Has Taking Down Statues and Changing the Names of Military Installations, Buildings, Schools, and Streets Cured Racism in America?
Of course not!! In fact, changing the names of military installations, buildings, schools, and streets has most likely increased racism in America. It reminds me of the thousands of times throughout my life I’ve said something thinking it was the right thing to do and for me to feel better. Well, did I feel better–for only a minute or two. Did it solve what I wanted solved? No, not at all and, at times, it made the situation even worse. The bottom line is evident–words alone solve nothing, it takes actions to get anything done!
Unfortunately, people would prefer to take the easy route by spouting off words rather than taking the difficult route and take action doing what needs to be done. This latest round of increased racism was caused by the coronavirus pandemic of 2020 when our American society was forever changed. Folks just had to much idle time on their hands as they remained secluded for weeks at a time with little social interaction. Of course, the “trigger” was the stupidity of a few law enforcement officers and the senseless death of George Floyd which led to the protests and rioting in America not experienced since the 1960’s.
The root cause of racism in America isn’t solved merely by changing the names of military installations, buildings, schools, and streets as this is only a symbolic gesture and certainly not close to a cure. The real reasons racism continues to exist is that the institution of the American family has gone to “hell in a handbasket”, the inability to provide a decent and consistent public education, society pushing people into college instead of promoting trade schools for skilled training, parenting by a single parent, a tremendous rise in crime and incarceration without rehabilitation, and people no longer attending church.
Personally, I’m tired of talking about racism and not doing anything except placing “band-aids” here and there. The term “black lives matter” emerged after the murder of George Floyd and that’s also extremely irritating to me as I firmly believe “all lives matter”.
Comparing some statistics between the year 1965 and today will shed some light on the plight the institution of the American family is suffering from. Divorce rates today have more than doubled compared to 1965 where close to 60% of first marriages end in divorce although the percentage has seen a recent decline only due to the fact that the percentage of cohabitation of couples without marriage has increased.
Public education in America is struggling at best, especially, in our urban centers and rural areas while the more affluent suburbs seemingly perform better overall. Dropout rates average 13% in urban centers and 11% in rural areas compared to 9% in suburbia. Each year 1.2 million students drop out of high school in the United States. Additionally, those who drop out tend to suffer from high incarceration rates. Dropouts account for about 75% of America’s state prison inmates, almost 59% of federal inmates, and 69% of jail inmates with even higher rates in more Southern states where, not surprising, public education in those states always rank very low.
Teacher shortages continue to plague our public schools as 86% struggle to hire educators as 9 out of 10 public school districts fail to hire enough teachers mainly due to low salaries and the inability to teach as misbehavior is on the rise. The coronavirus pandemic has placed additional stresses on teachers with nearly 10% of teachers quitting or seeking early retirement. Students, as well, have suffered drastically due to Covid-19 struggling with mental health challenges, high rates of violence and bullying in school, and concerns about lost instructional time.
Too much has been made over the years concerning the importance of a college education as enrollment is now falling with growing sentiments that a degree isn’t worth the cost nor is the student loan debt it creates. Additionally, only 46% of college grads currently work in their field of study and almost 34% of all graduates are underemployed proving a college education is not preparing graduates for a career.
On the other hand, trade school attendance is flourishing. The stigma that trade schools are several notches below and less prestigious than college is being erased. In fact, in order to reindustrialize America and bring outsourced jobs back to our country the need to create a skilled labor force with high-earning jobs is the forte of trade schools. Trade school tuitions are cheaper than college and the timeframe to begin a career path is much shorter as you will be gainfully employed in the trade you studied. Now, over 20% of high school graduates are attending a skilled trade school which is double the percentage from twenty years ago.
In 1965, 9% of households were single parent while today that has increased to a whopping 26%. This is due to the decline in marriage and the rise of births outside of marriage. Children of single parents are 10X more likely to abuse drugs, 14X times more likely to commit a violent crime, 20X more likely to be incarcerated, and 32X more likely to run away from their environment.
We definitely need to put a stop to violent crime in America, but in order to begin accomplishing this, we mustn’t continue to throw law enforcement “under the bus”. Now, more than ever, we have to support law enforcement as early retirements are at an all-time high and recruiting for new officers has become extremely difficult. The percentage of violent crime today has nearly doubled in comparison to 1965. This past year alone 5.5 million people have been in prison, jail, are on probation, or parole. In comparison, the incarceration rates in America are 170/1000 folks in 1965 vs 379/1000 folks in 2019 which is somewhat alarming. Another troubling fact is that 77% of those who have been incarcerated are rearrested within five years of release demonstrating how our penal system is failing to rehabilitate prisoners.
Personally, I’m not a religious person as I consider myself to be an agnostic, but that’s really neither “here nor there”. “Back in the day” folks normally went to church as even I did and it was a way to bring “community” together. I digress, but also “back in the day”, neighborhoods were alive with folks out and about, homes were open, everyone seemed to know one another, and look out for each other. Civility was alive and well as people were both courteous and polite. Today, our residences are shut up and we never seem to see our neighbors and truly don’t even know who they may be, we certainly aren’t looking out for one another, civility is non-existent, and anger and hatred has never been so dominate. The percentage of churchgoers in the 1960’s approached 75% while, to my point, today’s percentage hovers around 30%.
Unfortunately, growing up “back in the day”, I was raised as a bigot with bias and prejudices, but not to a point where I was a racist. Fortunately, I was able to come to terms with this dilemma as a young adult as I am human where, in human nature, it’s normal to suffer from human frailties.
What I cannot come to terms with nor condone, which actually led to our family’s escape from society to “The Compound” due to the circumstances surrounding what occurred in 2020, is a lack of civility where civil discourse is now a thing of the past, folks without manners who are neither polite nor courteous showing little respect for one another, being selfish and greedy, violent rioting which incurs damage and destruction to property, desecration of things considered sacred, and refusing to be a positive contributor to society who is proud to be an American and loyal to the United States of America.
If we finally can refocus on the institution of family, provide an excellent education, create a skilled work force focusing on skills taught in trade schools rather than degrees in college, having two parents raise our children, stop crime, and begin attending church again, I believe we can drastically improve the curse of racism in America.