrepreneurs, with an estimated 6.1 million jobs not generated as a result" "$2.7 trillion in income lost because of disparities in wages suffered by African Americans" "$218 billion lost over the past two decades because of discrimination in providing housing credit" "And $90 billion to $113 billion

in lifetime income lost from discrimination in accessing higher education" "Why this is just a bunch of liberal jibberish to to blacks in order to keep them voting democrat. Those aren't the problems, what we conservatives tell you is the real problem. Why if you just had a father in the home none of this would happen." "Black Workers Still Earn Less than Their White Counterparts"

"As employers in the U.S. tackle issues around racism, fresh attention is being given to the racial wage gap and why black men and women, in particular, still earn substantially less than their white counterparts. Nearly 56 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, "we find equal pay for equal work is still not a reality," noted Jackson Gruver, a data analyst at compensation data and software firm PayScale."

"Last year, PayScale analyzed differences in earnings between white men and men of color using data from a sample of 1.8 million employees surveyed between January 2017 and February 2019." 'Among the findings, Gruver reported: "Even as black or African-American men climb the corporate ladder, they still make less than equally qualified white men. They are the only racial/ethnic group that does not achieve pay parity with white men at some level."' "The study found that black men had the largest "uncontrolled pay gap" relative to white men, when comparing the average earnings of black men and white men in the U.S."

"On average, black men earned 87 cents for every dollar a white man earned. Hispanic workers had the next largest gap, earning 91 cents for every dollar earned by white men."

"To put that in perspective, the median salary of a white man in our sample is $72,900; the controlled median pay for black or African-American men is thus $71,500," Gruver said. "This suggests a $1,400 difference in pay that is likely attributable to race."" "So daddy lives at home and the family still makes less than whites. Because:" "NWLC calculations, based on the U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Survey for 2016, revealed that when comparing all men and women who work full time, year-round in the U.S., women were paid just 80 cents for every dollar paid to their male counterparts. But the wage gap was even larger when looking specifically at black women who work full time, year-round—they were paid only 63 cents for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men." "Stephen Miller, Black Workers Still Earn Less than Their White Counterparts, www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/compensation/pages/racial-wage-gaps-persistence-poses-challenge.aspx" "So a white working couple will make 90 cents on every dollar while a black working couple makes 75 cents. To allow you to understand this reality a white female worker makes 80 cents on every dollar a white man makes. White females are demanding equal pay and rightfully so." "And you black folk really need to start taking education seriously." "Black unemployment is significantly higher than white unemployment regardless of educational attainment" "The black unemployment rate is nearly or more than twice the white unemployment rate regardless of educational attainment. It is, and always has been, about twice the white unemployment rate; however, the depth of this racial inequality in the labor market rarely makes the headlines." "Over the last 12 months, the average unemployment rate for black college graduates has been 4.1 percent—nearly two times the average unemployment rate for white college graduates (2.4 percent) and equivalent to the unemployment rate of whites with an associate’s degree or who have not completed college (4.0 percent). The largest disparity is seen among those with less than a high school diploma: while whites with less than a high school diploma have an unemployment rate of 6.9 percent, the black unemployment rate is 16.6 percent—over two times the white average." "The broader significance of this disparity suggests a race penalty whereby blacks at each level of education have unemployment rates that are the same as or higher than less educated whites." "Valerie Wilson, Black unemployment is significantly higher than white unemployment regardless of educational attainment, www.epi.org/publication/black-unemployment-educational-attainment/" "African Americans are paid less than whites at every education level" "While the economy continues to improve and wages are finally beginning to inch up for most Americans, African Americans are still being paid less than whites at every education level. As you can see from the chart below, while a college education results in higher wages—both for whites and blacks—it does not eliminate the black-white wage gap. African Americans are still earning less than whites at every level of educational attainment. A recent EPI report, Black-white wage gaps expand with rising wage inequality, shows that this gap persists even after controlling for years of experience, region of the country, and whether one lives in an urban or rural area. In fact, since 1979, the gaps between black and white workers have grown the most among workers with a bachelor’s degree or higher—the most educated workers." "Valerie Wilson, African Americans are paid less than whites at every education level, www.epi.org/publication/african-americans-are-paid-less-than-whites-at-every-education-level/"

"But to say white racism is the cause of things no matter how much proof we show your white asses, you have some kind of idiotic ass excuse, like we are blaming whites for our failures or;" "We misdiagnose and ignore the "real" problem to fit an imaginary agenda racists in tha white community invented so they can deny how THEY are the root cause of the problem." "You right wing scrubs are always talking about responsibility." "Take some instead of running your mouths."

[iirulancorrino]

Jelani Cobb, introduction to The Essential Kerner Commission Report

[thekillerssluts]

Nostalgic For A Different Future: Arcade Fire's Will Butler On How His New Solo Album Finds Healing In Community

When Arcade Fire released their very first single, it came with a B-side that hit very close to home to brothers Win and Will Butler: a recording of a song called "My Buddy," credited to their grandfather, Alvino Rey. In fact, several generations of musicians line their family tree. While those historic echoes provide joy and solace for younger brother Will, the world tipping into pandemic and protests over racial injustice reinforced life’s darker cycles. On Butler’s second solo album, Generations (due Sept. 25 via Merge), he explores the ways in which we come together in community both because of and in spite of those ripples.

The video for early single "Surrender" represents that duality perfectly. The clip opens with studio footage of Butler’s band recording the jangly anthem, complete with call-and-response vocals and gospel falsetto. But much like 2020, things devolve quickly, with closed captioning-style subtitles mourning the deaths of Black men and women killed by police, calling for sweeping political change, and insisting on prison reform. Though written long ago, the album holds a special ability to tap into something boundless and timeless while simultaneously feeling entrenched in the tragic pain of the present.

Butler spoke with GRAMMY.com about the album’s similarities to Fyodor Dostoevsky, the ways in which songs take on new meaning over time, how Generations fits in with an upcoming Arcade Fire album and the healing power of community.

Did you have any hesitation about releasing the album in the midst of the pandemic?

I'm sad to not tour it. If I could wait four weeks and then tour the record... but that's not going to happen. It's actually kind of a good time to put out music. It feels morally good! People want music, so let's put out music. I've experienced that, where people put things out and it feels generous.

It truly does. You've compared this album to a novel and your debut before this to a collection of short stories. Is there a particular novelist that you feel would be in tune with your work? Do you take inspiration from fiction in that way?

It's not Dostoevsky. [Laughs.] But it is weirdly more inspired by Dostoevsky than it ought to be. It's the tumult of the 19th century, the next stage of the industrial revolution and the gearing up of socialism and anarchism. It feels related to the pre-revolutionary thing happening in Russia. [Laughs.] It's not a one-to-one comparison by any means, but it’s just the deeply human things happening in a context of the whirlwind.

Was there an experience that led you to the feeling that it was the right time to deliver such a politically driven album?

Partly, I went to grad school for public policy. I explicitly went as an artist wanting to know what's happening and why it's happening. I started the fall of 2016, which was a very bizarre time to be at a policy school. But I had a course with a professor named Leah Wright Rigueur, a young-ish professor, a Black woman, a historian. The course was essentially about race and riot in America. And since it was a policy school, the second-to-last week on the syllabus was talking about Hillary Clinton and the last week was talking about Donald Trump. It was a history class, but in an applied technical school, so it's like, "What are we doing with this history?"

We read the post-riot reports of Chicago in 1919 and the post-riot reports of the '60s, the Kerner Commission and after the Watts riots, and we read the DOJ reports after Ferguson and after Baltimore and Freddie Gray. And then Donald Trump got elected at the end of the semester. This course really trained my eyes at this moment of time, just being in that state of thinking about what's going on and why it's happening.

Right, and the album's title feels like it encapsulates not only the history that you were learning at the time but also your personal and familial ancestry.

Yes, very much so. My mom's a musician, and her parents were musicians. My grandmother grew up in a family band driving across the American West with her parents before there were even roads in the desert. Her dad got arrested a bunch of times for vagrancy or for not paying off loans. There's something very beautiful about being in the tradition of generations of musicians. That's a positive thing in this world. It's no coincidence that I'm a musician. There are, however, many more poisonous things that are also not coincidental that are rooted in both personal and political history. All of political history in America has been geared towards making each generation of my family's life better insofar as they're white men. It's been very good to my family, but that is as much of an undeniable generational heritage as music, which is this beautiful and faultless and glorious thing.

Do you see that musical tradition in your family as storytelling?

It's never been explicitly storytelling, though that is part of it. It's more about building community or building a society through entertainment. Entertainment is almost too light a word. My grandfather and grandmother did all these broadcasts during World War II, and some of it's jingoistic, some of it's incredibly moving, some of it's just dance music for people who don't want to think about the war for a minute. It's all these emotions, but still with this aim of trying to get us all in it together–which in a war context is fraught. But there's that element of always trying to make a family, make a community, learning how to bind us all together.

That reminds me of the call and response vocals you've got throughout the record. It has an especially gospel-y feeling on "Close My Eyes," which is such a clever way to paint a song about surrendering to something bigger than yourself, that communal feeling. What was the impetus for that narrative voice?

Part of it is just rooted in Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. [Laughs.] Years ago, someone mailed us the complete Motown singles on CD, just every single starting from day one. Even though there’s some garbage mixed in there, it just feels so human with those gang vocals and great singers that sometimes they just pulled off the street. You get the sense of humanity. Having backing vocals be so integral instead of just having my voice layered feels like having a community and feels very natural. It's hard for me to not just rely on that every third or fourth song. [Laughs.] It just feels like that's how it should be.

Those multi-part harmonies must be especially potent live in a room. Do you write in a way where you’re already picturing these songs live?

We played almost every one of these songs live before we recorded them. My solo band played "Surrender" live on the Policy tour for years. But even before we went into the studio last summer, I booked a weekend of shows. We did the Merge 30th Anniversary festival just to have us feel it live and have that communication. And then we went down to the basement to try to iron it out.

Speaking of "Surrender," that song took on an entire new life in the video. It starts out with videos of your band in the studio, but then quickly and powerfully gets replaced with messages mourning the deaths of George Floyd and Breanna Taylor and emphasizing the need for prison reform. You never know what life a song will have when you’re writing it.

That song is very nostalgic in a certain way. It’s looking towards the past, but not wishing to be in the past. It's wishing that we were in a different present because we had already chosen a different past. So when I was editing the video, I started it as a "making of" video. But the footage is from January of this year—five, six months old. There's this feeling of nostalgia, but also 2019 was not good enough to look back at. [Laughs.] 2019 was also horrible.

It's not like I want to go back to 2019. I want to play music with people. I want to be having fun with my friends. I want to be making a record. But I don't want it to be 2019. I'm nostalgic for a different future. And as I'm editing the video, there have been six weeks of protests of people trying to build something, and it just felt crazy to not acknowledge that. It was what people were focused on, at least the people around me.

Do you feel like you'll be infusing more overt social and political commentary into your music going ahead?

I think so. It's important that it's organic. It's part of the world I live in, part of my family and my friendships. Before the coronavirus hit, I was very much looking forward to touring and had vague plans to do town hall meetings and discussions. It felt like a rich time to do that around America, and around the world. I'm sad to not get to do that, but I think it will happen someday.

You produced the album yourself in your basement, so were you writing with the production choices already in mind or were you writing while in the studio?

I had the band come down and record for a week. And at the end of that first week, we had seven or eight songs that could be real. Some of them were clear. Some of them are simpler, like "Surrender." Others were trying to figure out where they would go. "I Don't Know What I Don’t Know" was more trial and error, trying something crazy. We'd turn everything off for two days and then come back to it and try something else. You try to be surprised by it.

I love revision. Well, I don't love it. I hate it. [Laughs.] I love the process of editing, of making a version of something and then finding something that's either better or worse. It's fun when you work with an editor that you trust, but when you're just doing it yourself, you drive yourself batty after some time. But I still love versioning it until it makes sense.

It feels like you're not too precious. You just want to service the song at the end of the day.

Yeah. I try to not be precious. I feel like the songs mostly came out with a fresh spirit. I didn't massage any of them too much. I'm very conversational in how I think of the world. Nothing is the final statement. You say something and then someone says something else and then you say something. And you have to finish what you're saying in order to hear what the other person says. So if that means putting it out into the world without rounding everything off, to me that feels right.

The record begins and ends on the same burning synth tone, like history ready to go around the loop again. What does that synth tone represent for you?

Not to get too mystical, but there's something about the bass that is so embodied. There's something about a really powerful bass that is fundamental, something that just gets to the core. I wanted that core to feel a little uneasy. It's not like the hit at the end of "A Day in the Life" where it’s this clear conclusion. It's a little bit gnarly. It's a little bit not in the right key for the song. It’s something disturbing at the very core of everything.

What has writing and producing this record taught you about yourself?

I found that while I still prize quickness and thoughtfulness and conversational life, this record took longer and took more effort than Policy. It was way less casual. It was not casual in a very good way. I realized this shouldn't be a casual undertaking—even though it can have lightness and humor and breezy elements. Even then, the whole undertaking can still be serious and grounded. It can even be quick without being casual. In the past, I've fallen into thinking, "Just do something first before you think about it too hard." But this was a reminder that you can do something more thoroughly.

Were you writing these songs while working on the next Arcade Fire album? Speaking about intention, how do you compartmentalize those two sides of your creativity?

Yeah, Arcade Fire is always very cyclical. We record for a year and a half, we tour for a year and a half, and then we're off for a year and a half. I was very conscious to do this in a moment when I wasn't distracted by something else. I wanted to focus on this.

I'm still figuring it all out. Right now I'm making a video for the song "Close My Eyes." I have children, two-year-old twins and an eight-year-old, so the spring was just complete family time—net positive, but total chaos. [Laughs.]

https://www.grammy.com/grammys/news/nostalgic-different-future-arcade-fires-will-butler-how-his-new-solo-album-finds

[thaliberator]

F**K Peace

How Riots Came to Be Black America’s Most Effective Agent for Systemic Change

As the video moves forward, something deep down inside of me keeps hoping this is the time that someone, anyone, any of the dozens of train passengers and bystanders will put down their cellphones and intervene somehow, in some way before transit policeman Johannes Mehserle shoots a defenseless Oscar Grant in the back, puncturing his lung, killing him as he lay face down in the Fruitvale BART Station.

As the video moves forward, something deep down inside of me keeps hoping this is finally the time that someone, anyone, any of the bystanders will intervene somehow, in some way before NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo compresses Eric Garner's neck using a chokehold that forces him to the ground before four officers swarm in on his back, compressing his chest and leaving him motionless on the sidewalk, an hour before he was pronounced dead at Richmond University Medical Center.

As the video moves forward, something deep down inside of me keeps hoping this is the time that Walter Scott will somehow outrun the bullets fired by North Charleston Police Officer Michael Slager that will soon pierce his back and drop him to the ground in the field where he will be pronounced dead.

As the video moves forward, something deep down inside of me keeps hoping this is the time that Samuel DuBose has his driver's license and University of Cincinnati Police Officer Ray Tensing doesn't have to fabricate a story about being dragged by a moving car to justify the fatal shot he fires into DuBose's head at point-blank range.

As the video moves forward, something deep down inside of me keeps hoping this is the time that paramedics arrive to save the life of Philando Castile before his life slowly slips away opposite the barrel of St. Anthony Police Officer Jeronimo Yanez's gun, now four bullets lighter, as four-year-old eyes watch the grim scene play out to her mother's heart-wrenching narration.

As the video moves forward, something deep down inside of me keeps hoping this is finally the time the pleas of onlookers and the desperate cries of “I can’t breathe” trigger some level of humanity in three Minneapolis Police Officers standing by indifferently as officer Derek Michael Chauvin drives the full weight of his body into the neck chest and spine of George Floyd, as he becomes increasingly unresponsive, eventually being pronounced dead at Hennepin County Medical Center an hour later. 

It's a pointless exercise. The facts never change. The outcomes remain the same.

What I'm left with a toxic mix of the deepest sadness and the most furious anger at not only the injustice of it all, but the prescient knowledge that I could be looking at any of the men closest to me — cousins, uncles, friends, my son, or even myself.

And I am far from alone or unique. It is this fear, this anger, this sadness, this outrage that permeates the collective Black community from coast-to-coast, that gave birth to the Black Lives Matter Movement, that has been the ominous cloud of injustice that has shaded our journey since being brought to these shores. It is the persistent, insidious idea that you are less than, that you are not worthy of dignity, respect, and decency in the eyes of those with the ability and authority to snatch your life away at a moment's notice with or without cause. 

In too many communities police officers are the foot soldiers reinforcing this message daily to Black men — whether through demeaning language intended to incite, verbal and physical intimidation and threats, or any number of other modes of interaction that underscore just where the authority lies.

But here we are at a unique point in time when technology has allowed us to stitch together the bruised and bloodstained patches of our police abuse quilt to expose a pattern of harassment from the mighty mountains of New York to the curvaceous slopes of California. Our pain and suffering are being put on display for all the world to see. Black Lives Matter has grown from a hashtag to a powerful movement with a fundamental relevance that now has the world's attention.

But the gulf between attention and corrective action has only seemed to widen. Because we've had the world's attention before.

When the grainy footage of LAPD officers beating Rodney King flickered across our low-definition TVs 29 years ago, there was a collective sense in the Black community that we finally had the proof to vindicate and validate the claims of police abuse and harassment we had been making for decades.

But the powers that be saw things differently. A narrative was spun about the video not telling the entire story and had King simply complied with the officers, the beating never would have happened. The officers were acquitted. 

And it is not to say that no punishment is ever meted out in these brutal encounters between Black men and the police. The officers involved in both the Walter Scott and Samuel DuBose cases were indicted for murder. The problem is that despite the growing number of videos, eyewitness accounts, and civilian complaints, there have been no widespread changes in police policy that have been prompted by the public release of abuse and harassment videos.

Each video creates a social media frenzy for a time until the public's diminutive attention span moves on to Twitter's latest trending topic.

And then what? 

Through a combination of benign neglect of Black communities, obstinate refusal to entertain the concerns of activists, and callous indifference to generations of complaints about police harassment and abuse, police departments, politicians, and various public officials have given tacit endorsements to the methods the police employ. But what they have inadvertently done is create a situation whereby the most effective means for Black people to get a redress of grievances is a riot.

Are riots the best solution? No.

Are riots they the most efficient solution? No.

Are riots the safest solution? No.

Have riots produced more immediate tangible changes in personnel and policy than all of the solemn marches and candlelight vigils combined? Without question.

In short, riots work ... to a degree. 

“THE CONSEQUENCE OF INACTION”

Watts, California — 1965

After what should have been a routine traffic stop spiraled out of control, six days of rioting ensued that led to 34 deaths, more than 1,000 injuries, 4,000 arrests, and the destruction of more than 1,000 buildings, resulting in $40 million in damages.

It was only after the Watts Riots in 1965 that the McCone Commission was convened to investigate the root causes of the riot, spending three months interviewing hundreds of people and compiling documents, statistics and information to produce a report that determined the root causes to be, among other things, unemployment, poor education, inferior healthcare, housing, and transportation, and poor police-community relations.  

The commission made recommendations to the California governor and other powers that prevailed at the time stating, “Improving the quality of Negro life will demand adjustments on a scale unknown to any great society. The programs we are recommending will be expensive and burdensome. And the burden, along with the expense will fall on all segments of our society — On the public and private sectors, on industry and labor, on company presidents and hourly employees. 

“We recommend that law enforcement agencies place greater emphasis on their responsibility for crime prevention as an essential element of the law enforcement task and that they institute improved means for handling citizen complaints and community relationships. 

“The consequences of inaction, indifference, and inadequacy, we can all be sure now, would be far costlier in the long run than the cost of correction. If the city were to elect to stand aside, the walls of segregation would rise even higher. The disadvantaged community would become more and more estranged and the risk of violence would rise. The cost of police protection would increase and yet, would never be adequate.”  

Although the commission’s recommendations, while met with some criticism, went largely unimplemented on the scale they advised, the detailed examination of the underlying socioeconomic conditions that set the table for the riots would not have taken place absent the riots.

Most importantly, the commission’s findings regarding the lack of healthcare access led directly to the creation of Los Angeles County Southeast General Hospital, later to be known as Martin Luther King Jr. General Hospital — a facility that despite serious problems that forced its closing in 2007, has been reorganized and rebuilt and continues to serve area residents to this day.

“TWO SOCIETIES”

Detroit, Michigan — 1967

Following the 1967 Detroit Riots that began with a police raid on an illegal after-hours club and culminated with 43 deaths, more than 7,000 arrests, 1,400 buildings burned, and approximately $50 million in property damage, President Lyndon Johnson convened the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, otherwise known as the Kerner Commission, to examine the causes of disturbances in Detroit and other cities between 1965 and 1968.

Several months later the commission came to the conclusion that “Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white — separate and unequal. … Discrimination and segregation have long permeated much of American life; they now threaten the future of every American. This deepening racial division is not inevitable. The movement apart can be reversed. Choice is still possible. To pursue our present course will involve the continuing polarization of the American community and, ultimately, the destruction of basic democratic values. The alternative is not blind repression or capitulation to lawlessness. It is the realization of common opportunities for all within a single society. This alternative will require a commitment to national action — compassionate, massive, and sustained, backed by the resources of the most powerful and the richest nation on this earth. From every American, it will require new attitudes, new understanding, and, above all, new will. 

“Segregation and poverty have created in the racial ghetto a destructive environment totally unknown to most white Americans. … What white Americans have never fully understood but what the Negro can never forget — is that white society is deeply implicated in the ghetto. White institutions created it, white institutions maintain it, and white society condones it.” 

The Kerner report provided three primary recommendations, similar to those from the McCone Commission: 

- Mount programs on a scale equal to the dimension of the problems

- Aim these programs for high impact in the immediate future to close the gap between promise and performance

- Undertake new initiatives and experiments that can change the system of failure and frustration that now dominates the ghetto and weakens our society. 

Along with the searing report, identifying “white racism” as a root cause of the unrest, the riots in Detroit led several years later to the election of Coleman Young, the city’s first Black mayor who integrated the city's overwhelmingly white police force. Young began his two decades of service with an inauguration address that didn’t shy away from the issues raised in the report and experienced by the people in the community. 

“We must build a new people-oriented police department. And then you and they can help us to drive the criminals from our streets. I issue open warnings now to all dope pushers, to all rip-off artists, to all muggers: It’s time to leave Detroit. Hit Eight Mile Road!" Young said. “And I don’t give a damn if they’re black or white, if they wear Superfly suits or blue uniforms with silver badges. Hit the road!”

“TINDERBOX”

Los Angeles, California — 1992

In April 1992, within an hour after a jury acquitted five officers of assault and the use of excessive force in the videotaped beating of Rodney King, the L.A. Riots began. By the time the dust settled and the 4,000 National Guardsmen arrived with automatic weapons and armored vehicles, 54 people (mostly Koreans and Latinos) had been killed, 2,499 people were injured, 6,559 people were arrested, more than 7,000 fires were set, and more than 1,100 businesses were damaged (94-percent of the destroyed buildings were commercial), at a cost of $1 billion in property damage.

In the aftermath, the California State Assembly issued a report entitled "To Rebuild is Not Enough." Similar to the reports issued by other commissions in the wake of riots, the California report featured numerous recommendations, including:

- Creating a California Community Reinvestment Act to meet the credit and capital needs of low and moderate-income communities

- Supporting small business development in the impacted areas

- Supporting neighborhood family service organizations to help low-income families gain access to and control of the delivery of social services resources available in their communities

- Increasing the number of minority judges within the county court system

- Creating a California urban community relations agency to provide funding for research, conduct seminars on current community conflicts and resolution strategies, and to develop models for organizing in diverse communities.

Rebuild L.A.

In the days following the riots Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley announced plans for Rebuild L.A., a public-private partnership designed to leverage the power of private-sector businesses to help rebuild the impacted area physically and re-equip residents for new workforce opportunities. 

The project revolved around four strategies designed to encourage inner-city investment: 

- Creation of new jobs and local business ownership

- Improvement of workforce skills 

- Improvement of access to capital 

- Support for community-based organizations and programs. 

Rebuild L.A. raised an estimated $300 million and had some successes to show, but just two years in a massive earthquake devastated the Northridge section of Los Angeles, causing 20 times the financial damage of the riots, and diverting attention, money, and resources away from South Central, leaving a mixed legacy. Despite lingering criticism, Rebuild L.A. represented the most significant socioeconomic investment in long-neglected South Central and laid the groundwork for the area’s late ’90’s retail renaissance fronted by former NBA superstar Magic Johnson. 

The Christopher Commission

Perhaps the most significant development to come in the aftermath of the ’92 riots was the beginning of long-overdue reform of the LAPD, one of the most notoriously villainous police forces in the country.

Following the release of the Rodney King beating video Mayor Tom Bradley established the Christopher Commission to investigate the police department and its practices. He also called for the resignation of LAPD Chief Daryl Gates. Gates refused to resign and was not obligated to do so as a result of civil service protection he was afforded, even though the Christopher Commission pointed to his removal as a key part of reforming the department. 

The commission also found that the use of excessive force was rampant in the department and was exacerbated by bias and racism and essentially endorsed by a departmental management structure that rendered public complaints meaningless. Between 1986 and 1990, less than two-percent of excessive force complaints were upheld.

The Justice Department and Civil Rights

The day after the riots began the Justice Department announced it would be investigating the officers involved in the Rodney King beating, contending that the officers violated King’s civil rights. This strategy would be repeated in the years and decades to come, especially in cases involving police abuse, to try and blunt the potential for rioting by having federal officials announce that the Justice Department would be bringing civil rights charges against the accused. 

This strategy was two-fold — Provide evidence to an angry citizenry that something proactively punitive is being done to move toward justice, and offer a backstop against another verdict similar to the King beating trial that could lead directly to rioting. 

The Webster Commission

The Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners ordered the convening of the Webster Commission to investigate LAPD performance during the riots. The final report concluded that it was a combination of factors that created the conditions that preceded the riots and laid out 16 basic recommendations to prevent future riots that included changes to LAPD structure, planning, and procedures. Additionally, the report highlights the underlying social problems that turned L.A. into a “tinderbox.”

“I THOUGHT HE HAD A GUN”

Cincinnati, Ohio — 2001

Outside a Cincinnati nightclub in April 2001 an off-duty police officer approached 19-year-old Timothy Thomas who had a warrant for his arrest related to at least a dozen traffic citations. Thomas began to run, leading to a pursuit involving additional officers that culminated when officer Stephen Roach turned down an alley in pursuit and fired a single gunshot that struck Thomas in the heart, killing him at the scene. In the subsequent investigation, Roach claimed that he thought Thomas had a gun and was reaching toward his waistband to pull it out. No gun was found. Thomas was unarmed and was the 15th Black male shot and killed by the Cincinnati Police in the five years preceding the incident. The shooting led to six days of riots, hundreds of injuries and arrests, and approximately $5 million in property damage.

Community Action Now

Less than a month before the riot a federal class-action lawsuit was brought by the ACLU and Cincinnati Black United Front alleging decades of racial profiling by the Cincinnati Police Department. The presiding judge ordered a mediation between the plaintiffs, the city, and the police department to produce a solution she believed litigation could not achieve. 

The effort, given an additional sense of urgency by the riots, was ultimately approved by the plaintiffs, the city council, and the police union, eventually led to the development of Cincinnati Community Action Now (CAN). Comprised of community, business, and government representatives, the organization’s goals were to create substantial and sustainable change that reduces disparities; build upon successful programs in Cincinnati and elsewhere; and be inclusive, seeking viewpoints from all segments of Greater Cincinnati. 

While it acknowledged frayed police-community relations as the precipitating issue, the organization identified four areas that needed to be addressed to tackle the underlying causes that led to the riots:

- Police and Justice System Improvement - a new relationship between police and community to reduce crime and replace adversarial relationships with a true partnership.

- Economic Inclusion and Development - more and better jobs for the most disadvantaged residents.

- Opportunities for Education and Youth Development - programs targeted at higher academic achievement, and the successful education of at-risk children.

- Housing and Neighborhood Development - better housing through increased homeownership and availability of affordable, quality housing for inner-city residents.

One year later the collaboration produced The Cincinnati Collaborative Agreement, arguably one of the most comprehensive plans enacted to improve police-community relations. The five-year agreement had five primary objectives:

- Establish police officers and community members as proactive partners in community problem-solving.

- Build relationships of respect, cooperation, and trust within and between police and communities.

- Improve education, oversight, monitoring, hiring practices, and accountability within the police department.

- Ensure fair, equitable, and courteous treatment for all.

- Create methods to enhance the public’s understanding of police policies and procedures and to recognize exceptional service to foster support for the police.

While there were difficulties faced regarding implementation and early police resentment, the results achieved speak for themselves:

- Training officers in hard to manage situations, like the “dark alley” where the triggering incident occurred

- Training in how to recognize possible mental health issues in suspects and to better handle mentally ill people

- Computers in officers' cruisers to provide access to a person's detailed and complete criminal record

- Foot pursuit policy changes to require that officers assess whether a pursuit is appropriate, considering the seriousness of the offense, whether the suspect is armed, and the ability to apprehend at a later date

- In late 2003, the City bought updated tasers for all officers after the death of an African-American suspect.

- Officers are now required to fill out "contact cards" when they stop vehicles. The cards include details about those in the car, including their race. The cards grew out of allegations that Cincinnati officers stopped more minority drivers than white drivers.

- A Citizens Complaint Authority was created in 2002 to conduct independent reviews of all serious uses of force by police officers.

After CAN completed its work in 2003, a coalition of 14 corporations and foundations came together in 2003 to create Better Together Cincinnati to provide resources for key projects and to explore ways to continue to address the issues raised through CAN’s work.

“UNCONSTITUTIONAL POLICING”

Ferguson, Missouri — 2014 

On August 9, 2014, 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot and killed by Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson following a confrontation that ensued after Brown left a market where he had stolen a package of cigars. The accounts of what happened before the shooting vary depending on whom you believe. Forensic evidence showed Brown was not shot in the back, his hands were most likely not raised at the time of the shooting, and a struggle of some type occurred between the two at the officer’s vehicle which was stopped approximately 150-feet from where Brown was fatally shot. 

The following day peaceful protests eventually gave way to rioting that lasted more than a week. In retrospect, some of the contributing factors to the violence were the multiple claims that Brown was shot and killed while surrendering or shot in the back while fleeing — all of which were considered plausible due to the deteriorated state of police-community relations.  

Similar to other cities, it was the rioting and the attention brought to Ferguson that eventually exposed a legacy of police corruption and abuse directed toward the Black community. 

It was the attention brought by the riots that prompted President Obama to address the incident, giving it national and international prominence. 

It was the attention brought by the riots that led Attorney General Eric Holder to launch a Justice Department investigation that revealed widespread, institutionally sanctioned racial profiling. 

It was the attention brought by the riots that prompted a review of federal programs that provide military-style weapons and equipment to law enforcement agencies across the country. 

It was the attention brought by the riots that led to the resignation of five city officials. 

It was the attention brought by the riots that exposed racially-biased, profit-driven law enforcement in Ferguson. 

It was the attention brought by the riots that led to an overhaul of the local court system that used arrest warrants to extort residents. 

It was the riots that ultimately led to the resignation of the former Ferguson Police Chief, Thomas Jackson, and made improving community relations a top priority for incoming Police Chief Delrish Moss. 

It was the riots that prompted President Barrack Obama to request $260 million in government funding to pay for 50,000 body cameras and police training. 

It was the riots that led President Obama to convene the Task Force on 21st Century Policing to identify problems and make recommendations to improve policing practices nationwide.

Multiple investigations and a grand jury found officer Wilson acted in self-defense.

The Justice Department investigation found “the emphasis on revenue has compromised the institutional character of Ferguson’s police department, contributing to a pattern of unconstitutional policing … police and municipal court practices both reflect and exacerbate existing racial bias, including racial stereotypes.”

“EXPLICITLY DISCRIMINATORY”

Baltimore, Maryland — 2015

On April 12, 2015, 25-year-old Freddie Gray was arrested by Baltimore City Police officers and placed inside a police transport van. Video of the final moments of Gray’s arrest shows Gray facedown on the sidewalk with two officers holding him in place as he repeatedly screams out in pain. When additional officers arrive moments later, Gray is lifted and dragged to the van as his right leg hangs limp the entire time. 

What occurs next is a mystery, even if you believe the claims made by the Baltimore Police Department. How many stops did the van make between Gray’s arrest and the time it reached the police station? Two? Three? Six? What was done to Gray en route to the police station? Why did it take the van 45 minutes to reach a station four blocks away? What happened before the video recording began? Was he tased? Why were certain eyewitnesses never interviewed? Did Gray ask for an asthma inhaler? How did Gray end up unconscious, not breathing, with a nearly severed spinal cord?

What is not a mystery is that Freddie Gray arrived at the West District police station and was treated by paramedics before being taken to the University of Maryland Medical Center in a coma. He died on April 19.

Protests were held in the days following his death, but as more information, accurate and conflicting, was revealed tensions mounted. On the day of Freddie Gray’s funeral, that tension boiled over and turned into a full-blown riot that led to 250 people arrested, 144 vehicle fires, and approximately $9 million in damage to businesses.

While the six officers involved went unpunished following unsuccessful attempts to win convictions, a Justice Department investigation and report that followed outlined widespread discrimination and other abuses by the Baltimore Police Department, finding that “supervisors have issued explicitly discriminatory orders, such as directing a shift to arrest 'all the black hoodies' in a neighborhood,” and “(Baltimore Police Department practices) "perpetuate and fuel a multitude of issues rooted in poverty and race, focusing law enforcement actions on low-income, minority communities" and encourage officers to have "unnecessary, adversarial interactions with community members.” 

Other findings included: 

- Police too often stopped, frisked, and arrested residents without legal justification, disproportionately impacting Black residents, even though police were more likely to find illegal guns, illicit drugs, and other contraband on white residents.

- Police routinely and intentionally misclassified citizen complaints about racial slurs used by officers. 

- Police fail to meaningfully investigate reports of sexual assault, particularly for assaults involving women with additional vulnerabilities, such as those who are engaged in sex work.

- Police officers often used excessive force in situations where it was not warranted.

- Police officers routinely used excessive force against individuals deemed to be verbally disrespectful towards police.

- Police officers routinely used excessive force and engaged in “unnecessarily violent confrontations” with individuals with mental health issues.

- Police officers routinely used the same excessive force tactics against juveniles that they used against adults. 

- Police officers were not given adequate supervision or training and systemic problems were allowed to go unchecked.

- Failures in the areas of recruitment and retention were also allowed to go unchecked, creating circumstances under which officers were “forced to work overtime after long shifts, lowering morale, and leading to officers working with deteriorated decision-making skills.”

The Justice Department findings led to a court-enforced consent decree, an agreement that would hold the city accountable for making policing reforms and subject it to federal monitoring for years to come. 

“DON’T KILL ME”

Minneapolis, Minnesota — 2020

On May 25, 2020, after he was accused of passing a counterfeit $20 bill, Minneapolis Police officers attempted to take 46-year-old George Floyd into custody. As bystander video begins, Floyd is seen lying handcuffed, facedown in the street with officer Derek Chauvin’s knee pressed into his neck for nearly 9 minutes, the last 3 of which Floyd is unresponsive. Two other officers out of camera view are also involved in keeping Floyd pinned to the ground while a fourth officer ignores pleas from onlookers to check on Floyd’s condition.

During the incident, Floyd can be heard repeatedly stating, “I can’t breathe,” and “don’t kill me” until he becomes unresponsive and is taken to Hennepin County Medical Center where he is pronounced dead less than two hours after the initial incident began. 

On May 26, following the release of the video, as public outrage began to grow, all four officers involved in the incident were fired.

On May 27 as calls grew for the officers to be arrested, rioting began.

On May 28 rioting expanded with multiple businesses damaged and the Minneapolis Police Department Third Precinct building burned down. 

On May 29 Hennepin County’s prosecutor announced charges of third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter against Chauvin.

Despite the arrest rioting expanded to more than 100 cities across the United States as protesters demand all of the officers involved in Floyd’s death are arrested and charged. 

Your move America.

[blackfreethinkers]

During the 1968 presidential campaign, while Johnson was still in the race, he created what was called the Kerner Commission to investigate why black Americans were rioting in cities around the country. In the end, the commission concluded that poverty and white racism were the causes. Upon seeing the results of his own commission, Johnson backed away from its report and even aspersed its findings.

"That was the only commission in U.S. history which used language about white racism being the problem with race in this country," Feagin says. "Johnson saw the report and knew it was political dynamite during his 1968 run for president and backed off and attacked his own commission."

When it came down to it, Johnson prioritized the delicate feelings of white Americans over the needs of black Americans. He chose to appease white voters rather than confront the monumental problem of systemic racism.

...

Over the past half-century, liberals have fought for racial equality and inclusivity on some occasions while standing in its way on others. Feagin argues that the reason for this apparent inconsistency is that white liberals often prefer to address racial inequality at a slow pace, in an effort to maintain something fairly close to the comfortable status quo.

Further, Feagin says, many liberals often only want to address racism when they see a personal benefit to doing so.

"Once people get wealth and privilege, at least a majority of them don't want to give it up unless they can see a good reason for it," Feagin says. "The 'good' reason has to include their own self-interests."

Feagin points out that in the 1950s and early '60s, while the U.S. was in the midst of both the Cold War and the Jim Crow era, Soviets often used racial strife in the States for their international propaganda efforts. He recounts that when dogs were biting demonstrators in Birmingham, Alabama, in the summer of 1963, the Soviet Union "made thousands of photos [of the incidents] available across the planet." Essentially, the racial struggles in the South were giving the U.S. government a bad image internationally. In response, Feagin says, the moderate to the liberal wing of the white male elite started to turn against segregation.

"The U.S. State Department, which had been fairly conservative, started issuing memos to the Supreme Court supporting school desegregation and supporting ending racial segregation in the South," Feagin says.

This style of treating racial justice as a political rather than moral calculation is still in vogue today. Feagin says that contemporary white Democratic candidates will often push for policies that will increase racial equality, but only so far as white moderates and white conservatives will let them. He says such politicians often attempt to weigh what voters of color want against what white people currently think is an acceptable amount of change in the power balance.

Over the past half-century, liberals have fought for racial equality and inclusivity on some occasions while standing in its way on others. Feagin argues that the reason for this apparent inconsistency is that white liberals often prefer to address racial inequality at a slow pace, in an effort to maintain something fairly close to the comfortable status quo.

Further, Feagin says, many liberals often only want to address racism when they see a personal benefit to doing so.

"Once people get wealth and privilege, at least a majority of them don't want to give it up unless they can see a good reason for it," Feagin says. "The 'good' reason has to include their own self-interests."

Feagin points out that in the 1950s and early '60s, while the U.S. was in the midst of both the Cold War and the Jim Crow era, Soviets often used racial strife in the States for their international propaganda efforts. He recounts that when dogs were biting demonstrators in Birmingham, Alabama, in the summer of 1963, the Soviet Union "made thousands of photos [of the incidents] available across the planet." Essentially, the racial struggles in the South were giving the U.S. government a bad image internationally. In response, Feagin says, the moderate to the liberal wing of the white male elite started to turn against segregation.

"The U.S. State Department, which had been fairly conservative, started issuing memos to the Supreme Court supporting school desegregation and supporting ending racial segregation in the South," Feagin says.

This style of treating racial justice as a political rather than moral calculation is still in vogue today. Feagin says that contemporary white Democratic candidates will often push for policies that will increase racial equality, but only so far as white moderates and white conservatives will let them. He says such politicians often attempt to weigh what voters of color want against what white people currently think is an acceptable amount of change in the power balance.

[grapesodadarkchocolate]

Truth and Christmas 

COVID-19 this week: 

Ramble Write:

Truth seems to be the word that continues to sprout during this Christmas time. Striking up the band. Making sure the tubas aren’t late for the parade. All the magnificent instruments are roll called in to order and the marching will commence when the clock strikes the top of the hour. Truth is saying “be here in the now that is being exhibited. Be in what seeks to be seen more clearly.” 

Truth, what is it you want and how does it all become more present? Moving into the place of here with what is sought. Naming what needs to be seen. Owning what we each can and being honest with all of it. 

What does that all look like? What is it that has been fractured and needs spackle for its repair? The cracks and the weathering as the old house stands in its desolate surroundings. Battered by storms of all sorts of catastrophes. Lightening strikes. Hurricane winds sweeping on through without warning. Floods, fires, and drought. Parched to the bone. Soaked to the gills. Tormented and tackled to the ground, bruised and battered. Life stands on its own and as I seek to better understand how to live more graciously within it, I need to name all of its complexities honestly. I need to put out the fires. Mend the fences. Patch up all the holes. Identify what has transpired from all sides more openly. 

It is demanding, that life. It constantly seeks more of what is already there but I have often been afraid to see the all of it. Life is spectacular. Life is harsh. It demands more purity of spirit. It asks for more clear living. It continues to seek space for both the highs and the lows. The good and the bad. The parts we ALL carry.+++

History speaks. Listen to the stories. Be uncomfortable. 

EJI Calendar Entry: General Grant Expels Jewish People from Tennessee District: December 17, 1862 📅

EJI Calendar Entry: Georgia Governor Proposes Abolition of Public School System to Avoid Integration:December 18, 1952 📅

EJI Calendar Entry: South Carolina Enacted Law Requiring Contracts to Refer to White People as “Masters”: December 19, 1865 📅 

EJI Calendar Entry: White Mob Chases, Kills Young Black Man in Howard Beach, New York: December 20, 1986 📅

EJI Calendar Entry: Alabama Sheriff Advertises Planned Sale of Enslaved Black Man: December 22, 1853 📅 

On My Reading Shelf:

Atlas of the Heart by Brené Brown

The Essential Kerner Commission Report by Jelani Cobb

[hell-yeahfilm]

THE ESSENTIAL KERNER COMMISSION REPORT

Created by Lyndon Johnson’s executive order in 1967, the Kerner Commission was convened in response to inner-city riots in cities like Newark and Detroit, and its findings have renewed relevance in the wake of the George Floyd verdict and other recent police brutality cases. The report, named for Otto Kerner, the chairman of the commission and then governor of Illinois, explored the systemic reasons why an “apocalyptic fury” broke out that summer even in the wake of the passage of significant civil rights and voting acts—a response with striking echoes in recent events across the country. In this edited and contextualized version, New Yorker staff writer Cobb, with the assistance of Guariglia, capably demonstrates the continued relevance and prescience of the commission’s findings on institutionalized discriminatory policies in housing, education, employment, and the media. The commission was not the first to address racial violence in the century, and it would not be the last, but the bipartisan group of 11 members—including two Blacks and one woman—was impressively thorough in its investigation of the complex overarching social and economic issues at play. “The members were not seeking to understand a singular incident of disorder,” writes Cobb, “but the phenomenon of rioting itself.” Johnson wanted to know what happened, why it happened, and what could be done so it doesn’t happen “again and again.” Of course, it has happened again and again, and many of the report’s recommendations remain unimplemented. This version of the landmark report features a superb introduction by Cobb and a closing section of frequently asked questions—e.g., “How come nothing has been done about these problems?” The book contains plenty of fodder for crucial national conversations and many excellent ideas for much-needed reforms that could be put into place now.

from Kirkus Reviews https://ift.tt/3kWfM05

[lawrencedienerthings]

In 1963, America didn’t listen to the “language of the unheard.” We can’t afford to fail this time.

#livinghistory🏛 🌛 👮‍♀️ 🎫 🔅

Colorado News

Colorado’s Living History is a regular feature in The Colorado Sun, in collaboration with History Colorado, showcasing opinion pieces by members of the State Historian’s Council that connect history with current events.

On the evening of July 12, 1967, in Newark, New Jersey, two white police officers badly beat a black cab driver named John William Smith in the course of arresting him for a traffic violation. News of this spread like wildfire through the African-American community, and angry crowds gathered outside the police station. Though Smith was injured, but not dead, riots erupted across the city that night. By the time order was restored on July 17, whole blocks lay smoldering and twenty-six people, mostly African Americans, lay dead.

Nicki Gonzales

The riot in Newark was one of the most violent flashpoints in what became known as the “long, hot summer of 1967,” in which simmering racial tensions boiled over into the streets all across America. In all, 164 race riots consumed many of the nation’s largest cities and smaller towns.

The violence in Newark, and a riot in Detroit later that month, stand out as the two most destructive and deadly urban uprisings, with 82 percent of the deaths reported in those two cities alone. According to a government study, the “overwhelming majority of the persons killed or injured in all of the disorders were Negro civilians.”

Though the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 brought hope to many, the plight of African Americans in the northern and western cities remained defined by poverty, unemployment, lack of educational opportunities, and toxic policing. In short, systemic racism shaped all facets of black lives. Voting rights meant little when daily survival was a constant struggle. 

President Lyndon B. Johnson—whose War on Poverty and Great Society programs aimed to eradicate poverty and level the playing field for marginalized Americans—could not accept that his programs were failing to solve the problems of America’s inner cities. By 1967, cities exploded for the third consecutive summer as communities raged against generations of oppressive systems and discrimination.

Demonstrators at the 1963 March on Washington carry signs with demands that continue to echo — and remain unfulfilled — for many Americans today. (Warren K. Leffler, provided by the Library of Congress)

“Race riots,” as they came to be known, had become an oft-debated topic, and by 1966 white Americans’ support of civil rights causes began to wane, as many felt that LBJ’s civil rights agenda was moving just a little too fast and as they perceived a more radical turn in the civil rights movement. 

That same year, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. sat down with journalist Mike Wallace to discuss the race riots. “I think that we’ve got to see that a riot is the language of the unheard. And, what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the economic plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years…. I would hope that we can avoid riots because riots are self-defeating and socially destructive.”

While he never compromised his commitment to nonviolent resistance, Dr. King expressed an understanding of why African-American communities were rising up. Communities that had been ignored for too long were essentially doing whatever they could to get the attention of their leaders, and in 1967 they had the ear of a sympathetic president who was willing to listen and respond.

In a nationally televised address, LBJ announced that he would be answering Michigan Governor Romney’s call for federal troops, and three days later, on July 27, in another national address, LBJ announced that he would be creating the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders. The commission consisted of eleven members, including a governor, a mayor, congressional members, the NAACP’s executive director, and a chief of police.

Known as the Kerner Commission, the group was tasked with studying the urban crisis and answering three questions: “What happened? Why did it happen? What can be done to prevent it from happening again?” Johnson spoke passionately to the nation that night, making clear his genuine desire to address the problems of the inner city. After all, he still had dreams of being the president who fed the hungry and clothed the poor.

After two photographs showing three Aurora police officers mocking the death of Elijah McClain surfaced, an already tense situation grew between protesters and police. On July 3, 2020, the day Aurora police interim Chief Vanessa Wilson released the photographs to the public — also the day she fired the three — protesters gathered at McClain’s memorial site marched to the Aurora Police Department where they demanded the officers responsible for Elijah’s death be charged with murder. (Photo provided by History Colorado)

After seven months of extensive inquiries, interviews, and visits to America’s charred cities, the commission published its findings on February 29, 1968, concluding that “[o]ur nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal.”

Further, it stated that “[s]egregation and poverty have created in the racial ghetto a destructive environment totally unknown to most white Americans. What white Americans have never fully understood—but what the Negro can never forget—is that white society is deeply implicated in the ghetto. White institutions created it, white institutions maintain, and white society condones it.”

In language now prophetic, the commission warned that “[t]o pursue our present course will involve the continuing polarization of the American community and, ultimately, the destruction of basic democratic values. The alternative is not blind repression or capitulation to lawlessness. It is the realization of common opportunities for all within a single society. This alternative will require a commitment to national action—compassionate, massive and sustained, backed by the resources of the most powerful and the richest nation on this earth. From every American it will require new attitudes, new understanding, and, above all, new will…. Violence and destruction must be ended—in the streets of the ghetto and in the lives of people.” (emphasis added)

Despite his earlier desire to heed the recommendations of the Kerner Commission and take necessary actions to address inner-city problems, President Johnson was a changed man by February of 1968. The Tet Offensive in Vietnam had demoralized a nation already weary of war and had claimed the president and many of his Great Society dreams as its casualties.

Demonstrators gathered on the steps of the State Capitol on June 1, 2020, for a fifth consecutive day of rallies,protests, and marches calling for police reforms in reaction to the death of George Floyd at the hands of police officers in Minneapolis. (Provided by History Colorado)

After the commission issued its report, Johnson did his best to downplay it, while many white Americans refused to accept its conclusion that racism had created the problems of the inner cities. The assassinations of Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy followed, and that summer, Americans stood by as the Democratic Party crumbled and as Richard Nixon’s “law and order” campaign carried him into the White House. The Kerner Commission’s findings would fade into the background, as the nation shifted its attention to mourning the loss of two beloved leaders, ending the war in Vietnam, and, in time, Watergate. 

Thus, 52 years ago, the Kerner Commission concluded that systemic racism lay at the root of racial inequality and that the only way to address it was to confront it through compassionate action, open minds, and sufficient resources. Yet, we failed. We failed, as a nation, to acknowledge the commission’s findings and heed its warnings. We failed, in 1968, to confront the issue of race in America. And, we have failed many times since then.

Today, as we mourn the tragic murder of George Floyd at the hands of police, we find ourselves in a position eerily similar to America in 1968. And 1992. And 2014. We know that systemic racism continues to threaten the lives of black men and women.

OUR UNDERWRITERS SUPPORT JOURNALISM.   BECOME ONE.

We once again find ourselves taking to the streets to protest 400 years of institutional racism, which has taken the form of toxic police culture, persistent poverty, unequal educational opportunities, mass incarceration, and disparities in access to health care. Now is our opportunity to change the narrative and to learn from the failures of the past.

We must have the moral courage to confront America’s original sin and commit to the long, hard work of individual and societal change, while demanding that our leaders dedicate the necessary resources to address systemic racism on all levels. In the words of rapper and activist Killer Mike, who has been a powerful leading voice in the black community over the past few days, “we must plot, we must plan, we must strategize, organize, and mobilize.” 

We simply cannot afford to fail again.

Dr. Nicki Gonzales is a member of History Colorado’s State Historian’s Council and an Associate Professor of History and Vice Provost for Diversity and Inclusion at Regis University. 

To read more from the members of the Colorado State Historian’s Council, visit The Colorado Magazine online at HistoryColorado.org/colorado-magazine, where this piece first appeared.

The Colorado Sun is a nonpartisan news organization, and the opinions of columnists and editorial writers do not reflect the opinions of the newsroom. Read our ethics policy for more on The Sun’s opinion policy and submit columns, suggested writers and more to opinion@coloradosun.com.

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[brettzjacksonblog]

Does Crypto Need a Bitcoin ETF? CNBC Analyst Says Maybe Not

If you have followed the Bitcoin industry’s news cycle over the past two years, you likely would have noticed an incessantly recurring trend: Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs). These financial vehicles, which have yet to appear in U.S. markets, are believed by some analysts to be the catalysts that could propel this nascent market to new heights.

Indeed, an ETF tracking the leading cryptocurrency would give institutions (and possibly retail investors) their first medium for Bitcoin investment.

However, not everyone convinced that such vehicles would be the end all and be all for cryptocurrency investment.

Related Reading: Crypto Tidbits: Bitcoin ETF Denied, Libra Loses Visa & eBay, SEC Crackdown on Telegram’s Blockchain

Bitcoin ETF Hype Unwarranted

Speaking on a CNBC “Fast Money” segment last week, Brian Kelly of BKCM argued that a Bitcoin ETF isn’t essential for continued development and growth in this budding space. While many may take this statement as blasphemous, Kelly went on to back up his comment, drawing attention to the fact that there are other up-and-coming on-ramps.

The industry investor looked to Fidelity and TD Ameritrade — two giants in the American finance realm — adding that “ultimately you’re going to be able to buy Bitcoin in a regular brokerage account, or it’s going to look like a regular brokerage account. So I’m less concerned that you need a bitcoin ETF at this point in time.”

The SEC just knocked back anther bitcoin ETF. @BKBrianKelly breaks it down. pic.twitter.com/C3OfdhG2ru

— CNBC's Fast Money (@CNBCFastMoney) October 10, 2019

Kelly’s comment is similar to that made by Sasha Fleyshman, a trader at cryptocurrency investment manager Arca. Fleyshman recently wrote on Twitter that the Bitcoin ETFs that are being so heavily lauded aren’t exactly needed, in that that there already custodial and investment solutions that should spark an institutional entree.

I still can't quite comprehend why this space is so incessant on having a #Bitcoin ETF.

With what @Bakkt is doing (physically backed $BTC futures/custody), what @DigitalAssets is doing in terms of custody solutions, etc: why are we so hung up on an ETF for "institutional entry"?

— Sasha Fleyshman (@ArcaChemist) October 10, 2019

These comments come shortly after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) slammed Bitwise Asset Management’s ETF proposal, issuing an over 100-page letter on why they believe that this market isn’t ready for a publicly-tradable fund.

Where We’re Going, There Are No Institutions

CryptoOracle founder Lou Kerner has taken Kelly’s rhetoric further.

Per previous reports from NewsBTC, the former Goldman Sachs analyst said that

Bitcoin doesn’t need institutions to succeed and rocket higher, citing the fact that a majority of the asset’s growth has been retail-based. Kerner even went as far as to say that the institutions will be the followers in this market, not the trailblazers.

Yet, he did admit that institutions will eventually make a true foray into this market, claiming they will be attracted to cryptocurrencies like apples are attracted to the ground.

Related Reading: Fun Fact: Bitcoin Price is Up 838,000,000% in Ten Years’ Time

Featured Image from Shutterstock

The post Does Crypto Need a Bitcoin ETF? CNBC Analyst Says Maybe Not appeared first on NewsBTC.

from CryptoCracken SMFeed https://ift.tt/31frTrs via IFTTT

[joshuajacksonlyblog]

Does Crypto Need a Bitcoin ETF? CNBC Analyst Says Maybe Not

If you have followed the Bitcoin industry’s news cycle over the past two years, you likely would have noticed an incessantly recurring trend: Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs). These financial vehicles, which have yet to appear in U.S. markets, are believed by some analysts to be the catalysts that could propel this nascent market to new heights.

Indeed, an ETF tracking the leading cryptocurrency would give institutions (and possibly retail investors) their first medium for Bitcoin investment.

However, not everyone convinced that such vehicles would be the end all and be all for cryptocurrency investment.

Related Reading: Crypto Tidbits: Bitcoin ETF Denied, Libra Loses Visa & eBay, SEC Crackdown on Telegram’s Blockchain

Bitcoin ETF Hype Unwarranted

Speaking on a CNBC “Fast Money” segment last week, Brian Kelly of BKCM argued that a Bitcoin ETF isn’t essential for continued development and growth in this budding space. While many may take this statement as blasphemous, Kelly went on to back up his comment, drawing attention to the fact that there are other up-and-coming on-ramps.

The industry investor looked to Fidelity and TD Ameritrade — two giants in the American finance realm — adding that “ultimately you’re going to be able to buy Bitcoin in a regular brokerage account, or it’s going to look like a regular brokerage account. So I’m less concerned that you need a bitcoin ETF at this point in time.”

The SEC just knocked back anther bitcoin ETF. @BKBrianKelly breaks it down. pic.twitter.com/C3OfdhG2ru

— CNBC's Fast Money (@CNBCFastMoney) October 10, 2019

Kelly’s comment is similar to that made by Sasha Fleyshman, a trader at cryptocurrency investment manager Arca. Fleyshman recently wrote on Twitter that the Bitcoin ETFs that are being so heavily lauded aren’t exactly needed, in that that there already custodial and investment solutions that should spark an institutional entree.

I still can't quite comprehend why this space is so incessant on having a #Bitcoin ETF.

With what @Bakkt is doing (physically backed $BTC futures/custody), what @DigitalAssets is doing in terms of custody solutions, etc: why are we so hung up on an ETF for "institutional entry"?

— Sasha Fleyshman (@ArcaChemist) October 10, 2019

These comments come shortly after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) slammed Bitwise Asset Management’s ETF proposal, issuing an over 100-page letter on why they believe that this market isn’t ready for a publicly-tradable fund.

Where We’re Going, There Are No Institutions

CryptoOracle founder Lou Kerner has taken Kelly’s rhetoric further.

Per previous reports from NewsBTC, the former Goldman Sachs analyst said that

Bitcoin doesn’t need institutions to succeed and rocket higher, citing the fact that a majority of the asset’s growth has been retail-based. Kerner even went as far as to say that the institutions will be the followers in this market, not the trailblazers.

Yet, he did admit that institutions will eventually make a true foray into this market, claiming they will be attracted to cryptocurrencies like apples are attracted to the ground.

Related Reading: Fun Fact: Bitcoin Price is Up 838,000,000% in Ten Years’ Time

Featured Image from Shutterstock

The post Does Crypto Need a Bitcoin ETF? CNBC Analyst Says Maybe Not appeared first on NewsBTC.

from Cryptocracken Tumblr https://ift.tt/31frTrs via IFTTT

[michaelbennettcrypto]

Does Crypto Need a Bitcoin ETF? CNBC Analyst Says Maybe Not

If you have followed the Bitcoin industry’s news cycle over the past two years, you likely would have noticed an incessantly recurring trend: Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs). These financial vehicles, which have yet to appear in U.S. markets, are believed by some analysts to be the catalysts that could propel this nascent market to new heights.

Indeed, an ETF tracking the leading cryptocurrency would give institutions (and possibly retail investors) their first medium for Bitcoin investment.

However, not everyone convinced that such vehicles would be the end all and be all for cryptocurrency investment.

Related Reading: Crypto Tidbits: Bitcoin ETF Denied, Libra Loses Visa & eBay, SEC Crackdown on Telegram’s Blockchain

Bitcoin ETF Hype Unwarranted

Speaking on a CNBC “Fast Money” segment last week, Brian Kelly of BKCM argued that a Bitcoin ETF isn’t essential for continued development and growth in this budding space. While many may take this statement as blasphemous, Kelly went on to back up his comment, drawing attention to the fact that there are other up-and-coming on-ramps.

The industry investor looked to Fidelity and TD Ameritrade — two giants in the American finance realm — adding that “ultimately you’re going to be able to buy Bitcoin in a regular brokerage account, or it’s going to look like a regular brokerage account. So I’m less concerned that you need a bitcoin ETF at this point in time.”

The SEC just knocked back anther bitcoin ETF. @BKBrianKelly breaks it down. pic.twitter.com/C3OfdhG2ru

— CNBC's Fast Money (@CNBCFastMoney) October 10, 2019

Kelly’s comment is similar to that made by Sasha Fleyshman, a trader at cryptocurrency investment manager Arca. Fleyshman recently wrote on Twitter that the Bitcoin ETFs that are being so heavily lauded aren’t exactly needed, in that that there already custodial and investment solutions that should spark an institutional entree.

I still can't quite comprehend why this space is so incessant on having a #Bitcoin ETF.

With what @Bakkt is doing (physically backed $BTC futures/custody), what @DigitalAssets is doing in terms of custody solutions, etc: why are we so hung up on an ETF for "institutional entry"?

— Sasha Fleyshman (@ArcaChemist) October 10, 2019

These comments come shortly after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) slammed Bitwise Asset Management’s ETF proposal, issuing an over 100-page letter on why they believe that this market isn’t ready for a publicly-tradable fund.

Where We’re Going, There Are No Institutions

CryptoOracle founder Lou Kerner has taken Kelly’s rhetoric further.

Per previous reports from NewsBTC, the former Goldman Sachs analyst said that

Bitcoin doesn’t need institutions to succeed and rocket higher, citing the fact that a majority of the asset’s growth has been retail-based. Kerner even went as far as to say that the institutions will be the followers in this market, not the trailblazers.

Yet, he did admit that institutions will eventually make a true foray into this market, claiming they will be attracted to cryptocurrencies like apples are attracted to the ground.

Related Reading: Fun Fact: Bitcoin Price is Up 838,000,000% in Ten Years’ Time

Featured Image from Shutterstock

The post Does Crypto Need a Bitcoin ETF? CNBC Analyst Says Maybe Not appeared first on NewsBTC.

from Cryptocracken WP https://ift.tt/31frTrs via IFTTT

[iirulancorrino]

...the Kerner Report was fated, from the moment it reached shelves, to operate more crucially as a forecast than review. We hear George Santayana's dictum that 'those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it' quoted with eye-rolling frequency. But Kerner establishes that it is possible for us to be entirely cognizant of history and repeat it anyway.

Jelani Cobb, introduction to The Essential Kerner Commission Report

[savetopnow]

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[hellofastestnewsfan]

In 2018, black voters are finding out just what the hell they had to lose.

Nazis and Klansmen march openly and proudly, and hate crimes appear to be on the rise. Police killings of people—especially black people—remain largely the same year to year, and this iteration of the Justice Department has largely abdicated any federal responsibility in reducing brutality. An infant-mortality crisis is tightening its grip on the most marginalized communities, and across many economic metrics—from evictions, to generational wealth, to segregation—disparities are either stagnating or trending in the wrong direction. Fifty years after the Kerner Commission’s report said the country was ��moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal,” the prophecy has been all but fully realized.

As Americans head to the polls in primaries this year and prepare to do their civic duties this fall and in the fall of 2020, the 50 years of backlash against civil rights that helped fulfill that prediction might either be ratified or repudiated. Yet, in the middle of a nationwide conversation of diner visits and coal-miner profiles in service of understanding people who voted for President Trump and this regime, there’s been remarkably little analysis of the demographic that voted against him almost entirely. What drives and motivates black citizens to vote, and is simply being anti-Trump enough to get them out this fall?

A new poll due to be released by the independent political organization BlackPAC sheds light on the motivations of black voters. Conducted by former Obama and DNC pollster and strategist Cornell Belcher and his firm, Brilliant Corners Research & Strategies, the poll of 1,000 black voters in the battleground states of Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Michigan, North Carolina, Illinois, and Florida aims to “examine the factors essential to a Democratic wave in the 2018 elections,” according to a memo from BlackPAC. But it accomplishes much more than that,  providing valuable insights on the role of race and racism of Trump’s presidency, and the partisan destiny of the country even beyond 2018.

The poll finds black voters in dire self-reported straits. Over half of those surveyed believe the economy is getting worse, and over 40 percent believe they are falling behind economically. Only one in 10 black voters in the survey sample believe they are getting ahead economically, and that sentiment holds broadly across age and education groups. Over three-quarters of all black voters believe the country is generally heading in the wrong direction.

That directionality is reflected by what black voters see as a trend of increasing racism over the past few years. Eighty-nine percent of black voters believe racism in the country has gotten worse since 2016, the same proportion believes racism is prevalent in America, and over half believe that one of the key shifts in American politics has been a renewed attack on black Americans.

Of course, many of those perceptions are linked to Donald Trump, who in this sample faces an 84 percent disapproval rating, and whom a similar amount of black voters think is racist. But the overall perception of a country spiraling into a new nadir of racism is also reinforced by personal experiences with racism. Eighty-one percent of all black voters say they experience racism, with 40 percent saying they experience it often.

Interestingly, racial and economic indicators all have geographic skews, and rural black people are much more likely than their urban or suburban counterparts to experience racism and express distress about the economic outlook. But, according to Belcher, in the age of Trump that relative gap is narrowing, not widening.  “It is an interesting time,” Belcher said. “Because I think if we had done this poll eight years ago, I think we would see more bifurcation between urban, rural, and suburban voters.”

“What we’re seeing is a greater mobilization across geographies in the black community,” Belcher continued. Essentially, what the poll data pick up is that across different levels of geography, across class and income, black people as a whole are both economically and socially destabilized, a state that will have major ramifications in how black people respond to politics.

These findings echo those of some other recent polls. A November poll from Winthrop University found that three-quarters of all black Southerners said that minorities in the country were under attack. CNN/ORC polls from August 2017 find that the majority of black voters believe they are discriminated against by police, courts, banks, and workplaces, a result with which an NPR/Robert Wood Johnson Foundation poll from October roughly agrees. A December Pew Research poll shows that overall views of race relations are approaching a low not seen since the Los Angeles riots in 1992, with barely over a quarter of black Americans saying they believe race relations are generally good.

Those perceptions are all tied deeply to racial sentiments of economic success and opportunity. Another Pew Research poll found that only 17 percent of all black Americans believed they had already reached the American dream. A Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index poll from February 2017 brings everything into full view: It finds that while black people are consistently more optimistic than white counterparts about their future economic status, black people also are much less likely to achieve those lofty goals, and often report lower current status on the American economic ladder.

All of the evidence points to a unique interplay of economic and racial factors that form a continuum of disadvantage for black voters. “It’s increasingly clear that you can’t separate these two messages,” said Adrianne Shropshire, BlackPAC’s executive director. “While all of the economic issues are deeply felt and are enormous concerns to black voters … the issues around racial justice are in some cases more important.” According to Belcher, the increasing likelihood of black voters to experience racism and see it as a major structural impediment is one of the biggest shifts in voter outlook across demographics over the last 10 years. A quarter of all black Americans said they did not experience racism in a 2008 Center on African American Politics and Society poll, and Barack Obama’s election that year marked a spike in racial optimism among black voters.

Perhaps fittingly, there’s been a corresponding major shift in attitudes among the electoral inverse of these black voters: white Trump voters.

While the “economic anxiety” among working-class white voters that became a meme after the 2016 election does have a certain amount of explanatory power, strictly-defined economic pressures have trouble explaining why whites across classes voted for Trump. But more nebulous “cultural” pressures seemed to be better predictions of a vote for Trump. According to a 2017 analysis of a post election survey by The Atlantic and the Public Religion Research Institute, fear of change and a desire to protect the American way of life were the factors most tightly tied to a vote for Trump among working-class white voters. And as my colleague Olga Khazan notes, among white voters who switched from Obama to Trump, the key indicators weren’t changes in wages or economic opportunity, but a desire for their demographic groups to dominate, and a belief that anti-white discrimination is rampant.

Those voters were the story of 2016; it’s likely black voters will be the story of 2018 if the “blue wave” of Democratic wins manifests. The recent victory of Democrat Doug Jones in Alabama’s special election for its open Senate seat is still the guiding light. In that election, in which BlackPAC also provided critical support in black organizing and outreach, major surprise gains in black turnout buoyed Jones’s win against Republican Roy Moore, whose candidacy sagged under multiple allegations of sexual assault and abuse of minors. In the aftermath of that race, black organizers and activists who’d worked for weeks to turn out rural counties in Alabama’s “black belt” said their energy didn’t really come from Jones or from Democratic support, but as a community-wide response to “the resurgence of this white conservative overtly racist rhetoric,” symbolized by Trump and Moore, according to Selma grassroots activist LaTosha Brown.

But BlackPAC’s poll indicates that the road ahead for Alabama-like victories will be difficult for Democrats. Black millennial interest in the midterm elections sits 20 points behind that of their elders. And while Democrats tend to view young black voters as “get out the vote” voters, or those who are already expected to vote for the party if they can be encouraged to get to the polls, the data suggest that these voters increasingly identify as and behave like true independents. “They see themselves as being persuadable,” Shropshire said. “They want to be approached.”

And they want to be approached with concrete solutions to specific racial disparities, not just generic anti-Trump talk. In the BlackPAC/Brilliant Corners poll, across income, geographic, and age groups, black voters see “fighting to end racism and discrimination” as the most important electoral concern, with school funding, access to affordable health care, and fighting for the poor as the next-most-important issues. While it might be expected that those issues might continue a natural affinity between black people and Democrats, black voters are increasingly skeptical of the Democratic ability and commitment on racial-justice issues, with 40 percent of all black voters believing that Democrats aren’t better than Republicans on ending discrimination or protecting black people from hate crimes, and over half of all black voters believing the opposition party isn’t better than the GOP at eliminating voter-suppression laws.

While it’s unlikely that any significant number of these black voters will ever vote Republican, their ability to stay home or vote for third-party candidates has real ramifications for electoral politics. The delicate balancing act central to Democratic politics has involved building an incredibly fragile coalition of people of color, college-educated and urban whites, and just enough blue-collar and poor white people in swing states. A common instinct to manage this act is to lean on a sort of generic economic appeal, one that will get enough black voters on board without scaring away whites prone to “cultural anxiety” with too-ambitious racial-justice agendas. This instinct assumes that racial justice is a zero-sum political game, an assumption that—given increasing chafing about civil-rights policies from white voters—might have some merit to it.

But in the age of Trump, Shropshire and Belcher tell me that generic appeals to economics aren’t going to cut it for black voters. There is a deep sense among the black voters polled that the president himself is a both a symptom of and a major driver of a uniquely new wave of American racism, one that appears to already be touching their daily lives. And their experience with that daily fact of racism appears to be primed to change the mandate of the party that for decades has considered itself the aegis of civil rights.

“It’s fighting for these issues, but also fighting for these voters,” Shropshire said.

If the reasoning for white voters who rolled the dice on a Trump presidency in 2016 was social desperation—that they looked ahead to a future in which their children might fare significantly worse than them—what does that reasoning say then for black voters and the politicians seeking to represent them? The data suggest that in order to win the necessary black votes, Democrats will have to tie themselves to the mast of a truly anti-racist campaign. Otherwise, it is Democrats who will have a lot to lose.

from The Atlantic https://ift.tt/2rsAqbD

[keithrwilson]

Many of the policy recommendations from the Kerner Commission remain relevant 50 years later

In 1967, young black men rioted in over 150 cities, often spurred by overly aggressive policing, not unlike the provocations of recent disturbances. The worst in 1967 were in Newark, after police beat a taxi driver for having a revoked permit, and Detroit, after 82 party-goers were arrested at a peaceful celebration for returning Vietnam War veterans, held at an unlicensed social club.

President Lyndon Johnson appointed a commission to investigate. Chaired by Illinois Governor Otto Kerner (New York City’s mayor John Lindsay was vice-chair), it issued its report 50 years ago today. Publicly available, it was a best-seller, indicting racial discrimination in housing, employment, health care, policing, education, and social services, and attributing the riots to pent-up frustration in low-income black neighborhoods. Residents’ lack of Fambition or effort did not cause these conditions: rather, “[w]hite institutions created [the ghetto], white institutions maintain it, and white society condones it… [and is] essentially responsible for the explosive mixture which has been accumulating in our cities since the end of World War II.”

The report warned that continued racial segregation and discrimination would engender “two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal.” So little has changed since 1968 that the report remains worth reading as a near-contemporary description of racial inequality.

Of course, not everything about race relations is unchanged. Perhaps most dramatic has been growth of the black middle class, integrated into mainstream corporate leadership, politics, universities, and professions. We’re still far from equality—affirmative action remains a necessity—but such progress was unimaginable in 1968. Today, 23 percent of young adult African Americans have bachelor’s degrees, still considerably below whites’ 42 percent but more than double the black rate 50 years ago.

In the mid-1960s, I assisted in a study of Chicago’s power elite. We identified some 4,000 policymaking positions in the non-financial corporate sector. Not one was held by an African American. The only black executives were at banks and insurance companies serving black neighborhoods. Today, any large corporation would face condemnation, perhaps litigation, if no African American had achieved executive responsibility.

In other respects, things are pretty much as dismal now as then—the commission condemned “stop and frisk” policies and equipping police with military weapons “that have no place in densely populated urban communities.” Some conditions are now worse: the “two societies” warning has been fulfilled, not only in our economic and social live, but in the racial polarization of politics exposed in the last election. It threatens the foundations of our democracy.

The commission said the nation faced three alternatives. First, continue present policies, resulting in more riots (or rebellions—the commission debated what to call them), economic decline, and the splintering of our common national identity. This is the course we have mostly followed. Second, improve black neighborhoods, what the commission called attempts to “gild the ghetto,” something we’ve half-heartedly tried with little success for the last 50 years—for example, with enterprise zones, empowerment zones, extra funding for pupils from low-income families, and charter schools. These, the commission predicted, would never get sufficient political or financial support and would confirm that separate can never be equal; they would fail to reverse our “two societies” trajectory. Or third, while doing what we can to improve conditions in disadvantaged neighborhoods, we could embrace programs to integrate black families into white communities. We’d have to remove discriminatory and financial barriers that prevented African Americans from moving out of overcrowded, low-income places that lacked access to good jobs, schools with high-performing students, adequate health services, even supermarkets with fresh food. It was this alternative the Kerner Report strongly favored.

Surprisingly, the report was unanimous, even gaining support from commissioner Charles Thornton, CEO of Litton Industries, then one of the nation’s most powerful corporations. Johnson had appointed this Texas conservative to ensure modest recommendations, but even commissioners initially inclined to blame riots on “outside agitators” were radicalized by visiting black neighborhoods.

The report’s integration proposals need updating, but not much. One was a law banning discrimination in housing sales and rentals. Two months after the report’s release, horror over Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination gave President Johnson political support to pass the Fair Housing Act. But enforcement provisions waited another 20 years, and remain weak. The report suggested rent supplements for low-income families and tax credits for low-income housing developers. These were adopted—supplements are commonly termed “Section 8 vouchers” and the government now issues developer tax credits. Yet these programs now reinforce segregation because most recipients can use vouchers only in low-income neighborhoods and developers mostly use credits to build in such areas. Both programs could instead prioritize rentals and construction in integrated communities. For this to happen, we’d need to prohibit suburban zoning ordinances that bar construction of townhouses, low-rise apartments, even single family homes on modest lot sizes.

The commission called for constructing low-rise public housing on scattered sites throughout metropolitan areas. Yet shortly thereafter, after the Supreme Court prohibited placement of public housing exclusively in black neighborhoods, federal and local governments responded by ending public housing construction altogether

The commission also recommended subsidies for black homebuyers, something we’ve never seriously considered. They are needed because in the mid-twentieth century, the Federal Housing Administration and Veterans Administration unconstitutionally prohibited African Americans from purchasing affordable suburban homes, contributing to today’s overcrowding and segregation in urban black neighborhoods. Suburban property appreciation now makes those homes unaffordable to working-class families of either race. We’ll never desegregate if this historic wrong remains unremedied.

Is it too late to adopt the Kerner Commission’s third alternative? Racial polarization—the almost inevitable result of persistent residential segregation—may make it so. But perhaps re-reading the report can awaken a passion to reform what the commission didn’t hesitate to term an “apartheid” nation.

EPI is cosponsoring an event marking the 50th anniversary of the Kerner Commission.

A version of this piece ran in the New York Daily News.

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