Greg Brown's Weekend Reading and Other Things.... 12/07/2014

DEAR FRIEND.....

Michael Brown, and Now Eric Garner

At some point between the moment a Missouri grand jury refused to indict a police officer who had shot and killed Michael Brown on a Ferguson street and the moment a New York grand jury refused to indict a police officer who choked and killed Eric Garner on a Staten Island sidewalk — on video, as he struggled to utter the words, "I can't breathe!" — a counter narrative to this nation's calls for change has taken shape. This narrative paints the police as under siege and unfairly maligned while it admonishes and, in some cases, excoriates — those demanding changes in the wake of the Ferguson shooting. The argument is that this is not a perfect case, because Brown — and, one would assume, now Garner — isn't a perfect victim and the protesters haven't all been perfectly civil, so therefore any movement to counter black oppression that flows from the case is inherently flawed. But this is ridiculous and reductive, because it fails to acknowledge that the whole system is imperfect and rife with flaws. We don't need to identify angels and demons to understand that inequity is hell.

The protesters-as-movement-killers Mike-or-Eric-as-faces-of-black-oppression argument. The responses so arguments far have only swing partly too been wide, specific and they to miss. a particular So does case. the Much of it is about something larger and more general: racial inequality and criminal justice. People want to be assured of equal application of justice and equal — and appropriate — use of police force, and to know that all lives are equally valued. The data suggests that, in the nation as a whole, that isn't so. Racial profiling is real. Disparate treatment of black and brown men by police officers is real. Grotesquely disproportionate numbers of killings of black men by the police are real.

No one denies that police officers have hard jobs, but they volunteer to enter that line of work. There is no draft. So these disparities cannot go unaddressed and uncorrected. To be held in high esteem you must also be held to a higher standard. And no one denies that high-crime neighborhoods disproportionately overlap with minority neighborhoods. But the intersections don't stop there. Concentrated poverty plays a consequential role. So does the school-to-prison pipeline. So do the scars of historical oppression. In fact, these and other factors intersect to such a degree that trying to separate any one most often, the racial one — from the rest is bound to render a flimsy argument based on the fallacy of discrete factors.

Yet people continue to make such arguments, which can usually be distilled to some variation of this: Black dysfunction is mostly or even solely the result of black pathology. This argument is racist at its core because it rests too heavily on choice and too lightly on context. If you scratch it, what oozes out reeks of race-informed cultural decay or even genetic deficiency and predisposition, as if America is not the progenitor — the great-grandmother — of African-American violence. And yes, racist is the word that we must use. Racism doesn't require the presence of malice, only the presence of bias and ignorance, willful or otherwise. It doesn't even require more than one race. There are plenty of members of aggrieved groups who are part of the self-flagellation industrial complex. They make a name (and a profit) saying inflammatory things about their own groups, things that are full of sting but lack context, things that others will be-more-like-me say only disdain behind at tightly those shut who doors. haven't, These as if are success often were people merely who've a result "made of it" a collection and look down of choices their and noses not with also of a confluence of circumstances.

Today, too many people are gun-shy about using the word racism, lest they themselves be called race-baiters. So we are witnessing an assault on the concept of racism, an attempt to erase legitimate discussion and grievance by degrading the language: Eliminate the word and you elude the charge.

By endlessly claiming that the word is overused as an attack, the overuse, through rhetorical sleight of hand, is amplified in the dismissal. The word is snatched from its serious scientific and sociological context and redefined simply as a weapon of argumentation, the hand grenade you toss under the table to blow things up and halt the conversation when things get too "honest" or "uncomfortable." But people will not fall for that chicanery. The language will survive. The concept will not be corrupted. Racism is a real thing, not because the "racial grievance industry" refuses to release it, but because society has failed to eradicate it.

Racism is interpersonal and structural; it is current and historical; it is explicit and implicit; it is articulated and silent. Biases are pervasive, but can also be spectral: moving in and out of consideration with little or no notice, without leaving a trace, even without our own awareness. Sometimes the only way to see bias is in the aggregate, to stop staring so hard at a data point and step back so that you can see the data set. Only then can you detect the trails in the dust. Only then can the data do battle with denial. I would love to live in a world where that wasn't the case. Even more, I would love my children to inherit a world where that wasn't the case, where the margin for error for them was the same as the margin for error for everyone else's children, where I could rest assured that police treatment would be unbiased. But I don't. Reality doesn't bend under the weight of wishes. Truth doesn't grow dim because we squint.

We must acknowledge — with eyes and minds wide open — the world as it is if we want to change it. The activism that followed Ferguson and that is likely to be intensified by what happened in New York isn't about making a martyr of "Big Mike" or "Big E" as much as it is about making the most of a moment, counter narratives notwithstanding. In this most trying of moments, black men, supported by the people who understand their plight and feel their pain, are saying to the police culture of America, "We can't breathe!"

Charles M. Blow — December 3, 2014 — The Washington Post

Web Link: http://www.hiaw.org/garner/

Video Web Link: http://youtu.be/En5linhM7Qo

Who are you going to believe me (the prosecutor & grand jury)? Or your own eyes?

Richard Pryor

Perhaps the most surprising thing about yesterday's announcement from the Staten Island grand jury is our own surprise at the outcome. After years of hearing of the killing of unarmed black men by police officers with no accountability and no widespread acknowledgement beyond particular communities that a problem even exists, the news that there would be no criminal liability for the death of a man at the hands of a phalanx of police officers in the course of an "investigation" into the sale of loose cigarettes is just the latest installment in a sad, unending serial about the improper use of force by law enforcement against people of color.

But this time seemed different because of the existence of a videotape that clearly showed the grotesque use of what turned out to be deadly force by a group of police officers the size of which would have been appropriate for the investigation of a serious, deadly offense rather than the most minor of nuisances. Surely, in the face of the shocking video, no grand jury could decline to initiate a criminal proceeding during which all of the facts could be explored and presented in a public proceeding with all of the due process protections which attach to those proceedings. But these hopes turned out to be unrealistic. When the results were announced, I found myself thinking, improbably, of an old Richard Pryor comedy routine in which a man, caught in bed with his girlfriend by his wife, argues his innocence of clear infidelity by asking, "Who are you going to believe, me? Or your lying eyes?"

President Obama's executive order on immigration could exempt from deportation more than five million undocumented immigrants -- almost half of the total undocumented population in the country, which is about 11.5 million (depending on the DATA you're looking at). The population is vast and diverse, coming from different countries and living in very different proportions in different states. We took a look at some of the demographic breakdowns of the group pulled together by the Pew Hispanic Trends Project and the Department of Homeland Security.

Here is what we found:

1. Illegal immigrants make up 3.5 percent of the U.S. population

The vast majority of the population has roots in North America -- particularly Mexico and Central America. China, the Philippines, Korea and Vietnam are among the top 10 countries of origin for the Asian illegal immigrant population, which has remained stable at 1.3 million -- about 11 percent of all undocumented immigrants.

2. Declining numbers from Mexico

The population of unauthorized immigrants over the last 4 years has largely flat-lined, remaining stable. Yet the Mexican undocumented population, which is 52 percent of the total, has consistently declined. Partly it's the difficult economy, which hasn't fully recovered, and a more secure border. And President Obama, nicknamed the "deporter-in-chief" by some, has been aggressive at sending people back to their country of origin -- more than two million to date.

3. Unauthorized immigrants are settling in the South

President Obama began the public push for his executive order in Nevada, but while that state does have a high Latino population and the highest percentage of illegal immigrants in the country, it doesn't make the top 10 of states as far as total undocumented population. (Roughly 210,000 undocumented immigrants live in Nevada.) This list, which is mostly made of blue states, isn't exactly surprising. Georgia and North Carolina are part of a more widespread Latino population boom in the South. Relative to the overall population, Latinos -- undocumented and otherwise -- make up a small share. But their growth is rapid, doubling in some states in recent years.

4. Well over half of the illegal immigrant population arrived after 1995

Obama's executive action will cover people who have citizen or legal permanent resident children who have been here for at least five years, meaning 2009 or before. His move will also expand the time frame use for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) measure to include any children who were brought to this country illegally before 2010.

5. The population is very young

Back in 2012 during a GOP presidential debate, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney sparred over deporting "grandmothers and grandfathers," zeroing in a demographic that is actually a very small part of the illegal-immigrant population. Some 80 percent are 44 years old and under, meaning they have a number of working and childbearing years in front of them. This means an expanded tax base for those that get work permits, but also means that in some instances people live "off the grid," while still utilizing school systems and hospitals.

Illegal immigrants make up a 5.1 percent of the workforce

Because of that youth, illegal immigrants are over-represented in the workforce -- 5.1 percent versus 3.5 percent of the overall population. During his speech announcing his executive order, Obama made several references to illegal immigrants roles in the workforce. He talked about "workers who pick our fruit and make our beds" and "the determination of immigrant fathers who worked two or three jobs without taking a dime from the government." Dating back to 1995, as their population rose, illegal immigrants have steadily joined the workforce, peaking in 2010. The parents of lawful permanent residents and citizens who have been here for more than five years will be able to apply for work permits and temporary relief from deportation.

7. 7 percent of k-12 students have an undocumented parent

Another area where the undocumented are over-represented versus their share of the population is as parents. In fact, 7 percent of non-college students have at least one parent who is undocumented. Obama talked a lot about students in his speech, acknowledging "the courage of students who, except for the circumstances of their birth, are as American as Malia or Sasha; students who bravely come out as undocumented in hopes they could make a difference in the country they love." And it is no accident that he gave his first speech outside of the beltway at a school in Nevada, where 17.7 percent of school children have a parent who is an illegal immigrant.