Please forgive me if this is a stupid question,

[pnwmom]

but what would your priorities be for "dismantling institutional racism" at the Federal level?

If the next President could get anything s/he wanted through Congress, what should s/he be fighting for?

Voting rights, I would think -- including for people with past convictions of drug and other non-violent felonies.

An end to gerrymandering -- but aren't districts done at the state level?

Federal aid to disadvantaged schools

Unequal criminal sentencing, 3 strikes laws, privatized prisons

Bail requirements

What is on your priority list?

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/20/bernie-sanders-structural-racism-economic-justice

It is time for the progressive movement to reckon with structural racism: its role in enabling it and its moral responsibility to actively dismantle it. It’s not a request: it’s a requirement for all presidential candidates that seek progressive votes, and for a political movement that seeks any hope for relevance in a diverse America.

It’s long past time for Democratic candidates to stop taking black voters for granted, as was made clear this weekend at Netroots Nation, the largest annual gathering of progressive activists in America. At the Presidential Town Hall on Saturday morning, two Democratic Presidential candidates – former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders – publicly floundered when faced with activists from #BlackLivesMatter.

Sanders’ and O’Malley’s public interviews with journalist, documentarian and activist Jose Antonio Vargas was essentially taken over by racial justice activists who drastically changed the conversation of what was designed to be a typical, stale campaign appearance by shouting “Black lives matter!” in unison from the audience. Then Tia Oso of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration took to the stage to demand that the candidates answer one question: “As leader of this country will you advance an agenda that will dismantle structural racism in this country?”

Governor O’Malley’s tone-deaf response – “Black lives matter, white lives matter, all lives matter” – earned him boos from the crowd; he left the stage shortly after and later clarified his remarks with the news site This Week in Blackness. Bernie Sanders, with the presidential gravitas of a toddler, first attempted to shout his usual stump speech over the protestors, and then scolded them for interrupting him and held what one could only describe as a mini public tantrum.

SNIP

[luvspeas]

1. I've been thinking about this a lot

So far, none of the candidates have given any definitive action they would take to address racial discrimination in any aspect of society. I have looked for this in every statement any of them have made and it's simply not there.

I think the biggest issue is a complete overhaul of our policing and prison systems. That seems to be the most urgent.

I think we could have a big impact on changing a lot of things if we were to address our public, private and charter school system. Tax revenue needs to be distributed more equitably among the school districts. Charter schools are proving to be ineffective and it is my belief that integrated public schools are the one and only place in the US where people have the opportunity to learn to be together. We had a chimp with his finger up his butt overhaul our schools-it's time for somebody to do a better job of it. Like a New Deal for our kids.

[pnwmom]

2. So, since racial disparities in school discipline begins as early as preschool

maybe the office of Civil Rights should be filing suit against the districts/states that are the worst offenders?

http://www.ajc.com/weblogs/get-schooled/2014/mar/21/new-federal-report-racial-disparities-school-disci/

A consistent research finding – reinforced by a federal review released today -- is that minority students experience disproportionate school discipline even in preschool.

And a consistent rejoinder from posters on this blog is that minority students are more likely to engage in behaviors that land them in trouble.

But the research challenges that assumption. Even when they commit the exact same offense as white students, black students suffer more severe consequences, according to research.

There is a growing concern among researchers over disparities in school discipline, especially suspensions because they increase the odds of students dropping out. Many advocates are trying to make the public more aware of why schools need to rethink discipline approaches and policies

http://law.freeadvice.com/government_law/civil_rights_law_ada/race-discrimination-education.htm

Racial discrimination in education refers to any harassment of students based on race, color, or national origin. Discrimination can happen at any age from preschool through college and can be caused by teachers, administrators, other staff members, or other students. In an attempt to prevent racial discrimination and eliminate the hostile educational environment it fosters, the federal government has established Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Under this federal law, any school receiving government funding cannot discriminate against any student based on race, color, or national origin.

Title VI created an office dedicated to the investigation of racial discrimination on school campuses known as the Office for Civil Rights. The Office for Civil Rights makes racial discrimination determinations by asking whether the school has created or allowed a racially hostile environment that prevents affected students from adequately learning or thriving in the environment. If the school does discriminate, it may lose government funding and be penalized with government sanctions.

[Number23]

3. I'd like to see more done on discrepancies in prison sentencing and see more punishment against

police officers as well as those in the employment and housing industries that discriminate and racially profile.

I look at the work Obama tried to do on gun control after Sandy Hook and realize that the president simply cannot do all of this alone. His DOJ has done alot re: voting rights and racial profiling in policing. Their report on Ferguson was simply astonishing.

I know he wants to do so much more. He's also established My Brother's Keeper and other initiatives but you can look at the man and tell he's not happy with how much has been done. He sang in that church after those murders in Charleston. He merely MENTIONED Trayvon and people lost their minds. He has also pardoned several non-violent offenders but we all wish more could be done. If anything, it cements how little a president can do without a cooperative Congress, no matter how grand and noble his efforts may be.

[1StrongBlackMan]

4. Here is a concrete first step ...

http://www.vox.com/2015/5/28/8661977/race-police-officer

It's amazing how, when people "with/in authority" change their attitude/pre-conceived notation about something ... others in the community do to.

[pnwmom]

5. I hope it's true that it's only 15%. Didn't Obama recently do something about body cameras? n/t

[1StrongBlackMan]

6. 15% for bad actors seems low ...

my experience (not in L/E, but through HR) is it is more like 20%.

Yes, he established an initiative to pay for body cameras for any/every locality; but, like with the ACA ... he can't make them take the money.

[TheKentuckian]

7. Good article and I think cameras are a good idea to get more facts available and hopefully

as harm reduction though if the cover ups, prosecutors being on the same team, and predilection for juries to support the blue gang continue then such an initiative only goes so far but it is something.

I'm a harm reduction guy so more critical than a record of encounters is limiting them in the first place and making officers accountable for having them based on clear articulation of a rationale of harm.
This means banning of "Terry Stops", it means ending the practice of shakedowns and "stop and frisk" style tactics, it means getting warrants and less dependence on "intuition", it means not stopping folks based on generalized "suspicious behavior" even if it is following up on a citizen's call (instead they would observe and react only if they can clearly articulate a specific reason to do so), and it means shutting down the stupid and failed drug war while granting no new powers or responsibilities for "counter terrorism".

I'd like to actually get away from the concept of "law enforcement" for dealing with the general public in patrol type situations preferring a "peace keeping model". "Law enforcement" is for dealing with white collar crimes and regulating business. The beat cop's job is to maintain the peace.

We need to restore and enforce respect for civil liberties, cop's that cannot be trusted to respect due process, privacy, and free speech cannot be trusted not to abuse their authority and I suspect the most likely to abuse a citizen based on the color of their skin and that includes black and brown cop's operating in a racist institution or even in charge of departments.

The 15% (or 20 or 30 or whatever percentage) are a nightmare but it is the 70% (or whatever it is) are the bigger problem to me, even the writer just let's the 15%er run amok and does nothing to pump the brakes when another jumps in to continue the abuse and even in hindsight doesn't get that he was the one who could have been a force for what is right as he retells a story of wrongful behavior and abuse. Hell, they probably even count themselves among the good 15% and he sucks only moderately less than the worst actors. No, he wasn't directly abusive but he did nothing but observe it until wringing his hands about it later.

True desegregation has to happen for a variety of reasons. I've read that something like 75% of whites don't know a black person. Well, no shit they are going to be highly susceptible to stereo types and the images pushed by stupid TV and hate talk radio and for obvious reasons will depersonalize.
Functional segregation also creates very different worldviews because guess what there is really no way to see in a real and regular sense of what goes on in a misused and mistreated community, it will run counter to direct experience and be rejected as noise.
This also means that out of sight and out of mind, a very different set of behaviors can go on unchecked.

It also means and I don't give a damn who and how many roll their eyes that poverty and even more so working poorness must be directly and forcefully addressed. Shitty neighborhoods, "hustling", broken families, poorly resourced and weakly staffed schools, general desperation, extra aggressive and defensive cops, inability to push back once at risk of being in the system, low ownership levels, and generational lack of influence all exacerbate already bad situations and feed interactions and not just raw interactions but ones that start out bad.

Poverty is weakness in this society. The poorest hoods get the first targets for Ferguson like extraction scams because they know the poor and barely making it won't and in many cases can't push back. You can "broken windows" those folks to death because they have no power, no influence, and little stake from a system point of view.

Plus, when you are a target it makes it a lot easier to hit you in a target rich environment. Being kettled into our little hoods is like being fish in a stocked pond and is essentially creating an interactions fair harbor.

Got to end the felony "Mark of Cain" shit. Got to, it takes folks off the voting rolls, encourages them to be in criminal situations to get by, lowers possible opportunities, acts as an incentive to get people into the system as a means to hobble them and their families for life, and then concentrates "the criminal element" where they can scrap by and make it into the poor (aka minority) areas.

There is more and multiple angles, any hole that has been relentlessly and systematically dug for four or five hundred years is going to require a comprehensive set of solutions for it. No, you are not going to magically rapture the racism out and leave the rest intact.