When I hear the calls for change, I know first hand that change can only happen by reforming those violent places...Another truth is nobody cares about those places unless the violence spills out of their perfectly confined boundaries...So time will pass, the outrage will fade, the drug dealers will be on the same corner, the dropout rate will remain the same, the lack of hope and opportunity still the glaring issue...But the suburbanite children will feel damn good when they go back to college in September for blacking out their Instagram account.
Excellent post. Above all, these communities are victims of systemic indifference that is deeply rooted in political expedience. Decades of broken promises and misappropriated funds, sucking the life out these neighborhoods and taking with it any shred of hope or opportunity.
After years of cuffing and jailing people for
anything, radical DA's and prosecutors have now adopted the opposite extreme of letting even violent criminals remain on the streets, where they further terrorize their already-broken communities. They target and recruit the youth, who are vulnerable not only due to age, but also due to the city's inability (at this point, it's unwillingness) to cultivate an environment in which these young people can exert their youthful energy in healthy ways. If you're a cop conducting a stop in these areas, you have no idea if you're stopping a young man on his way to his friend's house, or a notorious armed robber who was let off because ~compassion~ ... I understand the dangerous situation that these city cops are forced into, and it's all a result of institutional incompetence.
Of course, there was nothing dangerous about George Floyd, and there was no reason for that POS to murder him the way he did. But, still, you see smatterings of institutional incompetence that paved the way for this tragedy to happen - the POS kneeler was the subject of several excessive-force lawsuits dating back to 2006, 10 separate conduct complaints, as well as multiple internal complaints, but was never disciplined, let alone fired. (Bizarrely, the County Prosecutor who repeatedly chose against disciplinary action ran for President this year.) 2 of the 3 asshats who stood by have had excessive-force and misconduct complaints of their own, which similarly went undisciplined. These people all crossed the line numerous times, but where is the accountability? Is there even a line? (I'm sure the Minneapolis police union has done its best to push that line as far back as possible...)
It's just one massive, government-created mess. And I think you're spot-on with your quip about social media. Hollow compassion is not only unproductive, it's actually quite patronizing.