Opinion: America desperately needs a Truth and Racial Healing Commission

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Opinion by Mitch Landrieu

Racism remains this nation's Achilles' heel. If we do not face it and fix it, we will continue to suffer. The news in the past few weeks, from the police shooting of Daunte Wright to the debate about voter suppression, underscores once again that we have a long way to go to fulfill America's promise of justice and equal opportunity for every American. To get closer to fulfilling that aspiration, we first need a consensus about the history of racism in the US and the effect it still has today.

We -- and by "we," I'm referring primarily to White Americans -- have spent generations burying our heads in the sand when it comes to how we talk about race and learn about our complex history. This has gotten harder to deny or even ignore. The disproportionate effect of the pandemic on people of color, the killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and so many other Black Americans -- along with the involvement of White supremacists in the January 6 insurrection -- have sparked a necessary, nationwide discussion on race.

Unfortunately, policy changes have been few and fleeting. The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act is stalled in Congress, state-level voter suppression legislation has exploded, and despite efforts to address it, there are deepening racial gaps across employment and health outcomes due to Covid-19. Even after the events of the past year, public opinion research shows still wide gaps in attitudes and perceptions on race and whether systemic racism is a major problem.

The misperception that racism is individual -- rather than systemic as well -- is one of our nation's most persistent and counterproductive myths. Institutionalized racism pervades nearly every system in the nation, including financial, educational, health, housing, criminal justice and voting.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/opinion-america-desperately-needs-a-truth-and-racial-healing-commission/ar-BB1fLDB4

[Dan]

1. I've always thought that one of the "first" steps to dealing with the issues of racism

Is for White people to have honest conversations with White people.

POC cannot hope to address the issues associated with race, unless, and of course White people become part of the solution.

Once that conversation starts - maybe as a whole - we can start to discuss “our” problems.