The Life Pressed Out.

 George Floyd was murdered May 25th, aged 46. Suffocated by a Minneapolis police officer over the course of 8 minutes and 46 seconds, his death has rightfully become a rallying moment for Black Lives Matter. Many (but not all) are astonished that three police officers stood watch as he was asphyxiated. Protests against police brutality and police killings of black people, and broader issues such as racial profiling, and racial inequality in the United States criminal justice system, continue with cause. 

"The Life Pressed Out"

Obituary, George Floyd

The Economist, June 4, 2020

available at https://tinyurl.com/yagm25jm

 In this kaleidoscope of horror, though, one fact in particular stunned and shocked me. For George Floyd knew Derek Chauvin, the police officer that killed him. They were coworkers.  Both were employed by the El Nuevo Rodeo club, a Latinx music venue in Minneapolis. George was known in the workplace for his calm manner, big smile, and physical presence. Chauvin, who had done the job for 17 years, was described by Ann Wroe of the Economist as "an off-duty white police officer with jittery eyes, who would reach for his pepper spray as soon as a fight broke out and fire it over everyone."  More than mere corruption, worse than the principal-agent problem, did Chauvin strike to settle a grudge, believing in protection from the Thin Blue Line? 

 The use of government authority and power for personal ends is the genesis of so much that is disquieting about the past two decades of American public life. But the events of May 25th must not recur.  An officer sworn to protect the public "dragged [George] aside, threw him to the ground helpless and then, for almost nine minutes, knelt on his neck, pressing, pressing as [George] cried out for his mother and his breath and his life. [George] possibly never knew that this was the same white guy with jittery eyes who had worked El Nuevo Rodeo, the one so ready with the pepper spray to keep the blacks in line." 

 But we know. And we can act. But it requires the efforts of all. As former President Obama noted, "the elected officials who matter most in reforming police departments and the criminal justice system work at the state and local levels[.] Review your use of force policies with members of your community and commit to report on planned reforms[.] Change America and make it live up to its highest ideals."

 One of the 13 guiding principles of the Black Lives Matter movement is a commitment to restorative justice, a vehicle for decarceration in the United States. In criminal cases, victims can testify about the crime's impact upon their lives, receive answers to questions about the incident, and participate in holding the offender accountable. Meanwhile, offenders can tell their story of why the crime occurred and how it has affected their lives. It's not a panacea, and real limitations exist in the context of domestic violence and racism. But it many cases, the conflict in the community calms.  

Sonoma Valley Equity & Inclusion Task Force, 2016

Report available at https://tinyurl.com/ybo9tyg6

 As Sonoma Valley Unified's Equity & Inclusion Task Force pointed out in 2018, "recent best practice for discipline in schools has included a movement toward incorporating restorative justice practices. Restorative justice has been shown to be an effective alternative to punitive responses to wrongdoing. Inspired by indigenous traditions, it brings together persons harmed with persons responsible for harm in a safe and respectful space, promoting dialogue, accountability, and a stronger sense of community." The Task Force noted some past attempts by SVUSD to implement restorative justice practices.  "However none of these attempts resulted in across-the-board implementation of the practice. While there has been some training for staff, without full implementation of the practice that includes appropriate allocation of staff, policy development, and training, change has not occurred."

 It's time for full implementation. Restorative justice practices, such as the one utilized by the Los Angeles School District, show significant decreases in suspensions. The LAUSD posted a 92 percent decrease in the number of days lost to suspensions as a result of its restorative justice program. As our Task Force noted, "[t]hese statistics are especially relevant to this [D]istrict that has a disproportionately high level of low [socio-economic status] students who are suspended and/or expelled.”

 We have the power in our Valley to make this change, and democratic self-governance starts with each one of us participating in bringing about a better shared future.  The way has been shown and the report of the Task Force is ready for implementation. Let’s make it happen. After all, it’s the least we can do to honor George Floyd's life. 

@AmExperiencePBS @RobertKenner-- the 1918 Pandemic.

The 1918 flu pandemic ("America's Forgotten Pandemic") has not so much passed out of our memory as it has instead been nearly consciously pushed from it. As the Economist has reported, for example, its own archives indicate that its editors "obeyed the wartime censors and avoided discussion of the disease in its leaders or editorials."  The pandemic was widely forgotten in public memory and ignored history books.

"Influenza 1918"

available at https://tinyurl.com/u7ugf8k

However, there was and is excellent scholarship on the issue. Perhaps the most brief and succinct entry into the subject is PBS' excellent 1998 episode of the American Experience.  While produced 22 years ago, nearly every element of current events is present in the 51-minute episode.  I caution parents, it is difficult for children.  The teacher's guide to the episode asks questions that in retrospect are heartbreaking -- "Looking back at the flu epidemic, what do students think should have been done to try to control the disease’s spread? Why do they think these actions were not taken?"

William Keepers Maxwell Jr.

image available at https://tinyurl.com/ybs6rkqa

Robert Kenner is the director of the episode, which utilizes a nice combination of historical film and survivor interviews to weave the story together.  Ken Chowder is the writer, and he particularly effectively employs the words of William Keepers Maxwell Jr. to illustrate and illuminate. Maxwell himself was a fiction editor at The New Yorker magazine for forty years (1936–1975), and the author six novels, including "They Came Like Swallows'' (1937) (his obit from the New York Times is here). Much of his work is about the effect of the pandemic in small-town Lincoln, Illinois, when he was ten. On the passing of his mother, Maxwell would say:

"It happened too suddenly, with no warning, and we none of us could believe it or bear it ... the beautiful, imaginative, protected world of my childhood swept away ... the effect of my mother's death was that I realized, for the first time and forever, that we were not safe, we were not beyond harm. My father did what he could, he kept us together as a family but, from that time on there was a sadness, which had not existed before, a deep down sadness that never quite went away because, I knew people aren't safe and nobody's safe —terrible things could happen — to anybody."

While the pandemic itself was poorly documented, the crisis played a role in changing many minds on the role of government.  Hearkening back to the Economist, the newspaper notes that the paper's editorial line on government intervention changed after the pandemic. Previously, the editors had opposed efforts at education and public sewers. That changed rather abruptly.  Instead, they began advocating for more involvement to improve public health. That included calls for “decent conditions of work, fair pay and good housing.” Perhaps most interestingly, the paper began to promote “education” as a method that should be used to prevent the spread of disease in the future. A lot for thought in this, about how much we once knew, and perhaps had forgotten.