Nobody to somebody

With Marc Lamont Hill's many references of colorful violence in our cities, laws, and policies, he does not seem to leave enough tangible solutions for his audience. Maybe it is too naïve to mention there are absolute solutions to such horrific hatred and lawlessness in our society today, but I feel it would be more naïve to leave the state of our country unanswered.


I went back a second time and reread some of Hill's accounts that specifically stayed with me each day as I drove to work or walked my dogs at night in my neighborhood as I asked myself how some are protected and some are not. I tried to record as many answers as I could to the concerns of our nation, and the following includes a few (maybe naïve but at least attempted) solutions from my stream of consciousness:


One: Body cameras. There is talk and some action for police everywhere to wear cameras, and why not? This can solve a number of issues, including useless hearsay that can land a person on death row. Cameras show evidence, and evidence leads to solutions. If the evidence points to the law enforcement officials abusing privileges and law, then at least public officials and policies can be exposed, revised, and improved. Which leads to my second point.


Two: Public Policy. Policy makers should evaluate the language used when commanding police officers and other officials to follow duty. Maybe there is racial intent (or non-intent) in the commands that police officers are following. IF that is the case, how are we condemning police officers more than policy makers? After all, the democratic policies are supposed to be followed strictly as a government worker. I can be wrong in all of this, but language, as we know, can be ambiguous, and ambiguity can lead to dangerous paths, especially in a boiling society.


Three: Relationship and Racial Bias Training for police officers. In the state of Florida, police officers had to undergo racial bias training via simulators before going back into the field. Studies then showed evidence that the same police officers had reduced bias on duty. Maybe this is a stretch, because how can we truly assess reduced bias unless someone is following the officer daily? Yet, at least this is one way to TRY to eliminate unnecessary subjective natures in society. Also, what if we could train police officers to have relationships with citizens first and foremost. We should get them training in empathy and policy at the same time. Not all citizens fit the criteria of incarceration, after all.


In the end, our society needs one another, whether through policy, protests, or empathic understandings. How we get there is a matter of how each person treats the stranger sitting next to him or her.