No one can forget that we’re in a middle of a global pandemic. Despite the lack of cohesive federal policy, and the fact that our leaders flip flop on whether businesses and schools should open or close, we should wear masks or not, most rational, sane, and financially solvent people stay home as much as possible, and order online even basic things such as groceries. But there is also a large group of people, our “essential” workers who don’t have the luxury or choice to stay at home. These are the folks in the trenches, the first responders, the people filling our orders, delivering our mail, taking care of us at hospitals and clinics, driving our buses, and harvesting our food. These people are essential because what they do allow the rest of us to stay at home to weather the storm.
The COVID-19 has exposed the deeply rooted class divisions, racial injustice, and economic inequality that are part of the fabric of our society. If you’re reading this, you’re probably one of the lucky ones. You are a desk jockey. You can perform your job from the comfort of your home, via computer and a good internet connection.
And, I’m not minimizing the strain and discomfort that the effects of COVID-19 have imposed on all of us. If you’re part of the lucky group and have children, you’ve been essentially home-schooling them since March while also trying to work and keep your job. Stressful and fatiguing are understatements. However, our “essential” workers have it worse. If you’re working on a job where the possibilities for social distancing are next to impossible and where you’re less than one-paycheck away from being evicted, then your stress levels are exponential and almost untenable.
Public and private organizations are responding to this inequality in ways that are yet to be seen effective. The message seems to be that we should all do our part and help our essential workers. We are urged to give delivery drivers bigger tips, hang signs on our front doors honoring their work, and support gofundme’s for businesses that have laid off or furloughed their workers. We even have a catchy theme song, “Good Job,” a veritable upbeat pat on the back, written and performed by New York City based musician Alicia Keys, who narrates how much we depend on and appreciate these people. Although these efforts demonstrate our collective good will and they are better than doing nothing, it’s really only a drop in the bucket of financial and emotional support that essential workers need to make it through this pandemic without getting sick or getting evicted.
What do we need? We need a lot and pronto. Thus far, we see some efforts, but it’s too early to determine how effective they will be in the long term. For instance, some businesses and organizations have reconfigured their physical work places to encourage social distancing by establishing barriers that separate workers or workers from customers. Many supermarkets now limit the number of people who can enter at any given time, require customers to wear a mask, and are constantly disinfecting surfaces and carts. These things are helpful and may prove really important in keeping our essential workers safe and the economy running. But, there are many of us who for some twisted logic insist in not adhering to these simple health-mandated rules.
The theme of “we can open but safely” seems to be the chant of many corporations and educational institutions, and politicians. They point to countries such as China, Germany, Japan and New Zealand, who have managed to rearrange their work sites, retail businesses, and schools to permit some measure of normalcy. But it is wrong to compare our strategy (or lack thereof) to these countries. These countries, unlike the United States, had a coordinated effort and very early in the game strictly imposed lock-downs, had massive testing, quarantined those infected, and had serious contact tracing. Unlike the countries that have flattened the curve we have no national policy and thus are subject to one of the highest rates of infection and deaths in the world.
That’s why many so many Americans are skittish about returning to work. Why? When you leave your home, there are large swaths of people who don’t wear face masks and don’t social distance. You increase your risk of contracting Corona virus when you come into contact with them, whether they care or not.
So I ask you these questions. Does your boss really care if you get sick or you die because of COVID-19? If he or she kind of likes you, then the answer will be “Maybe.” Does the owner or the shareholder of the corporation you work for care? Probably not. And don’t let those television advertising spots from corporations with the messages of “we are all in this together” and we’ve donated $2 million to organizations to help people in need fool you. (These amounts are simply drops in the bucket, anyways compared to what they paid in advertising to get their messages out). Any sideways glance at the unemployment numbers and you are going to quickly conclude that you are replaceable. Nowhere was this recently put in to bold relief when selected owners of large meat, pork and poultry processing plants in states like Georgia, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, and South Dakota told their workers “You’re feeding America.” This appeal to patriotism was thinly veiled consolation for people who were dropping by the buckets from COVID-19.
What does this mean? Do you really want to be a martyr for capitalism? Probably not.
In the meantime as a socio-economic system that now pretends to care about essential workers, but generally fails to improve their working conditions and pay them a decent wage, we will muddle along, more people will contract the COVID-19 virus and a large percentage of them will die. This will place their loved ones in greater financial and emotional distress.
True societal change will only occur only when the political system recognizes and embraces as its primary mission not to let others less fortunate than us slip through the cracks and not see this as the role of charities, philanthropists, and religious organizations.
https://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/49926620121_b0e002e7b0_o.jpg18292503Jeffrey Ian Rosshttps://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/jeffrey-ian-ross-logo-04.pngJeffrey Ian Ross2020-07-10 16:45:532024-09-22 12:24:44If our essential workers are so important, why aren’t we properly protecting them?
From buildings, to parks, to museums, cities have erected monuments, statues, and memorials in public spaces.
These structures vary in size; they can be as big as a building, or as small as a plaque.
They force people to interchangeably honor, celebrate, commemorate, and/or remember incidents and people who were at one point in time deemed important in the history of that place and space. But history marches on, people change, and so does the culture.
There is no universal law that suggests that public statutes and memorials must remain in perpetuity where they were erected, or exist at all. Objects placed in our public spaces can change with time, citizen preferences, economic conditions, and cultural shifts. In fact, most cities in post industrialized democracies recognize this situation. That is why there is usually a branch of government, such as a department of public works, that overseas public monuments, and sometimes there is a committee that represents different constituencies that reviews these sorts of things. The process, however, gets into trouble when it is out of sync with contemporary culture and current history.
At the center of the current controversy facing our nation and others, are statutes of racists, colonizers, individuals who led campaigns of genocide, and symbols thereof (e.g., the confederate flag).
The recent (May/June 2020) protests against the killing of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis highlighted the pervasive racial injustice that has persisted throughout the 200 year history of the United States. This sentiment has prompted an upsurge in graffiti and street art placed on monuments, and in some cases the tearing down of controversial statutes throughout the world. The result has been copious news and social media attention and city, state, and federal governments spending lots of resources (either abating the graffiti and street art, or paying law enforcement salaries to protect the memorials).
Opposition to these statues and memorials did not start in the last three weeks. This process has been being playing out since the erection of the monuments. Opposition ebbs and flows, due to lots of factors including burn out by different political actors.
The reality of the day, however, is that we have come to a crescendo of opposition and social condemnation of the flagrant display that seems to celebrate the worst individuals and chapters in our collective history. Committees that review requests for erecting and mothballing statutes etc. and city councils (and county executives) can wait no longer. It is time for them to act, and to act fast before we recreate the storming of the bastille scenarios we have recently witnessed, where activists, bystanders, and public safety get hurt in the melees that are appearing in these contexts.
https://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/Screen-Shot-2020-07-02-at-11.36.53-AM.png335504Jeffrey Ian Rosshttps://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/jeffrey-ian-ross-logo-04.pngJeffrey Ian Ross2020-07-02 15:41:082021-08-27 20:43:47Time to remove offensive memorials, monuments, and statues
There is no question that police department budgets make up a ridiculous share of municipal and county budgets. There is undoubtedly a lot of fat to trim, and forcing people and organizations to do more with less, or in this case to do less with less, can often times lead to creative solutions. But as with most things; it isn’t as easy as it sounds. There are numerous unintended consequences that should be considered upfront. In other words, just taking money away is not the entire story. Folks need to also think about what happens to that excess funds (if any) and where do they end up?.
Many of us agree that there’s way too much reliance on the police to deal with many of society’s most intractable problems such as drug addiction, homelessness, domestic violence, among others and that bringing an armed officer, who is not trained to deal with these issues and situations they produce, may increase police violence against citizens. And I’m all for massive reforms in how communities traditionally respond to deviance, crime and people who run afoul of the law. But, we have been here before, perhaps not like this, and there have been numerous times when we tried to reform police policies and practices much in the way it is being proposed today.
So it is important to remind us of some historical lessons. Putting aside temporarily the concerns of both naysayers and experts who wonder who or what agency is going to respond to crime (if police departments were abolished completely), and how are law enforcement agencies going to be able to fight crime and pay for Department of Justice consent mandated reforms when their budgets are cut, taking funds away from the police means that this money will have to be allocated elsewhere – but who decides where?
The real problem in my mind is that once police department budgets have been reduced, as of now there are no guarantees in place that the savings to be accrued will be spent on the kinds of things that activists and other reformers want. Are our elected municipal and county executives going to channel the resources into improved counseling services for the mentally ill, or better public schools, public health services, and libraries?
In the past most municipal and county politicians were generally happy to pony up money for public safety because they did not want to appear to be soft on crime. However, now that this pressure is off, they have been given the green light to do something different. Barring the unique timing and legal constraints of each municipality and county with respect to shifting around money around in their budgets, here is what might happen when we defund the police:
To begin with, the cost savings to be incurred may be used to cover up deficits elsewhere- so this would be the first time in the history of the municipality or county where these entities no longer have to be run in deficit mode. Municipal and county politicians may decide that instead of shifting money to other needed city services, they would do the responsible thing and balance the city or county budget.
Alternatively, there may not be any money to realistically reappropriate. The current COVID-19 crisis has meant that city retail sales tax revenue has decreased, some businesses that pay taxes have gone bankrupt, and that increased tax-payer dollars have been spent on city services such as testing, fire and ambulance services, not to mention overtime expenditures for public safety responding to the protests in connection with the death of George Floyd.
Let’s say, however, that defunding leaves a real pot of money to spend. Where exactly will it be spent? Indeed, you might argue that it is now up to the police and public safety activists to insure that their elected officials allocate the money in the manner that advances the cause of racial and social justice, but this is not a given. For this to occur, activists and others must consult a city budget or spread sheet and demand that appropriate intensive process and outcome evaluations be done on these prosocial programs and services that they champion. At first glance, those wanting change might not have the tool kit to carry this to the end, although of course they can ally with folks who can.
Moreover, right now I’m confident that well-meaning (and some fly by night operators) are lining up at the doors (virtually) of countless municipal and county executives trying to convince them to fund largely non-evidence based pet projects. Some of these programs will be based on empirically tested social scientific research, while others will be chosen because of their originators best hopes and dreams.
Finally, few activists and commentators have mentioned the long and recent history of municipal corruption that has plagued the United States. Cities such as Baltimore, Detroit, New Orleans, and New York, for example, have been epicenters for this kind of activity. It is also possible that the money will be spent on projects that financially benefit municipal and county executives, including their families and friends, through no bid contracts, and sham organizations.
These are sobering possibilities that must be taken into consideration alongside efforts to defund the police if meaningful change is expected.
It’s great that there is now an increased sense of purpose to reexamine how much money we spend on policing, and how it has not produced the outcomes we desire.
It’s also helpful to examine where our tax dollars go, but also to be careful of what you ask for, as you may end up getting it.
https://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/50006938178_0075c72900_b.jpg6541024Jeffrey Ian Rosshttps://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/jeffrey-ian-ross-logo-04.pngJeffrey Ian Ross2020-06-25 16:04:472022-12-15 12:12:44In the struggle to #defundthepolice, where does the money go?
If our essential workers are so important, why aren’t we properly protecting them?
/by Jeffrey Ian RossNo one can forget that we’re in a middle of a global pandemic. Despite the lack of cohesive federal policy, and the fact that our leaders flip flop on whether businesses and schools should open or close, we should wear masks or not, most rational, sane, and financially solvent people stay home as much as possible, and order online even basic things such as groceries. But there is also a large group of people, our “essential” workers who don’t have the luxury or choice to stay at home. These are the folks in the trenches, the first responders, the people filling our orders, delivering our mail, taking care of us at hospitals and clinics, driving our buses, and harvesting our food. These people are essential because what they do allow the rest of us to stay at home to weather the storm.
The COVID-19 has exposed the deeply rooted class divisions, racial injustice, and economic inequality that are part of the fabric of our society. If you’re reading this, you’re probably one of the lucky ones. You are a desk jockey. You can perform your job from the comfort of your home, via computer and a good internet connection.
And, I’m not minimizing the strain and discomfort that the effects of COVID-19 have imposed on all of us. If you’re part of the lucky group and have children, you’ve been essentially home-schooling them since March while also trying to work and keep your job. Stressful and fatiguing are understatements. However, our “essential” workers have it worse. If you’re working on a job where the possibilities for social distancing are next to impossible and where you’re less than one-paycheck away from being evicted, then your stress levels are exponential and almost untenable.
Public and private organizations are responding to this inequality in ways that are yet to be seen effective. The message seems to be that we should all do our part and help our essential workers. We are urged to give delivery drivers bigger tips, hang signs on our front doors honoring their work, and support gofundme’s for businesses that have laid off or furloughed their workers. We even have a catchy theme song, “Good Job,” a veritable upbeat pat on the back, written and performed by New York City based musician Alicia Keys, who narrates how much we depend on and appreciate these people. Although these efforts demonstrate our collective good will and they are better than doing nothing, it’s really only a drop in the bucket of financial and emotional support that essential workers need to make it through this pandemic without getting sick or getting evicted.
What do we need? We need a lot and pronto. Thus far, we see some efforts, but it’s too early to determine how effective they will be in the long term. For instance, some businesses and organizations have reconfigured their physical work places to encourage social distancing by establishing barriers that separate workers or workers from customers. Many supermarkets now limit the number of people who can enter at any given time, require customers to wear a mask, and are constantly disinfecting surfaces and carts. These things are helpful and may prove really important in keeping our essential workers safe and the economy running. But, there are many of us who for some twisted logic insist in not adhering to these simple health-mandated rules.
The theme of “we can open but safely” seems to be the chant of many corporations and educational institutions, and politicians. They point to countries such as China, Germany, Japan and New Zealand, who have managed to rearrange their work sites, retail businesses, and schools to permit some measure of normalcy. But it is wrong to compare our strategy (or lack thereof) to these countries. These countries, unlike the United States, had a coordinated effort and very early in the game strictly imposed lock-downs, had massive testing, quarantined those infected, and had serious contact tracing. Unlike the countries that have flattened the curve we have no national policy and thus are subject to one of the highest rates of infection and deaths in the world.
That’s why many so many Americans are skittish about returning to work. Why? When you leave your home, there are large swaths of people who don’t wear face masks and don’t social distance. You increase your risk of contracting Corona virus when you come into contact with them, whether they care or not.
So I ask you these questions. Does your boss really care if you get sick or you die because of COVID-19? If he or she kind of likes you, then the answer will be “Maybe.” Does the owner or the shareholder of the corporation you work for care? Probably not. And don’t let those television advertising spots from corporations with the messages of “we are all in this together” and we’ve donated $2 million to organizations to help people in need fool you. (These amounts are simply drops in the bucket, anyways compared to what they paid in advertising to get their messages out). Any sideways glance at the unemployment numbers and you are going to quickly conclude that you are replaceable. Nowhere was this recently put in to bold relief when selected owners of large meat, pork and poultry processing plants in states like Georgia, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, and South Dakota told their workers “You’re feeding America.” This appeal to patriotism was thinly veiled consolation for people who were dropping by the buckets from COVID-19.
What does this mean? Do you really want to be a martyr for capitalism? Probably not.
In the meantime as a socio-economic system that now pretends to care about essential workers, but generally fails to improve their working conditions and pay them a decent wage, we will muddle along, more people will contract the COVID-19 virus and a large percentage of them will die. This will place their loved ones in greater financial and emotional distress.
True societal change will only occur only when the political system recognizes and embraces as its primary mission not to let others less fortunate than us slip through the cracks and not see this as the role of charities, philanthropists, and religious organizations.
Time to remove offensive memorials, monuments, and statues
/by Jeffrey Ian RossFrom buildings, to parks, to museums, cities have erected monuments, statues, and memorials in public spaces.
These structures vary in size; they can be as big as a building, or as small as a plaque.
They force people to interchangeably honor, celebrate, commemorate, and/or remember incidents and people who were at one point in time deemed important in the history of that place and space. But history marches on, people change, and so does the culture.
There is no universal law that suggests that public statutes and memorials must remain in perpetuity where they were erected, or exist at all. Objects placed in our public spaces can change with time, citizen preferences, economic conditions, and cultural shifts. In fact, most cities in post industrialized democracies recognize this situation. That is why there is usually a branch of government, such as a department of public works, that overseas public monuments, and sometimes there is a committee that represents different constituencies that reviews these sorts of things. The process, however, gets into trouble when it is out of sync with contemporary culture and current history.
At the center of the current controversy facing our nation and others, are statutes of racists, colonizers, individuals who led campaigns of genocide, and symbols thereof (e.g., the confederate flag).
The recent (May/June 2020) protests against the killing of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis highlighted the pervasive racial injustice that has persisted throughout the 200 year history of the United States. This sentiment has prompted an upsurge in graffiti and street art placed on monuments, and in some cases the tearing down of controversial statutes throughout the world. The result has been copious news and social media attention and city, state, and federal governments spending lots of resources (either abating the graffiti and street art, or paying law enforcement salaries to protect the memorials).
Opposition to these statues and memorials did not start in the last three weeks. This process has been being playing out since the erection of the monuments. Opposition ebbs and flows, due to lots of factors including burn out by different political actors.
The reality of the day, however, is that we have come to a crescendo of opposition and social condemnation of the flagrant display that seems to celebrate the worst individuals and chapters in our collective history. Committees that review requests for erecting and mothballing statutes etc. and city councils (and county executives) can wait no longer. It is time for them to act, and to act fast before we recreate the storming of the bastille scenarios we have recently witnessed, where activists, bystanders, and public safety get hurt in the melees that are appearing in these contexts.
In the struggle to #defundthepolice, where does the money go?
/by Jeffrey Ian RossThere are lots of things to love about The Wizard of OZ. One of my favorite parts is when the munchkins sing and dance to the song, “Ding Dong the witch is dead.” Just listening, watching and remembering the performance fills me with hope. I got that same feeling when I hear activists, scholars, and politicians advocating either the abolishment or defunding of police departments throughout the country. It sounds great and hopeful, but is it?
There is no question that police department budgets make up a ridiculous share of municipal and county budgets. There is undoubtedly a lot of fat to trim, and forcing people and organizations to do more with less, or in this case to do less with less, can often times lead to creative solutions. But as with most things; it isn’t as easy as it sounds. There are numerous unintended consequences that should be considered upfront. In other words, just taking money away is not the entire story. Folks need to also think about what happens to that excess funds (if any) and where do they end up?.
Many of us agree that there’s way too much reliance on the police to deal with many of society’s most intractable problems such as drug addiction, homelessness, domestic violence, among others and that bringing an armed officer, who is not trained to deal with these issues and situations they produce, may increase police violence against citizens. And I’m all for massive reforms in how communities traditionally respond to deviance, crime and people who run afoul of the law. But, we have been here before, perhaps not like this, and there have been numerous times when we tried to reform police policies and practices much in the way it is being proposed today.
So it is important to remind us of some historical lessons. Putting aside temporarily the concerns of both naysayers and experts who wonder who or what agency is going to respond to crime (if police departments were abolished completely), and how are law enforcement agencies going to be able to fight crime and pay for Department of Justice consent mandated reforms when their budgets are cut, taking funds away from the police means that this money will have to be allocated elsewhere – but who decides where?
The real problem in my mind is that once police department budgets have been reduced, as of now there are no guarantees in place that the savings to be accrued will be spent on the kinds of things that activists and other reformers want. Are our elected municipal and county executives going to channel the resources into improved counseling services for the mentally ill, or better public schools, public health services, and libraries?
In the past most municipal and county politicians were generally happy to pony up money for public safety because they did not want to appear to be soft on crime. However, now that this pressure is off, they have been given the green light to do something different. Barring the unique timing and legal constraints of each municipality and county with respect to shifting around money around in their budgets, here is what might happen when we defund the police:
To begin with, the cost savings to be incurred may be used to cover up deficits elsewhere- so this would be the first time in the history of the municipality or county where these entities no longer have to be run in deficit mode. Municipal and county politicians may decide that instead of shifting money to other needed city services, they would do the responsible thing and balance the city or county budget.
Alternatively, there may not be any money to realistically reappropriate. The current COVID-19 crisis has meant that city retail sales tax revenue has decreased, some businesses that pay taxes have gone bankrupt, and that increased tax-payer dollars have been spent on city services such as testing, fire and ambulance services, not to mention overtime expenditures for public safety responding to the protests in connection with the death of George Floyd.
Let’s say, however, that defunding leaves a real pot of money to spend. Where exactly will it be spent? Indeed, you might argue that it is now up to the police and public safety activists to insure that their elected officials allocate the money in the manner that advances the cause of racial and social justice, but this is not a given. For this to occur, activists and others must consult a city budget or spread sheet and demand that appropriate intensive process and outcome evaluations be done on these prosocial programs and services that they champion. At first glance, those wanting change might not have the tool kit to carry this to the end, although of course they can ally with folks who can.
Moreover, right now I’m confident that well-meaning (and some fly by night operators) are lining up at the doors (virtually) of countless municipal and county executives trying to convince them to fund largely non-evidence based pet projects. Some of these programs will be based on empirically tested social scientific research, while others will be chosen because of their originators best hopes and dreams.
Finally, few activists and commentators have mentioned the long and recent history of municipal corruption that has plagued the United States. Cities such as Baltimore, Detroit, New Orleans, and New York, for example, have been epicenters for this kind of activity. It is also possible that the money will be spent on projects that financially benefit municipal and county executives, including their families and friends, through no bid contracts, and sham organizations.
These are sobering possibilities that must be taken into consideration alongside efforts to defund the police if meaningful change is expected.
It’s great that there is now an increased sense of purpose to reexamine how much money we spend on policing, and how it has not produced the outcomes we desire.
It’s also helpful to examine where our tax dollars go, but also to be careful of what you ask for, as you may end up getting it.