The US teeters on the brink of 2 million confirmed infections and more than 110 thousand deaths.
South Africa’s numbers continue an ominous rise: now more than 50 thousand infections (increasing by more than 2,500 eahc day for the last several days) and 1,080 deaths.
Brazil ranks second in the world – behind the US - with infections and first with recording new deaths, more than any other nation. Its health ministry found the best route to keeping numbers down: hide them or fudge them.
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Mind boggling. In 2015, then-FBI Director James Comey told the House Judiciary Committee,"People have data about who went to a movie last weekend ... [but] I cannot tell you how many people were shot by police in the United States last month, last year, or anything about the demographics. … We can't have an informed discussion, because we don't have data… And that's a very bad place to be."Indeed.
The data we do have points to a grotesque truth: “American police shoot, kill and imprison more people than other developed countries.”
Clearly, something must change.
My first take on the increasingly popular notion in the US of defunding police departments was, “oh, yeah, right. Like that’s going to happen.”
I’m still skeptical. Not because it’s impossible but because of pushback by folks like, well, Joe Biden. Downplaying America’s law and order mentality and defanging police would be akin to ridding American of guns: many powerful reasons to do so but American gun ideology and culture is too entrenched in gun worship.
History is a great place to begin understanding how We the People got to this terrible place with aggressive police and ‘law and order’ culture.
Isaac Bryan, the director of UCLA's Black Policy Center, points to history: Law enforcement in the South began as slave patrol, a team of vigilantes hired to recapture escaped slaves. Then, when slavery was abolished, police enforced Jim Crow laws - even [for] the most minor infractions.Viva la different!
And today, police disproportionately use force against black people, and black people are more likely to be arrested and sentenced.
Bryan said, "That history is engrained in our law enforcement". (Read about origins of police in US. )
Defunding the police means reallocating those funds to support people and services in marginalized communities. It "means that we are reducing the ability for law enforcement to have resources that harm our communities," said Patrisse Cullors, co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement…. "It's about reinvesting those dollars into black communities, communities that have been deeply divested from."
Those dollars can be put back into social services for mental health, domestic violence and homelessness, among others. Police are often the first responders to all three… Those dollars can be used to fund schools, hospitals, housing and food in those communities, too - "all of the things we know increase safety."
…
It's radical for an American city to operate without law enforcement, but the plan is already in motion in Minneapolis..[after] nine members of the Minneapolis city council announced they intend to disband the city's police force entirely.
"We committed to dismantling policing as we know it in the city of Minneapolis and to rebuild with our community a new model of public safety that actually keeps our community safe," Council President Lisa Bender told CNN.
…the council still needs to discuss what to replace police with, but that the city would funnel money from police into "community-based strategies." She noted, too, that most 911 calls are for mental health services, health and EMT and fire services.
…"A week ago, defunding the police in any capacity would sound like 'pie in the sky,'… Now we're talking about it. Defunding police in its entirety still might sound like 'pie in the sky,' but next week might be different."
Meanwhile, back at the ranch…
Second day of walking around the neighborhood – alone. Today I forgot my mask at home. Ditto my identity document. Carrying both was mandatory during Level 4. Now? I’m not sure. That added anxiety to the pleasure of being out, winter sun warming my face as I noticed recent changes in the ‘hood.Walking alone can be risky. Muggings are common. (A year ago, a friend’s husband – 80 years old - was mugged, robbed, and physically abused by two young men.)
Lockdown fever, however, demands I choose: risk? Or insanity?
Risk wins.
***
The gardener returned to work. Until I’ve a better sense of where things are heading vis-a-vis Covid-19 in this area, he’ll work one, perhaps two, days a week. He mowed the outlying section of lawn and bush-cut overgrown grass along the stream. We bagged the clippings – 9 large sacks full – for our neighbor. His brother, a farmer, feeds grass clippings to his calves.
I’ve almost eradicated invasive canna plants from the inside garden.
The cleared area is like a canvas waiting for an artist to apply paint. Or, as a ceramic sculptor I'd say, like a bag of raw clay ready for wedging. (A ceramicist wedging raw clay looks a bit like a baker kneading bread dough. Kneading bread dough introduces air pockets for a lighter loaf. Wedging clay removes air pockets and creates a pliable, uniform consistency in clay.)
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