Minneapolis Social Injustice and Related

[AngryScientist]

So just saying we’re going to vote a certain way doesn’t mean anything. It’s complicated and I’ll be the first to admit I’m not exactly sure I know what I personally can do. But somehow we need to do better. All of us.

Since it is obvious that racism is a problem that is many generations old, I have come to the conclusion that one of the most important thing parents and anyone who works with young people can do is make sure that there are no more generations of racist minds. We started with CNN's Sesame Street Town hall a few days ago, and we've been trying to figure out a way to drive the message home to our little kids that racism is bad and we wont stand for it.

I dont know either what we can and should do about the present, but there is some part of the future we can control.

You are a pilot - kids freaking love airplanes. maybe once this covid mess is over you can go talk to some schools, youth groups, whatever about how flying planes is awesome, and anyone can fly planes, no matter skin color or anything else. just a thought.

i agree we should all try.

[ZenNMotion]

Perhaps out of all the cities in this big country, one town (one!) will really reform its police department. Even New York and LA are just engaging in administrative allowance docking.

When I back away from the Twittermachine and look out at the world, I get the feeling that a large bunch of Americans are exhausted and can't much see past getting back to regular work and getting their kids back to school or daycare.

Maybe I'm cynical, but it sure seems like the white privilege of people putting their heads down and letting this blow by is in full force. I'd love to be wrong.

Allow me to be a little more optimistic (because what choice do we have, the opposite takes us nowhere). Yesterday, I listened in on a virtual town meeting organized by city hall in San Leandro CA. You can say that SL is not "representative" as it's solidly blue but it's an interesting mixed demographic of approximately 30% Caucasian, 40% LatinX, 30% Asian with a similar mix of economic classes. We have experienced street protests (daily and large), police behavior problems (police dept is known nationally for past corruption and we've had an unnecessary killing as recently as last month) and widespread looting. The white, senior, female Mayor was predictably empathetic to police killings (outside our city, no acknowledgement of home town cops) and "business owners". She came off as sympathetic but rather clueless. The chief of police, predictably was "concerned" about police abuse from his own ranks but spouted milquetoast nonsense about his progressive "policies"- while not acknowledging that they have no real external oversight or enforcement teeth. However, I was super impressed with the citizen questions, many from white and upper middle class participants holding their feet to the fire with specific suggestions for oversight, defunding the police (that doesn't mean what most people think it means), demanding State-level AG oversight of brutality investigations etc. I was also impressed by the multicultural panel of city council people who came off as passionate, street smart, empathetic and no-bullshit. SL isn't as lefty as Oakland, and it sure as hell isn't Berkeley (East Bay cities that are just a few miles away)- it's slowly gentrifying but it's still largely working class, with just enough Trump supporters to keep it lively. I liked what I heard from my neighbors of all ethnicities and classes- a 90 minute meeting stretched to nearly 3 hours and I heard nothing but solidarity. Maybe not representative of the country, but I'll take it as a point of light.

[ides1056]

"And Pelosi owns 45 mil in real estate."

I thought about this as I loaded firewood into the truck this evening.

I grew up in SF. My parents bought a house, 2633 Green St around 1968 for 125K. Go on Zillow to get the current price. A neighbor and contemporary owned a house a few blocks away that never even went on the market: 35M in cash.

Nancy likely owns a house in SF and another in Inverness.

But as a bumper sticker in the '60's stated: Gas, grass or ass. No one rides for free.

What I remember about the Pelosi family when I was growing up is this: "In 1970, Barbara and Ronald Pelosi were out to dinner while a babysitter was at home with their four children. An electrical fire broke out in their house on Sixth Avenue, killing young daughters Carolyn and Cynthia and the babysitter. Their two sons survived."

After George Moscone and Harvey Milk were assassinated Diane Feinstein became mayor. A few weeks later a guy walked up to her on the street, put a gun to her head and pulled the trigger. It was a lighter. She did not run screaming. In my memory she did not even flinch.

That these two are wealthy does not mean they are totally out of touch. They were lucky to grow up in SF when they did.

They have served with more distinction than most.

[thollandpe]

It’s funny how “disruptive” approaches to business and technology are all the rage, but a disruptive solution to current social and political systems that are perverse and literally fatal for some people served by those systems... that’s untenable.

[chasea]

"And Pelosi owns 45 mil in real estate."

I thought about this as I loaded firewood into the truck this evening.

I grew up in SF. My parents bought a house, 2633 Green St around 1968 for 125K. Go on Zillow to get the current price. A neighbor and contemporary owned a house a few blocks away that never even went on the market: 35M in cash.

Nancy likely owns a house in SF and another in Inverness.

But as a bumper sticker in the '60's stated: Gas, grass or ass. No one rides for free.

What I remember about the Pelosi family when I was growing up is this: "In 1970, Barbara and Ronald Pelosi were out to dinner while a babysitter was at home with their four children. An electrical fire broke out in their house on Sixth Avenue, killing young daughters Carolyn and Cynthia and the babysitter. Their two sons survived."

After George Moscone and Harvey Milk were assassinated Diane Feinstein became mayor. A few weeks later a guy walked up to her on the street, put a gun to her head and pulled the trigger. It was a lighter. She did not run screaming. In my memory she did not even flinch.

That these two are wealthy does not mean they are totally out of touch. They were lucky to grow up in SF when they did.

They have served with more distinction than most.

Two houses?

Nancy Pelosi- Assets - Personal Finances • OpenSecrets

[ZenNMotion]

Since it is obvious that racism is a problem that is many generations old, I have come to the conclusion that one of the most important thing parents and anyone who works with young people can do is make sure that there are no more generations of racist minds. We started with CNN's Sesame Street Town hall a few days ago, and we've been trying to figure out a way to drive the message home to our little kids that racism is bad and we wont stand for it.

I dont know either what we can and should do about the present, but there is some part of the future we can control.

You are a pilot - kids freaking love airplanes. maybe once this covid mess is over you can go talk to some schools, youth groups, whatever about how flying planes is awesome, and anyone can fly planes, no matter skin color or anything else. just a thought.

i agree we should all try.

This sounds great, but I think we need to take it a step further. This focuses on individuals, who we label as racist (bad) or non-racist (good). People have been touting the American Dream for decades (put your head down, succeed in school, dream big etc) for decades. This is true for those of us who benefit from the tilted playing field but it's far from universal, and doesn't work that way at all for many folks. I think education (of ourselves first, then our kids, then other kids) needs to include acknowledgement of the system(s) that enable racism- as a societal rather than individual evil phenomenon. The difference may seem subtle (societies are made up of individuals, etc) but it's important to look beyond the overt individual racist behavior that is easily accessible on youtube. We, and our kids, need to grasp how the "rules" are unevenly applied, and how they are set up to reinforce the status quo. People are not "racist" (it's an anti-social behavior not a noun). It's not enough to "not be a racist"-- much too easy and the accusation, justified or not, tends to put us white people into a defensive, non-listening position to lick our wounds. Education should focus on the systems and mechanisms that enable racism and inequity. It's not too hard to teach if we ourselves understand. Kids hear about systems all the time from an early age (simple science, arithmetic, political systems and governance, basic savings/lending and finance as examples), many of us just don't have the understanding or the vocabulary to teach about racism as a system because we haven't done the work to understand it ourselves. That's our task to educate ourselves first to move forward to teaching the kids. In many cases they're already way ahead of us old pharts.

[monadnocky]

Trump Falsely Targets Buffalo Protester, Martin Gugino, as ‘Antifa Provocateur’ - The New York Times

If you don't care to read it, well, it's about what you would expect.

merlin_173250561_222c46ac-9b2f-4d94-8a15-39aceb67d762-superJumbo.jpg

Pathetic. The last gasps of an empty, hollow, soulless stick figure of a man. A repugnant turd of a man.
For the first time, I feel confident that he's going to lose in November. I suspect he's very aware that he will.

[ides1056]

Two houses?

Nancy Pelosi- Assets - Personal Finances • OpenSecrets

My point was that it was not unusual for SF real estate to gain ridiculous value. I bought Apple at $17.

She could have spent her life going to cocktail parties. Many have.

[AngryScientist]

This sounds great, but I think we need to take it a step further. This focuses on individuals, who we label as racist (bad) or non-racist (good). People have been touting the American Dream for decades (put your head down, succeed in school, dream big etc) for decades. This is true for those of us who benefit from the tilted playing field but it's far from universal, and doesn't work that way at all for many folks. I think education (of ourselves first, then our kids, then other kids) needs to include acknowledgement of the system(s) that enable racism- as a societal rather than individual evil phenomenon. The difference may seem subtle (societies are made up of individuals, etc) but it's important to look beyond the overt individual racist behavior that is easily accessible on youtube. We, and our kids, need to grasp how the "rules" are unevenly applied, and how they are set up to reinforce the status quo. People are not "racist" (it's an anti-social behavior not a noun). It's not enough to "not be a racist"-- much too easy and the accusation, justified or not, tends to put us white people into a defensive, non-listening position to lick our wounds. Education should focus on the systems and mechanisms that enable racism and inequity. It's not too hard to teach if we ourselves understand. Kids hear about systems all the time from an early age (simple science, arithmetic, political systems and governance, basic savings/lending and finance as examples), many of us just don't have the understanding or the vocabulary to teach about racism as a system because we haven't done the work to understand it ourselves. That's our task to educate ourselves first to move forward to teaching the kids. In many cases they're already way ahead of us old pharts.

i agree with you, and that is the approach i also was hoping to take. i abbreviated my message in that post, but i am on board and agree with your larger point.

[GrantM]

Two houses?

Nancy Pelosi- Assets - Personal Finances • OpenSecrets

her husband is a long time california venture capital guy.

-g

[beeatnik]

"And Pelosi owns 45 mil in real estate."

I thought about this as I loaded firewood into the truck this evening.

I grew up in SF. My parents bought a house, 2633 Green St around 1968 for 125K. Go on Zillow to get the current price. A neighbor and contemporary owned a house a few blocks away that never even went on the market: 35M in cash.

The median home price in California in 1968 was $23,210. The three acre property below, located in Pasadena, is one the most stunningly opulent homes in LA County not located on the Westside. It sold for 11.5M in 2007. In 1970, the sale price was $150,000. Similar properties on the Westside are listed for 50M to 150M.

7 S San Rafael Ave, Pasadena, CA 9115 | Redfin

Imagine a few city blocks' worth of 20 foot tall hedges.

sanraf.jpg

sanraf1.jpg

sanraf4.jpg

San Francisco in the 70s on Green St must have been magical.

[BBB]

R
Never forget in the story of Jesus, the hero was killed by the state[/I]

Ha! The hero, if my memory serves me correctly, whose Father was a mass murderer in the "story".

The fact that the bible tells us to do unto others as you would have them do unto and humanity has, by and large, being doing exactly the opposite (slavery for example or endemic racism) would suggest we haven't been paying attention. That it took a white policeman to choke a black man to death to get everyone up in arms is kind of sad.

I'm not one bit religious, but the extract from the bible (excluding of course that the god in the story is a psycho) seems to be a sensible way to proceed. Tear gassing a crowd for a photo op with a bible (oh the irony) not so much.

[Chik]

Trump Falsely Targets Buffalo Protester, Martin Gugino, as ‘Antifa Provocateur’ - The New York Times

If you don't care to read it, well, it's about what you would expect.

merlin_173250561_222c46ac-9b2f-4d94-8a15-39aceb67d762-superJumbo.jpg

Pathetic. The last gasps of an empty, hollow, soulless stick figure of a man. A repugnant turd of a man.
For the first time, I feel confident that he's going to lose in November. I suspect he's very aware that he will.

A new low each day.

[ides1056]

The median home price in California in 1968 was $23,210. The three acre property below, located in Pasadena, is one the most stunningly opulent homes in LA County not located on the Westside. It sold for 11.5M in 2007. In 1970, the sale price was $150,000. Similar properties on the Westside are listed for 50M to 150M.

7 S San Rafael Ave, Pasadena, CA 9115 | Redfin

Imagine a few city blocks' worth of 20 foot tall hedges.

sanraf.jpg

sanraf1.jpg

sanraf4.jpg

San Francisco in the 70s on Green St must have been magical.

If you were to read Season of the Witch you'd have a good sense of what it was like. On the one hand magical, on the other horrific. But it was affordable.

[ides1056]

Ha! The hero, if my memory serves me correctly, whose Father was a mass murderer in the "story".

The fact that the bible tells us to do unto others as you would have them do unto and humanity has, by and large, being doing exactly the opposite (slavery for example or endemic racism) would suggest we haven't been paying attention. That it took a white policeman to choke a black man to death to get everyone up in arms is kind of sad.

I'm not one bit religious, but the extract from the bible (excluding of course that the god in the story is a psycho) seems to be a sensible way to proceed. Tear gassing a crowd for a photo op with a bible (oh the irony) not so much.

I am not going to go on about Jesus, except to distinguish between the historical man who was a Zealot and the bible, which is just a book. The red-letter King James version- Jesus words in red- gives a graphic sense of his contribution, which is little, and noncontroversial, to my way of thinking.

The Ten Commandments are pretty hateful, and though I had to read the book a few times as a kid I find it objectionable now.

[davids]

I mean. What's your takeaway here?

I would distinguish between an electoral strategy and political goals.

When it comes to electoral strategy I will strongly push for supporting the candidate who is closest to my position. I will vote for the more preferable/least horrible candidate every time, over not voting at all. And that is why, although Biden was not my choice for the Democratic nominee, I support his candidacy and will work to get him elected.

In terms of politics, I work with an organization that raises money for, lobbies for, and meets with elected officials to advocate for a particular set of political goals. That organization has been partnering with a number of like-minded organizations to advocate for many of the issues we're discussing in this thread.

Yes, this is all within the system. I support the system, and I am a patriot. For all our horrible problems I do feel that the United States is so much more a success than a failure. It is an experiment in pluralism and democracy that has succeeded in many ways. My ancestors came here for the freedom and opportunities it offered and their children and grandchildren have succeeded beyond their dreams. I want to see that freedom and opportunity expanded to all who want it.

If you feel the US has failed and needs to be overthrown, well, I disagree.

What's your program?

[j44ke]

Since it is obvious that racism is a problem that is many generations old, I have come to the conclusion that one of the most important thing parents and anyone who works with young people can do is make sure that there are no more generations of racist minds. We started with CNN's Sesame Street Town hall a few days ago, and we've been trying to figure out a way to drive the message home to our little kids that racism is bad and we wont stand for it.

I dont know either what we can and should do about the present, but there is some part of the future we can control.

You are a pilot - kids freaking love airplanes. maybe once this covid mess is over you can go talk to some schools, youth groups, whatever about how flying planes is awesome, and anyone can fly planes, no matter skin color or anything else. just a thought.

i agree we should all try.

Bring back well-funded, truly public schools. Stop sending kids to private school. Right now very large sections of most urban public school systems are holding facilities for minority & poor kids in ethno-economically segregated neighborhoods. Stop sucking the public school systems dry by writing them off as lost and gone forever and sending kids to private/charter/magnet schools. Force cities to go back to public school districts that are geographically related to the surrounding areas where every school gets funded well enough to provide top notch instruction and underperforming schools are given more not less money to spend on higher teacher to student ratios for districts where children's learning rates are negatively affected by factors outside their school day. And by the way, get rid of sequestered gifted and talented programs and magnet schools and give those programs to all schools. There is a benefit to exceptional students from going to school with other students and there is benefit to disadvantaged students from going to schools with facilities that can take advantage of promise shown simply by walking the student down the hall to a different classroom.

The way public schools are run now is essentially segregation disguised as the pursuit of excellence and the provision of top quality education to those who test well. Unless you are Asian. Then there can only be so many slots available for Asian students so they don't displace white kids. (sarcasm - hope that's obvious.)

[Corso]

Jorn, simply curious: Do you feel the same about private colleges?

[vertical_doug]

Bring back well-funded, truly public schools. Stop sending kids to private school. Right now very large sections of most urban public school systems are holding facilities for minority & poor kids in ethno-economically segregated neighborhoods. Stop sucking the public school systems dry by writing them off as lost and gone forever and sending kids to private/charter/magnet schools. Force cities to go back to public school districts that are geographically related to the surrounding areas where every school gets funded well enough to provide top notch instruction and underperforming schools are given more not less money to spend on higher teacher to student ratios for districts where children's learning rates are negatively affected by factors outside their school day. And by the way, get rid of sequestered gifted and talented programs and magnet schools and give those programs to all schools. There is a benefit to exceptional students from going to school with other students and there is benefit to disadvantaged students from going to schools with facilities that can take advantage of promise shown simply by walking the student down the hall to a different classroom.

The way public schools are run now is essentially segregation disguised as the pursuit of excellence and the provision of top quality education to those who test well. Unless you are Asian. Then there can only be so many slots available for Asian students so they don't displace white kids. (sarcasm - hope that's obvious.)

Parents just move and self segregate. I'll be honest and admit that is what I did with my children. I only cared about the educational opportunities for my kids and commute to work. (my wife hated boarding school when she was a child, so that ruled out that option) Your solution is not a solution. I actually think the magnet schools in NYC are a great thing.

You are still stuck with the teacher union in the city. This is part of the problem. How will you deal with the Yeshivas? These may be the worse of the lot but you run into a host of religious freedom issues.

[j44ke]

Jorn, simply curious: Do you feel the same about private colleges?

Hmm. No I don't think I do. I feel comfortable with the public education mandate being pre-K through 12.

And I don't think I actually have a problem with private schools, but I do have a problem with people preaching diversity while their kids go to private schools. I grew up going to public schools and the advocacy of my parents and parents like them was elemental to improving public schools at the time and those improvements were shared by all the kids who went to those schools. However, shortly after my generations, the same groups who were the segregationists rebranded themselves and started advocating what they called "neighborhood schools" and advocated adopting funding methods that were based on property taxes within the district, magnet schools that subtracted better students from the main public schools, and then argued that problem or underperforming schools should be penalized financially.

Obviously I am over-simplifying a complex dynamic, but I think there are a lot of issues that have to do with community familiarity, identity and cooperation, and the advantages of living together with people who are different (in many many different ways) in learning about how to negotiate public space equitably that can begin to be learned in the highly diverse environment of a well-run public school system.