We spent 2014 talking over and over again about some big problems, like policing practices, sexual violence and climate change. What if we spend 2015 talking about effective solutions?
Racial bias in policing
There’s overwhelming data that black men are more likely to suffer racial profiling and violence at the hands of police. We had devastating example after example this year. Eric Garner, John Crawford, Michael Brown, Akai Gurley, Tamir Rice and more. This is a ridiculously long list of unarmed black men killed by police. The list should give us pause.
In Boston, for instance, African-Americans make up 24% of the population but 63% of those stopped and frisked by police. Sure, some might look at those numbers and think that makes sense because black people commit more crimes than white people. A lot of Americans think that is the case even though it’s not true. Actually, white people commit 69% of crimes nationwide. Statistically speaking, they should be stopped and frisked more. But they’re not. Why are black people stopped, arrested, incarcerated or killed by police far more?
Community leaders who should be focused on coming up with solutions — like how to train cops to counter implicit racial bias and how to reform grand jury, trial and sentencing processes to be more structurally equitable — are instead too busy grieving, or trying to convince politicians that this is a serious crisis.
If it had been a long list of young white men killed by cops again and again, no one would be debating whether the victim had his hands up or not, or brandished a toy gun. No, we would unanimously assume the innocence of these young men and question what the hell was wrong with a policing system that keeps turning up innocent bodies. And then we would, very quickly, get to the part about nationwide reckoning and solutions.
Yet black communities and activists are forced to mourn the deaths and justify these young men’s basic dignity. No more. We should stop arguing and start solving this crisis.
The problem of rape culture
In 2014, we spent a great deal of effort arguing about rape stories. A huge Rolling Stone article about an alleged gang rape at the University of Virginia fell apart. Over a dozen women came forward alleging that Bill Cosby had sexually molested or raped them. Cosby denied the allegations.
Regardless of what may or may not have happened in these cases, we know that nationwide, nearly one in 5 women experience rape or attempted rape. This is a huge and troubling crisis. Yet, instead of doing something about the culture of rape, we seem to spend more time talking about whether we believe rape victims.
We should spend more of our energy teaching young men and women about sexual consent, and pushing schools and police forces to create safer environments for reporting rape. Overall, we could do more on rape prevention.
Climate change is real
Scientific American reports that, according to the World Meteorological Organization, 2014 is on track to be the hottest year recorded in the history of our planet. That would make 2014 the 38th consecutive year that the planet has been heating up in an abnormal way. When 97% of scientists overwhelmingly agree that not only is climate change real but also that it’s caused by human activities, you’d think we’d get up in arms about the problem.
And yet the largest march for climate change was basically ignored by the mainstream media. On cable news channels and in our nation’s capital, we’re still debating whether climate change is real instead of figuring out what to do.
What’s maddening is that just a few years ago, many of the same conservative voices who now dispute climate change agreed it was a problem and were taking the lead in proposing solutions. Some conservatives even freaked out in the simple case of transitioning to energy-saving light bulbs.
We really need to talk about bold solutions like clean energy innovations or tightening carbon emission standards instead of burying our heads in the sand.
The sad fact is that those of us who want positive changes are constantly forced to defend the basic facts or debunk the lies. There’s something terrible about the nature of our politics and culture today that facts, evidence and even public opinion can be so well aligned to start churning the wheels of change only to be derailed repeatedly by a small but vocal chorus.
That happened too much in 2014. Racial injustice, sexual violence and climate disaster are hard problems to solve. The time for debate is over. Finding solutions is vital. Let’s start talking about that.