Black Lives Matter

I say to you quite frankly that the time for racial discrimination is over. Our people have already made this major and difficult decision, but we cannot underestimate the challenge of hundreds of minor decisions yet to be made. Our inherent human charity and our religious beliefs will be taxed to the limit. No poor, rural, weak, or black person should ever have to bear the additional burden of being deprived of the opportunity of an education, a job, or simple justice. We Georgians are fully capable of making our judgments and managing our own affairs. We who are strong or in positions of leadership must realize that the responsibility for making correct decisions in the future is ours.

Governor Jimmy Carter’s Inaugural Address
Atlanta, Georgia
January 12, 1971

I have watched countless documentaries about my grandfather’s life and career in politics. Nearly every single video starts with newly-elected Governor Jimmy Carter standing in front of the gold dome of Georgia’s Capitol, addressing a mixed-race crowd of about 5000 people. The video clips to him declaring “I say to you quite frankly that the time for racial discrimination is over.” The crowd erupts in applause.

In 1970, Lester Maddox campaigned against my grandfather by promising to continue his hardened stance on segregation. He proudly campaigned that he still refused to serve black people at his restaurant near Georgia Tech, in flaunting defiance of the then-six-year-old Civil Rights Act. George Wallace, one of our country’s most destructive racists, was preparing for his next term as Governor of Alabama after a decade of proclaiming, “Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!” And a peanut farmer from South Georgia used his first official address to call for the end of racial discrimination.

Unfortunately, it has been almost 50 years since my grandfather called for that end. As we see with the killing of George Floyd and Raychard Brooks and Eric Garner and Michael Brown and Tamir Rice and Philandro Castile and Freddie Gray and Alton Sterling and Delrawn Small and Breonna Taylor and Michael Lorenzo Dean and many, many, many other black people, racial disparities in justice are still a source of profound national shame. And as we see with Donald Trump, racism is still being used as a tool by politicians to gain and wield power.

It is disgusting, appalling, and sickening to see death after death after death of unarmed black people at the hands of our government. We all watched George Floyd pulled out of the back of a police car, held down by 2 officers, neck crushed by a third, and fourth just watching impassively for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. At the same time, we all watched white lunatics strapped with AR-15’s protesting public health measures to battle COVID-19, and they were peacefully dispersed from Democratic Governor’s Mansions. We watch the police murder a black Wendy’s patron on his daughter’s 8th birthday at the same time we see white self-proclaimed militiamen peacefully arrested after someone fires 4 rounds into a crowd removing a statue of a mass murderer.

Police kill about 1000 Americans every year. Statistically, a police encounter is 2.4x deadlier for black people than white people.

This is a profound moment in American history where we can make permanent, lasting, groundbreaking change. America was specifically designed so that our government is responsible, and accountable, to us. This is what a government By The People and For The People actually means. We have the power to tell our government what to do, how to act, and how not to act.

It is time for us to listen. It is time for us to look at the actual results of our nation’s policies and see how they actually affect our own American citizens, so we can change it.

50 years later, the time for racial discrimination is still over.

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There are almost 19,000 distinct law enforcement agencies in the United States. Georgia alone has about 630. There is not going to be a one-size-fits-all solution to this policing problem. We need a multi-pronged approach, and we need to remember that the police exist to serve us. And we should also remember that police officers, by and large, have chosen a career of public service. There is a lot of room for mutual respect.

Policing in America will only change when we follow through with new laws that protect us, the citizens. Policies matter tremendously because they create the pressure that forces the changes we need.

Every police department needs a Use of Force Policy. It should not be up to the individual officers to determine when, and how, to use lethal and non-lethal force. The police are a public function, and they have the public trust. Violations of the public trust need to be severe. The Use of Force Policy should have teeth, and violations need to include the ability to bar an offender from ever wearing a badge again.

Every community needs a citizens review board. The purpose of a citizens review board is to provide a communications channel between the community being policed and the police department. These are effective when the police chief and local leaders are involved and active. Citizens can provide feedback on how they are policed, the police can provide updates on how they are serving their community, and the mayor and police chief can provide corrective action. Not every tragedy will hit the top of the The Washington Post and not every police action is negative and unwarranted. It is the goal of these citizens review boards to build trust between the police and the community. They need to be everywhere.

Every police shooting needs to be investigated by the state’s Attorney General. The current process in the majority of the country is to have the District Attorney investigate the police shooting. The problem with this arrangement is that the District Attorney relies on their local police departments to investigate and enforce District action. There’s an obvious conflict of interest when someone is investigating the exact same people that they rely on to do their jobs. When the investigations move to the Attorney General’s office, the investigators are no longer investigating their effective co-workers.

The reason it is so hard to put abusive police in jail is because whenever a cop is charged with using violence, all they have to prove is that the use of violence was “reasonable”. In theory, that sounds, well, reasonable. In practice, nearly every single police action can be explained as reasonable. That’s why it’s so hard to convict. Requiring that deadly force only be used when “necessary”, we will raise the bar of acceptable police shootings and lower the body count.

These are the kinds of pressures we need to enact on policing in America. We are the people, we have the power to change it.

Josh