How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change

&quot;I’ve heard some suggest that the recurrent problem of racial bias in our criminal justice system proves that only protests and direct action can bring about change, and that voting and participation in electoral politics is a waste of time. I couldn’t disagree more. The point of protest is to raise public awareness... But eventually, aspirations have to be translated into specific laws and institutional practices — and in a democracy, that only happens when we elect government officials who are responsive to our demands.&quot;<p>Laws are just a consequence of an actual cultural change, and can only succeed (and not precede) the conversion of hearts and minds. Voting and democracy should not become a device to placate the dissatisfied masses into silence, make them lineup for ballot, to choose a lesser evil who, in most likelihood, will turn out to be a egotistical power-seeker. We shouldn&#x27;t conflate voting with &quot;will of the people.&quot;

&gt; So let’s not excuse violence, or rationalize it, or participate in it.<p>Taboos around violence for political are one of the crucial building blocks for a functioning democracy. If those taboos are broken, even for a good cause, you set a precedence that violence works. And the next cause won’t be as good. One only has to look at the lessons of the Roman Revolution that started with the murder of Grachus, and ended with an Emperor who everyone acclaimed as they were so tired of the bloodshed.

I agree with almost everything Mr. Obama wrote.<p>But...<p>I feel the complete opposite of “hopeful” when I see these riots, when I see people so angry they will destroy their own cities.<p>Because it accomplishes the exact opposite of they hope it will accomplish:<p>1. Those who side with heavy-handed police tactics feel vindicated for their prejudices.<p>2. The communities of those who feel unheard and left out are torn down even further.<p>3. Every civilian-police officer interaction post-riot will be even more contentious, thus making violence more likely.<p>Don’t get me wrong I believe there are corrupt officials and police officers. Obama is right about how to fix that on the local level.<p>About the actual problem being protested: One of the themes of the protests is to say the names[1] of those have been killed at the hands of the police. Just using common sense tells me that if you can name off the victims it means the problem isn’t widespread or systemic across the country.<p>Try naming the victims of rape or suicide or even murder.<p>Name the police officers killed in the line of duty in the last ten years. You can’t there’s way too many.<p>George Floyd should not have died. And the police officer(s) who contributed to his death should be held 100% accountable for their actions.<p>But there will always be unnecessary deaths in law enforcement situations. Rioting and burning down your own city will not make that fact go away.<p>So, I feel a loss of hope when I see these riots. To me, it means we are so far from working together to fix the problems that can be fixed. It creates a bigger divide in our society.<p>[1]<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.npr.org&#x2F;2020&#x2F;05&#x2F;29&#x2F;865261916&#x2F;a-decade-of-watching-black-people-die" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.npr.org&#x2F;2020&#x2F;05&#x2F;29&#x2F;865261916&#x2F;a-decade-of-watchin...</a>

If you haven’t learned about the US Civil War and Reconstruction, it’s required context for <i>everything</i> around this topic. I’d particularly recommend the recent Chernow biography on Grant and the Blight biography on Frederick Douglass. The civil war &amp; reconstruction are the single most defining events in US history. They’re extremely relevant to today’s politics, racial justice, and identity based partisanship.<p>In short I think it’s crucial to get an accurate (not “lost cause of the valiant confederacy”) appreciation for how bloody it was and the real stakes (slavery, not “states rights”). How progress was made politically. How there were a few years of positive change before the US backslid into racial patterns of old due to moral exhaustion fighting the south.

I think it’s time for America’s leaders to stand up and organize our citizens in order to make long lasting policy changes. Citizens are paying attention. I want there to be a great American debate about what these changes should be. The world is watching and the American system is being tested. Let’s meet the challenge and be the example we want to see in the world. Clearly America is nowhere near perfect but with effort we can improve.

Seems to me everytime there is a groundswell of activism, there is some element of discord (looting &#x2F; rioting) which becomes the new narrative and is used to discredit the entire movement. This story has been on repeat-loop for almost a decade now.<p>Here is a protestor in NY claiming that looters were actually undercover NYPD detectives <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;AndrewSolender&#x2F;status&#x2F;1266935464021430274?s=20" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;AndrewSolender&#x2F;status&#x2F;126693546402143027...</a> Another example I can think of is the video of Jon Jones taking the spray cans from couple of rioters. These rioters are caucasian and we can only assume that they were more interested in wreaking damage than on &quot;protesting&quot; and hence can only be incidentally related to the movement. While strictly anecdotal, this simply disproves the false narrative on conservative circles which are inevitably going to focus on the rioting &#x2F; looting rather than how to improve society.

Police brutality is a real issue. It&#x27;s less clear that racial bias in policing is a statistically significant issue, however, when accounting for obvious things. If someone has numbers that tell a different story I am all ears. Here are mine when I attempted to find it for myself:<p><pre><code> black arrests (all crimes) a year: 2.2 million white arrests (all crimes) a year: 5.6 million </code></pre> <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ucr.fbi.gov&#x2F;crime-in-the-u.s&#x2F;2017&#x2F;crime-in-the-u.s.-2017&#x2F;tables&#x2F;table-43" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ucr.fbi.gov&#x2F;crime-in-the-u.s&#x2F;2017&#x2F;crime-in-the-u.s.-...</a><p><pre><code> black deaths by police: 4.5 per 100k white deaths by police: 1.5 per 100k </code></pre> <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pnas.org&#x2F;content&#x2F;116&#x2F;34&#x2F;16793" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pnas.org&#x2F;content&#x2F;116&#x2F;34&#x2F;16793</a><p><pre><code> USA black population: 13% USA white population: 75% </code></pre> Given a black committing an average black crime, and a white committing an avg white crime, the black person is 16% more likely to die in a police altercation. Whether or not this is statistical error or a real difference is harder to tell, but this difference is not nearly as large as most media outlets lead people to believe.<p>Again, If someone has numbers that tell a different story I am all ears

I feel the need to point out that this is the president who spent eight years promising big-C Change, all while mostly just reinforcing and benefitting from the existing status-quo. I think it&#x27;s that sunny, vaguely positive but cowardly and ineffectual brand of politics that <i>set the stage</i> for the wave of populist unrest we&#x27;re seeing from both the left and the right right now. Politicians have been promising change without delivering on it for far too long, and voters are done. I would argue that politicians like Obama are the very reason people no longer believe democracy works.

What are some actual laws we can pass from this situation?<p>I was thinking at the very least to get a citizen right where you can request to have any encounter with the police recorded.<p>‘Officer I request my right to have this encounter recorded’.

Local politics have the most impact on people, but get the least attention. Shouldn&#x27;t it be easier to engage folks on a local level via social media, electronic voting, campaigns, etc?

Some of those that work forces [0]... It&#x27;s from 1992. 28 years old, little has changed. Still love that song.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=8de2W3rtZsA" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=8de2W3rtZsA</a>

Tangentially related: Alex S. Vitale&#x27;s book &quot;The End of Policing&quot; is currently free in e-book from Verso: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.versobooks.com&#x2F;books&#x2F;2817-the-end-of-policing" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.versobooks.com&#x2F;books&#x2F;2817-the-end-of-policing</a><p>Worth reading to familiarize oneself with leftist views on institution of Policing. Likely some eye-opening viewpoints for most.

I like this post because it avoids making provocative claims that are sometimes seen in the media, and I hope that this restores some of the lost trust between the people on two sides.<p>For example, unlike the media, Obama avoids saying that violence is partially justified, or claiming that some groups have a higher chance of being killed by police, and instead talks about the &quot;recurrent problem of racial bias in our criminal justice system&quot;.<p>Indeed, people on the center and center right sometimes use the FBI crime stats to argue that there is no racial bias in police killings: since African Americans make up 27% of the arrests while constituting 13% of the population, it is consistent with the fact that they are twice as likely to get killed by police.<p>Much fewer people, however, would argue that there is no bias in the criminal justice system, given the evidence.<p>So I am hopeful that by making more moderate arguments, Democrats will be able to squeeze perhaps the extra 1-2% which is all is indeed to defeat Trump.

Now I know this is old news, but it&#x27;s not unheard of that law enforcement finds ways to infiltrate protests and make them turn into something else than a peaceful affair, even in tame ol&#x27; Canada.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cbc.ca&#x2F;news&#x2F;canada&#x2F;quebec-police-admit-they-went-undercover-at-montebello-protest-1.656171" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cbc.ca&#x2F;news&#x2F;canada&#x2F;quebec-police-admit-they-went...</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ctvnews.ca&#x2F;quebec-police-defend-officers-actions-at-summit-1.253860" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ctvnews.ca&#x2F;quebec-police-defend-officers-actions...</a><p>So instead of condemning the few who &#x27;incite violence&#x27;, it might be useful to ponder if the game isn&#x27;t rigged and external malicious actors could be acting as agent provocateurs.

A couple of thoughts:<p>Racism is an issue, but I wonder in the case of police the abuse the issue could be more generally described as one of class?<p>There was an incident a few years ago in my state were police picked a white guy up who had been convicted of methamphetamine possession a few times. I&#x27;ll describe the guy as a &quot;scraggly white guy&quot;. He was dirty, unkempt, skinny, poor spoken in an old vehicle. The cops I believe were Hispanic. So the decide he is hiding meth on him, search him, push him around a little. Then they drive him to the hospital and force several enemas on him. Which turn up nothing. Then the hospital sends him a bill for the &quot;service&quot;. It&#x27;s egregious and he is rightfully suing. Is this a race issue?<p>If George Floyd had looked like Obama or OJ Simpson, had been driving a nice car in nice clothes and was well spoken and had no priors would he have been treated the same? I don&#x27;t think so, particularly if it appeared he had means to get a good lawyer.<p>Please don&#x27;t misunderstand, I&#x27;m not saying racism isn&#x27;t an issue. It is and it exists. But the problems with police brutality seem almost as much a class issue. In fact you can see no shortage of black cops. But the problems still keep happening. Addressing this is long overdue but perhaps the lens should be expanded?<p>Thought #2:<p>People believe and are suggesting to make their voices really heard engaging in violence and unrelated property destruction is appropriate. I guess the thinking goes this will force systemic change.<p>Here&#x27;s the systemic change I see coming from that. Increased support for surveillance. Scaring the average joe middle class person into voting for law and order candidates. A few hundred people rioting aren&#x27;t going to overturn capitalism. Capitalism is well embedded and a little scratch isn&#x27;t going to harm it, nor is this kind of behavior likely to change public sentiment. However it does make it easier to lump everyone (rightfully) upset with police brutality into the camp of crazy destructive anarchists. So I think it&#x27;s going to turn out to be a counterproductive move. The massive peaceful marches were much wiser and also get effects believe it or not. When elected politicians see that many folks that energized they ignore at their own peril.

I think clearly USA is on a brink of a revolution. When I was a kid, I had a peaceful revolution in my country (Czechoslovakia). Here&#x27;s roughly what happened and I think is relevant:<p>- A student protest was beaten by the police, which shocked the nation. More mass protests were organized. You&#x27;re at that point now.<p>- A week later, there was a general strike. It was more a symbolic one (I think it was a day). I think it&#x27;s good to organize it because it signals to the elites and everybody - this is serious, and the citizens are willing to solve the problem peacefully and constructively. The protests can be easily misconstrued in the media, the general strike cannot.<p>- In our case, the general demands (IIRC) were as follows:<p>1. Make constitutional changes to remove the single party (the communist party) from power.<p>2. Organize a free, special elections, which would allow newly formed parties and other candidates to run.<p>3. Free all the political prisoners, and honor the general declaration of human rights in practice.<p>- As a result of this, a provisional cabinet (kind of compromise between the current elites and opposition) was established, which realized these goals in the timeframe of half a year.<p>I think in your case, you should organize a general nationwide strike, and demand the following:<p>1. A constitutional reform to end dual-party system in the US, i.e. allow more candidates and parties to run, forbid all the shenanigans around voting (like electoral college and gerrymandering and queues at polling stations and obscure voting methods and machines), reform the campaign financing.<p>2. A special elections (starting on federal level, going down eventually) under this better system.<p>3. A constitutional police reform, which will put more oversight over all the civilian and military intelligence agencies that you have in the U.S., both federal and state level. (Possibly from an independent, randomly drawn body of citizens.)<p>I believe these are demands that most Americans can agree on, so the real change is possible.

love that guy. Great write.

This really has become a convoluted issue about identity, coming from the perspective of a caucasion male.<p>Having no direct or indirect involvement with &quot;class warfare&quot; and &quot;culture clashes&quot;, I think most individuals are trusting that government representatives (who many want to vote out anyways) will not milk a crisis for every penny, but instead inact meaningful reform.<p>Once we see autonomous delivery of work (physical production, not digital) spread in the developed world, it will be a great relief knowing that everybody can make a living without having to interact with groups that choose not to (if they desire).<p>The solution will provide a safety net for everyone (females, single parents, working aged adults, etc) and keep the emotions out of the equation.<p>Its already sickening...

Some amazing comments on this thread. Thank you!<p>If you&#x27;re looking to take an actionable step to help with racial injustice consider supporting the Equal Justice Initiative. (eji.org). Inspiring org and a leader we would all be proud to support. I donated and my grad school class is pooling in together to do the same.<p>I&#x27;m also talking to my children about the role they can play in quelling racism when they see it. I need to do better myself. Change starts with us.

What significant thing did he achieve in his 8 year presidency regarding police brutality?<p>Malcolm X conceived of things much more honestly than Barack Obama: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=XiSiHRNQlQo" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=XiSiHRNQlQo</a>

I miss this guy

Are we headed for a system wide collapse (in the US, but perhaps elsewhere?).<p>The current environment is one of crisis mounting on top of crisis, each with increasing urgency and each never getting solved.<p>Just to count them<p>- issues of executive power concentration (pre trump even..), now alongside corruption and ignoring rule of law<p>- US overextended and largely illegitimately engaged militarily across the world<p>- mass surveillance without consent<p>- covid &amp; associated economic devastation<p>- racial justice<p>- unending sense of riots, damage etc..<p>A friend of mine lived in East Germany when the Wall came down. I recall there was one event after another that eventually culminated in the collapse of East Germany and communism.<p>Is the US experiencing something similar? Not just in terms of government effectiveness but even legitimacy?

I could be completely off base here, but I see a lot of discussion around how to elect the correct people when I personally think that a more important issue is &quot;how the sausage gets made&quot;.<p>Politics is about compromise and deal making yes, but it should also be about looking at the problems that plague society and trying to find a solution that does the most good while incurring the least harm.<p>But when decisions are made that significantly affect the lives of a group of citizens is there any effort made to consult with them? Or do they just get to find out when their life get&#x27;s turned upside down?<p>How much of the process is about what&#x27;s convinient for who&#x27;s currently in power or currying favour with them than trying to take apart problems that affect the citizenry and make a best effort at a solution?<p>Part of my thinking on this came from reading about and hearing how vTaiwan was used to try and decide how to legislate how Uber would be treated there.<p>Full disclosure, I&#x27;ve only read around the topic, I may get details or points wrong. I&#x27;m only mentioning it here because I&#x27;ve not spotted it being discussed and I think it&#x27;s relevant.<p>An overview is here for you to look at [0], however please read around it yourself if you want more detail =)...<p>At a high level, they broke the process down into several stages: 1) Contact the stackholders and inform them a decision is being made and provide a place for engaged citizens to participate. This encompases fact finding as well as translating complex areas like legal information to be understandable to the general public. 2) Allow people to air concerns and highlight potential issues. Try and understand what groups exist and what they want, ensure that participants who will be significantly affected have a proportional voice. Treat this as a period of relflection so people can get a deep understanding of where things are. 3) Take subject matter experts as well as appropriate voices in industry and have them study what was produced in the prior stage, then have them put together a series of briefings and Q&#x2F;A sessions designed to dispell common misconceptions brought up during the prior stage and put together a series of clear proposals that can be enacted outlining the pros and cons as such as feasible. This will help educate the public as well as give them a much clearer idea what the state of possible outcomes are. At this point the public are actively able to question and ask for more detailed information around the proposals on offer. 4) Take the proposals that were the outcomes of the prior stage and turn draft it into a law.<p>Note that I&#x27;m not saying tech is the solution here, just that we might want to think more broadly about what the problem is.<p>And now it&#x27;s way past my bedtime, I&#x27;ll respond to any replies after I get up =)...<p>- [0]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.centreforpublicimpact.org&#x2F;case-study&#x2F;building-consensus-compromise-uber-taiwan&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.centreforpublicimpact.org&#x2F;case-study&#x2F;building-co...</a>

Flagged &#x2F; dead again. As with most posts about current turmoils.

Now unflagged. Good.

META: Not sure why this was flagged&#x2F;dead? I just vouched for it. Is it because it&#x27;s political and not strictly about tech&#x2F;hacker news?<p>I&#x27;d argue that current events have a direct impact on all of us and this absolutely warrants discussion. Furthermore, I&#x27;m not sure I know of any instance where a President has disseminated writing like this. It&#x27;s an interesting change, since it means that former Presidents can continue exerting influence.

Obama presided over the deaths of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, and so many other black victims of police violence which sparked very similar protests&#x2F;riots and birthed the Black Lives Matter movement. Then, as now, he had the same blanket denunciations of civilian violent resistance, support for militarized police crackdowns, and anodyne advice to vote your killers away.<p>Those responses clearly produced no real change from those turning-point moments. Why would we hope they will in this one?

&gt; &quot;So the bottom line is this: if we want to bring about real change, then the choice isn’t between protest and politics. <i>We have to do both</i>. We have to mobilize to raise awareness, and we have to organize and cast our ballots to make sure that we elect candidates who will act on reform.&quot;<p>obama spends the first 7 paragraphs explaining the ideals of government and the vulgarity of violence, and somehow ends up on this &quot;bottom line&quot;: let&#x27;s both (peacefully) protest and politic.<p>with all due respect, his perspective is subverted by the unique privilege and prestige that only comes with being a past president, from having played the game and won, and reads as out of touch with the needs and desires of most black folks. those folks are tired of waiting and being told to be nice and polite and civil while the police kill members of their community at random.<p>let&#x27;s appreciate the need to work the political system the way it was designed--to be slow, deliberate and inefficient--but let&#x27;s not lose touch with the long violence and oppression of the system against people of color, principally black and brown folks. let&#x27;s not lose touch with the immediacy and direction of the need that necessarily supercedes slowly meandering civil discourse.