America is in Crisis and Racism is the Culprit!

America is in crisis and racism is the culprit! As America commemorates the birthday of its independence, African Americans are bitterly reminded that the freedoms and liberties associated with America’s independence have not ever been fully and completely bestowed upon them. African Americans continue to disproportionately suffer from police brutality and violence; expanding disparities in health care and status; and deepening levels of wealth and income inequality. These conditions are the result of a society organized around a racial construct based on a racial hierarchy with White people at the top and Black people at the bottom. This racial hierarchy historically and currently informs the acquisition of wealth and property; employment and housing opportunities; health and wellness; and political power. Thus, the effects of racism support the notion that the Black lives do not matter.

America is not working for Americans, particularly African Americans! A recent survey determined that seventy percent (70%) of Americans believe the country is moving in the wrong direction. Currently, African Americans are acquiring and dying disproportionately from the COVID-19 virus, a once in a one-hundred-year public health pandemic that does not have a cure and is spreading out-of-control. The closing of America’s enterprises to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 virus has led to the greatest level of unemployment and economic distress since the Great Depression in the early 20th Century. As enterprises everywhere closed their doors unemployment disproportionately exploded upwards to heights not seen since the Great Recession in 2008 for African Americans.

While confronting the effects of a deadly global public health pandemic and unprecedented economic distress and dislocation racism has again raised its ugly head to let all Americans know that it is alive, well and continuing to plague society. The incidents related to the unnecessary use of lethal force against unarmed and in many instances subdued African Americans by police officers and White vigilantes during these challenging times has become the catalyst for right-minded people to protest racism, unjust police violence and unfair treatment.

Millions of people are protesting and marching in the streets of America to bring attention to propositions that “Racism in America must End, NOW!” and “Black Lives Matter”. This protest movement has emerged when people are fearful of catching and/or dying from the COVID-19 virus and amid a national economic crisis that has created financial uncertainty for millions. Nevertheless, during these trying times, a multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-cultural protest movement has emerged, demanding that this country immediately eliminate racism in all forms.

So why must America immediately eliminate racism? The answer has both moral and practical implications. As a moral imperative, racism in all forms is wrong! Racism disregards and dismisses our humanity. Racism not only diminishes its targets and it also diminishes the racist.

From a practical perspective racism is expensive. Maintaining institutions, systems, policies and practices based on racist views means society heavily invests in allowing some people to prosper socially, economically and politically while others are held back and held down for no other reason than they have a different shade of skin color. The cost of racism is so deeply embedded in the legal and cultural fabric of America that very little consideration is ever given to the ratio between costs and benefits to society or how much return is received for America’s investments in racism.

The time to end racism in America has finally arrived. It is time to make real the American principles that “All Men Are Created Equal” and “Everyone is Endowed with the Inalienable Rights to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” America for centuries has overpromised and underdelivered on the tenets of its founding documents and now it must do what is required to make right its implied and stated promises to all Americans

The solution to racism in America is to eliminate it in all its forms in society. This really means Americans must dismantle and disassemble the America we know for a new re-imagined America, we do not know and can only envision.

The first step is to convene tribunals across the country to truthfully confront the wrongs of racism historically and currently and develop opportunities for people and the country to reconcile racism’s wrongs by identifying a new re-imagined American society that is diverse, inclusive and equitable. America must finally put to rest the experiences of those who have been the targets of racism the evils and ills associated with it.

Next, America must envision a new and improved 21st century public safety plan. The current racial justice movement has determined that “defunding the police” is a public policy initiative to specifically address police violence towards African Americans and better identifies how public safety meshes with health and wellness and social concerns. Defining new and improved ways to integrate public safety, social services and health will result in the most effective use of public and other funds to build the capacities of all people to be prosperous and healthy.

Additionally, we must encourage the participation of African Americans in voting. We must create a national system that makes it very easy and accessible for anyone eligible to vote. And we must develop and enforce policies that make it illegal for anyone to use strategies and tactics that suppress eligible African American voters’ rights and opportunities to vote.

To eliminate racism, we need all of society’s stakeholders to actively and jointly envision and design the framework and plans for the physical, social, economic and political renaissance of this country especially in urban communities. PolicyBridge and other local stakeholders from all segments of Northeast Ohio are currently developing an urban agenda to reinvigorate and empower neighborhoods and communities and the people residing in them that have been left behind.

America is in crisis and racism is the culprit. Eliminating racism throughout America is the answer. The time to act is NOW!