The Return of Ayers

 It was a long day, and I probably need to sleep, but there was one thing I wanted to get out.

Bennie Thompson has ordered an investigation into racial inequity in how Mississippi distributed federal infrastructure funds, and the NAACP and others are saying they're preparing a civil case with the same claim.  

All of this reminds me of the Ayers case, which Thompson was also involved in.  Like the Ayers case, I believe the plaintiffs are correct, and there was racial inequity in how these funds were distributed.  Like the Ayers case, I believe the state of Mississippi may have followed the letter of the law, but perhaps not the spirit of the law.  Having spoken to some of the players involved, I feel confident that Mississippi did follow the letter of the law, but that doesn't mean they aren't still liable for the plaintiff's claims.

So far, so good.  Here's my problem, though, and it's a pragmatic one.  It took over thirty years for Ayers to reach a conclusion.  While the plaintiffs got some of their demands, they didn't get them all, and there were some very, very lean years for the HBCUs in Mississippi, waiting for a verdict in Ayers.  Jackson can't go thirty years without reliable drinking water.  There won't be anybody left living in the city to rebuild the infrastructure for.  

I don't know the answer.  Racial inequity in the handling of federal funds has to be addressed.  But my city is dying, and while this may help Jackson in the long run, if the long run is thirty years, I very worried about the short run.  Ayers had a very liberal Supreme Court tipping the scale in the plaintiff's favor.  That situation no longer exists.  

Jake Ayers died in 1986.  The Ayers suit didn't close until 2004.  I don't want Jackson to be dead when the water treatment suit finally settles.  

Men Without Faith

When considering the issue of crime in Jackson and other areas, a lot of people see a lot of things; what I see are young men who don't believe the American dream applies to them, so they take what they can get.  They may not believe they can work hard, obey the rules, and get anywhere in life, but they know they can be a thug and get an iPhone and maybe some gold chains, and it becomes a bird in the hand situation.

Doing the work and making the dream happen is on them, but this country spent generations making sure the American Dream didn't apply to people like them, so now it's our job to somehow make sure they believe things are different.  Making them believe is on us.  Reparations and transfer socialism won't solve anything long term.  If you can't change a man's heart, you won't change anything.  

I'm probably the worst person to be talking about this.  I had every advantage in the world, but I still didn't believe in myself or in the system.  That doesn't mean I'm giving up.  Having been there myself, I know men can change.  A young man can be the most powerful creative force in the world if he believes.  He can be the most destructive if he does not.  

There's nowhere you can run from this.  There's no suburb you can move to, there's no gated community you can hide behind, America is split in two, and one half doesn't believe there's any hope and doesn't believe in themselves or us, the other half believes they can outrun the problem, and it'll go away, so they move further and further away from their home.

The answer to me is quite clear.  We can only take these two broken halves and somehow meld them together.  I don't exactly know how to do that.  I wish I did.  I know they will have to give up a bit of their culture, and we'll have to give up a bit of ours, and together we'll have to forge a new culture, a new history, and a new future.  Two broken cultures must become one whole one.

I hate having this conversation because it always comes out as the same bullshit people have been trying to sell us since the sixties, and however we've been trying to make it happen, it obviously hasn't been working.  I do, though.  I do.  I do.  I do believe.  I just don't know how to do it. 
It is the only way.  I know that.  I don't want to leave this problem to my grandchildren or great-grandchildren or great-great-grandchildren like it was left to me.