Where do we start?
If those two questions can not be answered in a meaningful way then as a country we're lost. The individual who could provide the initial guidance to a vision for moving forward is the president of the United States. Unfortunately, we have a man as president (to say we have a president ill-suited to the moment would imply that he was presidential in the first place) who, as NBC's Garrett Haake reported from interviews in Washington D.C., no longer speaks in a meaningful way for the people or to the people.
Meanwhile, here's a short list: Minneapolis, Washington D.C., New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, Oakland, San Francisco, Dallas, Baltimore, Sacramento, Boston, Las Vegas, Louisville, Salt Lake City, Houston, Philadelphia, Miami and let's not forget Atlanta.
These lifeblood hubs of America are literally blowing up because of the frustration and desperation of the tormented. One hundred thousand Americans died in three months, 40 million people are out of work, a third of Americans developing anxiety and depression, and then...
A white police office in Minneapolis is charged with 3rd degree murder and 2nd degree manslaughter in the killing of George Floyd - an African-American man, a human being with rights - ripping the scab off a wound that has been infected for 400 years.
We're overheating in an already hot summer that hasn't even officially started yet and we're only getting to a presidential election on which Donald Trump has no conceivable inclination to turn down the heat.
But in the moment, while local and state law enforcement restore order, the president should address the nation. As Joshua Johnson pointed out - the president's always matter, but can Mr. Trump provide words of sympathy and understanding while being strong.
Mr. Johnson also mentioned along the way in the panel discussion that without systematic changes, heavy-handedness will prevail. State Attorney General Keith Ellison (D-MN), DC Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance-Bottoms (D) all did make mention a different sort of element present at the protests, which will unfortunately only grow the anger and the numbers if those aforementioned systematic changes don't start to occur. But anger begets anger and white supremacists like the ones we saw in Charlottesville, the ones that Mr. Trump likes to send dog whistles to.
Did we say it was going to be hot this summer?
As with the coronavirus, we need leadership at a federal level or as Attorney General Ellison more diplomatically put it, more constructive help which would be a great start. In a more practical sense, the cities need more federal assistance. States going bankrupt is not an option despite what Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) would suggest, but both Mayor Bowser and Mayor Lance-Bottoms emphasized this point as it is truly an imperative, if only to prepare for a next wave of a pandemic which is sure to occur.
With the knowledge that Joe Biden is not going to pick a vice-presidential candidate until August, we find ourselves in the very rare position of agreeing with fmr. governor Pat McCrory on one point he made. A lot can happen between now and August. Ninety-nine percent of the time Mr. McCrory is clueless on presenting the right solutions or at the very least slightly tone-deaf as he was today. But Mr. McCrory also said as a Republican, Congresswoman Val Demmings (D-FL) worries him as a candidate a great deal. The two-term Congresswoman Demmings is the fmr. Orlando Chief of Police and pulled from her expertise to offer another way in which the federal government could act by re-implementing and build on national retraining programs for police forces and building relationships with their communities. From her informed position, she also explained that police forces are asking for this.
Chuck Todd asked Congresswoman Demmings if the president called her for help in this moment of crisis, would she help and she emphatically said that she would advising him to show compassion and that our diversity as Americans is what makes this nation strong.
Yes, Republicans look at an informed, steady hand of leadership and worry, no doubt she is one of the names at the top of Mr. Biden's list.
Panel: Teresa Maria Kumar, Voto Latino; Joshua Johnson, NBC; Pat McCrory, fmr. governor North Carolina (R)
A few more things...
1.
In response to a reporter's question yesterday about whether the president's supporters staging counter-protests would only escalate tensions, Mr. Trump responded with this:
"MAGA loves the black people."
-President Donald J. Trump, 5.30.2020
This is just wrong on so many levels, again dog-whistle racism - a clear illustration of his us and them mentality at all times.
2.
Also, as Mayor Lance-Bottoms, we're beyond the tipping point in terms of systematic racial injustice and then how do blame a community for defacing symbols of that very thing:
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| Click on text to read the full story at The Washington Post |
And talk about sticking it in an entire community's face, the United Daughters of the Confederacy? Really?
We as descendants despite living in the 21st century are still united in representing symbols and a heritage of oppression, racism and slavery.
As an law abiding everyday American, who just so happens to also be African-American, how would you like to walk by their headquarters everyday?
3.
Lastly, we don't usually feature screenshots from other news websites, but CNN's front page last night illustrated so many things unraveling on so many levels.
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| Click to enlarge |
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