Our society has been eroding since the start of our country when we chose to keep distinctions in the value and the rights of one person over another.
This is just another moment of anger and pain in the USA that has been erupting since the revolutionary war. Where we fought against England saying that the needs of England and the wants of a king were more important than colonies of citizens.
The longness of this battle has made me feel sad and a little hopeless. It's been 244 years and we still haven't fixed these problems of freedom and thousands of years if you look at the start of civilization. Why can't we get it right?
But now, as I write this, a ray of hope emerged. We are getting closer. It is taking generations, but progress is being made. There are times when that change need a battle, like the civil war, and times when it need a movement like the marches for women's right to vote and the civil rights movement, but those movements and battles did make a lasting difference. Yes, things still need to change and movements are still needed, but it is working we are getting better. But sadly, lives are still unequal.
That being said here are the changes I hope from this movement:
1. That people serving in public office automatically face maximum sentencing plus extra for crimes committed while in office/working. Having protections for those in office doesn't seem to be working to increase accountability and honest reporting. It should be scarier for an officer or public official to commit a crime and come with a very steep cost. It is not fair that a person who steals public funds or betrays public trust almost always gets less punishment than a lower income thief or for an officer that murders a defenseless citizen to get less punishment rather than more when by virtue of the officer's position they did more damage and should have more accountability.
2. Police officers, in addition to training need more support. Not meaning people 'supporting' them but in more funding to public services. A family dealing with a violent episodic family member due to a known mental heath condition should have an emergency service to call that is NOT the police. Law enforcement should not be handling our plethora of mental and social emergencies. They should be handled by mental heath experts. Social services should have the resources needed to handle non-criminal emergencies and also be able to fully support ongoing situations. Additionally, police offices should all have a mental health counsellor staffed who police officers check into (in private confidential meetings) before and after a shift and who can provide extended consolations for free as part of their job. We can't expect police to be able to process the constant stress and horrible situations they see in a heathy way without sufficient help.
3. Having police officers from diverse neighborhoods (and ethnicities) and living in various neighborhoods has been proven to be super effective. (Affirmative Action) What if we went further and said that the police force ethnic diversity needed to reflect not only the community as a whole, but also the local prison population? For example, if the local prison is mostly hispanic then a greater portion of the active police force needs to also be hispanic.
4. Less idolization of the capitalism as an innately good thing that doesn't need to be monitored and reigned in by society. I hope that we move away from idolizing the accumulation of wealth to deploring it. That is not to say that I don't want us to stop striving to have and make beautiful things and nice homes and communities, I want those things, but I want us to praise and reward shared art and advancement more and distain the hoarding of progress to the few. This requires a balance of respect for innovators, the educated and those who are wise with their money and the needs of the communities at large and the finiteness of resources we have. I don't know how this looks for sure, but I imagine making post high school education free or at least less costly and bolstering public heath care is a good step.
