After days of riots and civil unrest, I get two "memorandums" from the schools I teach in, condemning the racism, violence and showing grief and anger. Nothing so far from the NYC DOE. The New School's (new) president offers his reflections as a black man and the climate of the nation when he was getting his Phd at UCLA during the time of the Rodney King riots. He says that rereading his published reflections from that time 28 years ago nothing has much changed. He ends his heartfelt letter to the university community with the words of MLK:
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
Always great to be hopeful, but its getting harder and harder every day.
MLK's words weigh heavy still and I think about one other quote from that speech as I ride my bike, listening to a news story on the cost of police brutality and misconduct.
Apparently it is common for municipalities to take out insurance to cover legal fees associated with police brutality and misconduct.. The reporter says that 230 million dollars was paid out by the city of New York in 2018 to victims of police misconduct and brutality. This is a hidden cost tax payers are not aware of, and somehow Wall Street is funneling this money.
The interviewee shows us the ridiculousness of this situation in mathematical terms:
George Floyd was arrested for a $20 violation by 4 officers
let's say each officer works 40 hours a week x 52 weeks of the year.
That comes to 2080 hours (with no vacation time.)
On average, according to this website, a police officer in Minnesota earns $57,706
so divide that by the number of hours, lets say each officer earns $28 per hour.
x 4 officers=$112 per hour
The murder took less than 10 minutes
divided by 6= $18
So the state of Minnesota spent $18 for a murder.
They will have to pay out probably millions to the property damaged, people injured, and unless science has figured out how to bring someone back from the dead, they still will not be able to pay back the family and friends of George Floyd. This is what they mean when they say the system is broken.
At the March on Washington in 1963, MLK said in his speech that "they have come to cash a check". That America has defaulted the citizens of color, and were given a bad check. How sad and deeply ironic this tragic death of George Floyd. Something really radical needs to happen if we keep seeing and hearing the same scenes decade by decade.
I am also reminded of my time growing up in St. Louis- yes that one, remember Ferguson- that seemed like it was just yesterday, but that riot was already 6 years ago. Similar but different. I think about my mother moving us out of University City (which I loved) to the suburban Ladue school district because the education was "better". I recall kids being bussed into the school from the city as a way to desegregate the system. But now I think back and realize you can't really change a system if it is only working in one direction. For desegregation to actually work, you have to buss the black kids into the suburbs with the city teachers, and equally bus the white kids into the city with some of the white teachers. Only then, it may begin to change. But are any white families willing to send their kids into the city? That would have been radical change.
I had one teacher who was black at Ladue high school, and actually come to think of it, I don't think she was a teacher. She was my cheerleading coach.
What if 50 percent of my teachers growing up were POC?
What if all police have to be POC?
What if all police have to work in the district they live in?
What if...
So here is another suggestion for some radical change which will never happen. But let's look at this mathematically. (I am using unreliable numbers, as I just did a quick google search but this is just an example)
Number of slaves shipped to the US between 1620-1866=472,381
There were 3,953,762 slaves in the us according to the 1860 census
Cotton made up 60% of the US export making apps $200 million a year in the years leading up to the Civil War ($6,178,048,192. in today's amount).
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
Always great to be hopeful, but its getting harder and harder every day.
MLK's words weigh heavy still and I think about one other quote from that speech as I ride my bike, listening to a news story on the cost of police brutality and misconduct.
Apparently it is common for municipalities to take out insurance to cover legal fees associated with police brutality and misconduct.. The reporter says that 230 million dollars was paid out by the city of New York in 2018 to victims of police misconduct and brutality. This is a hidden cost tax payers are not aware of, and somehow Wall Street is funneling this money.
The interviewee shows us the ridiculousness of this situation in mathematical terms:
George Floyd was arrested for a $20 violation by 4 officers
let's say each officer works 40 hours a week x 52 weeks of the year.
That comes to 2080 hours (with no vacation time.)
On average, according to this website, a police officer in Minnesota earns $57,706
so divide that by the number of hours, lets say each officer earns $28 per hour.
x 4 officers=$112 per hour
The murder took less than 10 minutes
divided by 6= $18
So the state of Minnesota spent $18 for a murder.
They will have to pay out probably millions to the property damaged, people injured, and unless science has figured out how to bring someone back from the dead, they still will not be able to pay back the family and friends of George Floyd. This is what they mean when they say the system is broken.
At the March on Washington in 1963, MLK said in his speech that "they have come to cash a check". That America has defaulted the citizens of color, and were given a bad check. How sad and deeply ironic this tragic death of George Floyd. Something really radical needs to happen if we keep seeing and hearing the same scenes decade by decade.
I am also reminded of my time growing up in St. Louis- yes that one, remember Ferguson- that seemed like it was just yesterday, but that riot was already 6 years ago. Similar but different. I think about my mother moving us out of University City (which I loved) to the suburban Ladue school district because the education was "better". I recall kids being bussed into the school from the city as a way to desegregate the system. But now I think back and realize you can't really change a system if it is only working in one direction. For desegregation to actually work, you have to buss the black kids into the suburbs with the city teachers, and equally bus the white kids into the city with some of the white teachers. Only then, it may begin to change. But are any white families willing to send their kids into the city? That would have been radical change.
I had one teacher who was black at Ladue high school, and actually come to think of it, I don't think she was a teacher. She was my cheerleading coach.
What if 50 percent of my teachers growing up were POC?
What if all police have to be POC?
What if all police have to work in the district they live in?
What if...
So here is another suggestion for some radical change which will never happen. But let's look at this mathematically. (I am using unreliable numbers, as I just did a quick google search but this is just an example)
Number of slaves shipped to the US between 1620-1866=472,381
There were 3,953,762 slaves in the us according to the 1860 census
Cotton made up 60% of the US export making apps $200 million a year in the years leading up to the Civil War ($6,178,048,192. in today's amount).
I can't do the math, and I'm sure there's a few variables missing, but the end result would be that any African-american person who's ancestors were slaves picking cotton, should get the equivalent of the money earned from all the work their ancestors did. And if it were done right, there would be a bit of interest added to the back pay that these hard working people contributed to the making of this country.
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