Author: Duty Bound Leftist

If there was a perfect case for the overall benefits of government, it would be the USPS. Everyday there's another reason to ignore what's in front of you.

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Knicks Uncategorized

The 2020-2021 Knicks Roaster Prediction [L]

As we’re on the cusp of a shortened free agency in the year of Our Lord 2020 anything is possible. With around 20m of cap space left, NYK is in the possession to take on contracts for picks, which they’ve already begun. The line-up is hard to predict so some players will be omitted because I believe there’s a chance they’re either not here at game one, or by the trade deadline.
My Starters – Ntilikina, Quickley, RJ, OBI 1, Robinson
My Bench – Payton, Rivers, Evans, Randle, Noel
My Reserves – Knox, Powell, DSJ, Bullock, Spellman
No issue being wrong but there’s one low hanging fruit for an “if” situation I could think of.

If the Kings want to keep Bogdanovic and match the Hawks offer sheet…

NYK Receives – Corey Joseph (12.6m*/2yrs), Kings 2021 2nd Rd
Kings Receives – DSJ (5.6m/1yr)

This gives the Kings the ability to just be under the cap one more year before the Fox extension kicks in. Unless there’s some other cap-positive moves made, they won’t likely be under the cap for the following 5 years with that extension. The Knicks get the better version of a veteran point making Payton another bench point to maybe flip for another 2nd at a similar contract value and contract length.

It’s early, but maybe the weather is changing in the Garden. While gathering future second round picks isn’t the sexiest thing to do, on some level, acquiring assets is necessary for being able to pack offers for disgruntled stars. Now it’s not as simple to have the ability to but to also have a structure in place that is attractive to those stars as they leave less prepared teams.

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Incomplete Thoughts Thought Blurbs

What is the value of life?

What is the monetary value you would pay to achieve just an elevation of an anxiety? What is the value anyone can evaluate that would ever justify the loss of life. Those outcomes to where there is a loss of life are the worst possible outcomes. On the most basic level, survival is based on how well you do in having outcomes that minimize the loss of life. We label it humanity but there’s a profound arrogance with that notion, that we are somehow connected to the engineers of the world around us. Whether its some random chaos or the shared basic values most religions or organizations of thought have, we are only grasping at the straws for understanding how life and nature are. Attempting to solve those mysteries shouldn’t be demonized but framed as what they really are, an attempt to understand, to learn. I think we should always be centering our thoughts about society to minimize the pain of the suffering at the expense of those whose crimes bare sentencing.

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Incomplete Thoughts Scale Measurement Thoughts

Incomplete Thoughts

A pet peeve of mine is discussions about any kind of outcome without validity tied to it. Relating that to Basketball, as the post season has developed along with the continuous inflammatory situations with non-basketball related things with police and black people, how can we begin to think of what’s to come? Remember that all these players are people and in times of crisis, we’re wired to crave certain things when the world around us doesn’t make sense. To be emotionally and mentally alone without your family, especially if you have children must be difficult. These men and women have a lot of free time to think and figure out what they want for these costs in the future, and what makes the decision to play in these isolated conditions. With the news about D. Mitchell and signing a max extension with UTA, and with the Bucks floundering, there’s a world where Antetokounmpo is in TOR and Siakam is left feeling like DeMar DeRozan on the Bucks. A coach Giannis could trust since he won’t question the coaches decisions in game and he developed that trust and respect for Bud. I would say for those reasons that how he expressed himself at the end of the loss against the Butler-led Heat should be troubling.

He seemed to express a feeling of helplessness because the problem is the supporting cast he’s been raising haven’t recognized how much he’s been burdening. In the most recent game he had 3 assists so he didn’t pass well is maybe something you’d think but it couldn’t be further from the truth. Every moment is a playoff game matters, there’s a weight to it and even if it results in a worse loss, if Giannis is passing the ball when three collapse, you need to shoot and with confidence. Even if every shoot is missed, your teammate needs to see that so he can continue to face the wall in front of him. It’s not to say you MUST shoot, but there was too much second guessing and scared passing away from the moment. How’s you’re super star going to feel when he’s going all out, his teammates can’t support him. That’s going to factor into how happy he feels about his team when they face serious contention. If that’s a reality, wouldn’t it make Fred VanVleet more of an complement to help Giannis play with some more space and the ability to punish the way defenses play a “wall” against him. In this world, if FVV not a free agent for NY any longer to pursue, how can you empower your current players?

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Data Graphs Politics Scale Measurement Thoughts

How should we unpack? – 2020 Election

The election we’re having in 2020 is going to be important for countless different reasons but the main thing that’s going to be on peoples mind is going to be COVID-19. Not November 3rd but Oct 9th, 18th, and the 27th, the three weeks prior to the election. If this was a court of law, the evidence would be circumstantial but also past the point of the severity. It would cross a threshold where any standard of deviation doesn’t change the grim picture ahead. While COVID-19 is now begun to being an endemic virus, this is not thing to simply ignore for the populations health and the way that compounds to higher rates of death. Some of what we’ve learned gives us a better glimpse to what we can expect regarding the outcomes of the virus spread. One is that it is rapid and can take days to develop symptoms but with that is deaths lag so don’t fall for rising infections without deaths. We know three-four weeks out of a surge of infections do the deaths begin to add up and we begin to tally them.

First is to look outside to what can be learned for most countries to understand our outlandish position. India has peaked for now but shows the immense risk for their populations. Europe is currently in their second wave, which began to really show itself the end of August. Spain, France, and the Untied Kingdom cases are rising dramatically and providing proof to the theory of the second wave being worse than the first. Mexico is trending upwards and while Brazil’s trends are falling right now, they’re outcomes vary greatly. Lastly, is that Germany seems to be the model not our neighbors to the north. Canada’s cases are starting to resemble the rises Spain and France were beginning to see a month ago.

Coming back home, cases on a whole have begun to rise, but not at the same rate as the European countries in particular are experiencing their second waves. We cannot measure the space the United States is in through the same way we analyze them because they’re statistical profile is so different, highlighted during the summer, you cannot glean the same outcomes in response to COVID-19. Where it’s relative is we really need to understand the scale of the current rise of cases in the United States. The fear is our second wave of the virus can look a lot more catastrophic compared to what these other countries are facing now. Let’s take the analogy of the pandemic waves and think of it literally. The data can represent the crests of the first waves.

The number’s can be used to represent how many cm of height to a wave.
ex: America’s wave would be 750m high compared to Canada’s 27m high.
Current day waves where the same rule can apply.
Ex. America’s wave would now be 370m high compared to Spain’s 102m
This is with an outlier day reported in Spain on September 28th.
Ex. Spain’s wave would now be 310m high compared to the 102m avg.

Now taking out the United States, those other Countries dropped their cases down to a low level for an extended period of time due to their populations preventive behaviors. There’s a clear visible trend to see the rise in cases and be properly concerned to ready yourself once more for being more diligent/militant in those behaviors as they did in March through May/June. The issue with their outcomes and what the United States is that the cases never fell to any discernable level of acceptance to signify the end of a wave.

The situation in America it’s closer to resembling a never ending storm surge that has/had been dropping very slowly. To really understand the current leveling off and stagnation of cases is largely due to behavior in populations and schools holding in-person classes for the wrong age group. For that we need to go to state by state data to know what’s happening beneath the surge for what a second wave looks like for us. Only Arizona, Connecticut, Florida*, Georgia, Louisiana*, NY, NJ, Oklahoma, and Vermont are falling in cases. Twelve other states are stagnant as far as number but that isn’t a good because if the cases have not fallen to low levels like like NY, NJ and Vermont did, that stagnation is not a sufficient and can be viewed in the negative. In the writing of this piece, New York and New Jersey have begun to see their cases rise, Florida’s cases are dropping due to their elderly populations sensitivity to COVID-19. As the dust settles, there are still 40+ states in vulnerable situations where there are 23 states that cases are rising significantly, nine of which are rising in very dramatic levels. Of the 23 states with rising cases, most are almost all rural, but predominantly red states (13 or 56%). While all states were impacted by the first wave, Trump himself made the calculation of looking only at Republican run states as far as judging the response to COVID-19. The issue is that this data is maintaining a stagnation to the already slow falling American cases.

Remembering the first point of the United States having over 80% of the those states are in compromised situations. Next is that due to the issue of the size of our first wave potentially blinding us to and exponential rise in cases which in it’s first iteration or wave, crippled the global economy. Third is that Europe is proving the theory of the second wave being worse than the first wave. In finality, we know that deaths are a lagging indicator so when this begins to really impact a majority of red lead states, there will be a shift. If there’s a coalition of folks who want to have maintained power the data would suggest to, none stop talk about healthcare and the mishandling of COVID-19 by Trump and Conservative leaders. It is not combative to the importance of November 3rd because if that date holds greater importance, the Biden/Harris Campaign or any coalition that wants power would promise and DELIVER on healthcare. It’s really that simple.

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How to unpack? Politics Scale Measurement Thoughts

How should we unpack? -White Supremacy (Pt 2)

Topics: Killings by Police, Prison, Poverty, Home Ownership, & Market Measures (Business)

Early this week I was being enraged by the idea that anyone could ever defend the baseless idea that there’s no such thing as systemic racism. I’m not even sure if the point isn’t to deny that systemic racism doesn’t exist, but to minimize the scope of the problem. I tried to pull the best facts I could to have a document that highlights not only the existence but the very scale of these issues in the things Americans care about most. Front of mind are shared impacts in this immediate moment before touching on Pt.3 which would be legislation should look like to right the undeniable existence of white supremacy through systematic racism. This will likely get long so please use: ctrl + f and use the topics we’re going to cover for ease of navigation.

Killings by Police
Whenever someone is killed by the police, it should be viewed as a failure to prevent loss of life. It means that officers have failed in their duty to deescalate a situation by focusing on protection and safety with their service. Instead of focusing on those cases to which evil seeps from the shadows with anticipation, (Pt. 4 should that come), this is a quick point in that focuses on data gathered on statista.com and PEW research center for population to measure how the cop murder rate compared between Black and White Americans.
Averaging murders by police from 2017-2019 in reported communities (Black, Hispanic, & White) gives you an average of 759 average annual killings, 409 being White, 222 being Black, and 128 being Hispanic. Taking the PEW data from 2017, populations of those groups is that 64% of the total population is white, 12% is Black, and 16% are Hispanic. Now we bring together to the population of those murdered by police and their proportion of total population to compare these groups to each other. While white victims are 53% of all police killings, by their comparison to population they’re killed at a rate 2.9 times less than black Americans on average every year.
On a very basic level, this translates to for every white American killed by the police, three black Americans are killed. If you scaled the populations to equal size, that’s almost 1200 black people killed every year.

Prison
From the latest report from prisonpolicy.org and diving into the actual prison data from the PEW data center more than shows that white supremacist simply used the stipulation to continue the slave industry. Highlighted at the end of Pt. 1, slavery is allowed if it’s subjugating convicted prisoners. I proposed that they were successful and the proof is in the data. First is that the size of the problem is never fully captured. The “Justice System” controls over 7 million people which more than half are on probation of some form.
Second anywhere from 2-2.4 Million people are in prison at any give time. About half a million of that population have not been convicted and are sitting in jails because they cannot pay their bail (tax on the poor; indentured servitude). Add the people there for non-violent drug offenses and you have 900,000 to 1,000,000 people in jail whom are simply not convicted or convicted of minor drug offenses.
Rounding out the scaled view and comparing the prison population compared as we did before to the total population of Black and White people, the incarceration rate is 6:1. To frame it the same way, for every one white person incarcerated, there are six black persons incarcerated.

Poverty
Pairing the data from Census’s from mid 2000’s to about 2011 and a sponsored cite of the Economic Policy Institute (EPI; stateofworkingamerica.org), removed from most of Trumps America to highlight how these issues are only amplified by Trump and conservative legislation. Poverty for Native American’s is the highest the Census found at 27% with Black poverty trailing right behind being at 25.8%. Pairing that with the state of working america provides (27.4%), you can average out 26-27% poverty rate for black Americans. Hispanic poverty rest in a range that varies greatly, anywhere from 16-26%, depending on country of ethnicity. In contrast, the white poverty rate rests between 10% (SOWA.org) and 11% (Census) respectively. These numbers have already been scaled per their comparison to their respective populations.
Poverty is the measure of income inequality to some degree since those in poverty are threatened by great degree from those with unequaled wealth . Consistency is important and a bit dry, but for every white person subjected to poverty and austerity, 2.6-2.7 black Americans are subjected to that same financial austerity. Add trigger happy cops and the pressures of the prison-for-profit pipeline measured above, it’s hard to imagine how black people in this country could stand for these injustices any longer.
The next four points are for those tone deaf and filled with empty platitudes. Simply saying things like, “Invest in property/Buy a home,” or “Take a risk and start a business,” will accomplish nothing if the person speaking doesn’t mention the context to which people in adverse situations live. There’s also the moment we’re in and how underlying things we know are bleaker still.

Home Ownership
In an analysis of data by CNBC with the Urban Institute, the current gap of black and white home ownership in America is 30%. To give that stark number further context, the gap was 27% in 1960 back when housing legislation was explicitly and fundamentally racist. That’s just over a 10% increase from a period of explicit racist housing and redlining policy, to another period where those policies have been deemed unconstitutional. I’m personally unable to square that right now but I will unpack this in another piece to which I can learn more and bring a nuanced point of view. The gap being in a range between 27-30% is unacceptable and regardless and is another arrow in the quiver of “proof” of systemic racism.

Market Measures / Businesses
Taking the numbers from the Small Business Administration, by volume of business’ their size relative to their distribution of population is the least deviated. As we’ve state above, white people make up 64% of the population, black people are 12%, and Hispanic or Latin is 16%. Now there’s still some deviation since white owned business’ make up 71% of all total business (19 million). Looking at black owned business’ at 9.5% (2.6 million), and Latin owned business’ being 12.2% (3.3 million) of the totality of the industry.
There’s ultimately nothing nefarious about the amount of business’ being slightly larger or smaller than percentage of total population. The proof of the inequality stands in the total market sales and the control of U.S. work force (roughly 162 million people). Total market sales is a measure of the liquid economy; goods and services provided to the consuming American people. While white business’ make up 71% of business’, they have 88% of the market sales, and controls 86.5% of the U.S. work force. Conversely black business’ are just under 10% of the business sector, and only make up 1.3% of the market and 1.7% of the work force. Now to be clear, these boundaries aren’t clearly defined but the best way to frame total market sales to the laymen is this is the data that feeds the Stock Market and capital injections (i.e, investments). It’s important to grasping that the idea of market based financial options for attaining and growing black wealth is only true in a very limited and specific scope.
It didn’t happen without immense and continued adversity accompanied with being completely ‘present’ and within a social prison; just another rabbit hole for another time.
Bringing this back to the subject, that is a 9:1 ratio of money going to white verse black business’ despite the relative matching of amount of business being within reason of population. This bleakly illustrates that while there’s been progress from a society with explicitly racist laws, unfortunately there’s a superficiality to the gains made and a severity of the ones in front of us.

In this pieces finality is the goal of summarizing before I asses substantive and legislative measures for progress. The problems do not exist in a silo so the above was the background to understanding the very simple and basic ask that black lives matter. Imagine a world where you were three times as likely to be killed by police than if you were white. Should you be fortunate enough to live, you’re also arrested at six times the rate of white Americans. Compared to your community of color, almost three times as many black Americans are in poverty compared to white Americans. I hope to get a grasp onto how the housing gap is larger now than in 1960, but it still speaks to how ingrained this problem is. In the rare chance a black American isn’t involved in a debilitating pressures of a racist judicial system and are able to persist and start their own business and begin generating wealth, the economy funnels money to white owned business’.
At this point I always try and share one quote from James Baldwin. The quote is but the tip of the iceberg in recognition of the pain Black american’s are subjected to. It’s long, like this series here will be because there’s a lot to consider in the scale of systematic racism.

To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a state of rage almost, almost all of the time — and in one’s work. And part of the rage is this: It isn’t only what is happening to you. But it’s what’s happening all around you and all of the time in the face of the most extraordinary and criminal indifference, indifference of most white people in this country, and their ignorance. Now, since this is so, it’s a great temptation to simplify the issues under the illusion that if you simplify them enough, people will recognize them. I think this illusion is very dangerous because, in fact, it isn’t the way it works. A complex thing can’t be made simple. You simply have to try to deal with it in all its complexity and hope to get that complexity across.

James Baldwin, 1961 Radio interview about what it’s like to be Black in America

~Until next time

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How to unpack? Politics

How should we unpack? – Subsidies

Subsidies- a sum of money granted by the government or a public body to assist an industry or business so that the price of a commodity or service may remain low or competitive.

However the statement makes you feel I have a question that I can’t make sense of. Is this different from state sponsorship? Regardless of what you feel of any specific subsidies or groups of subsidies, is it just another way of having state sponsored business? Well due to the decision of corporation having a right to vote, I believe we can look at subsidies from a leftist point of view. If corporations can vote as actual people do, I’ve got a new industry in need of help to make whole. The Peoples of the United States are part of a union called the workforce. In one of the most shocking moments within our own “societal measure of economies”, that workforce is down currently between 10-25%. That’s not even the analysis of how many of those jobs are barely keeping out of homelessness.

If shutting down the economy with some degree of agency will cause a rise in mortality, what about a shutting down due to the fragility of institutions? What about the newly termed “essential” jobs? Defined just as a basic needs (consumable/service) so people could function in times of crisis; the way the structures cut growth incentives for profit. It’s not really an argument although I’ll listen for a bit so long as its cogent. Have empathy and sorrow for the loss of life. We know the limits of the current systems and leaders incapable of understanding the moment. Now there needs to be a lot of work in framing the argument for differences achievable right now with goals for the future. If they say corporations are people, the people’s corporation need subsidies because the people’s ‘industry‘ is the work force because that workforce comprises all of industry.

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How to unpack? Scale Measurement Thoughts

Can we unpack COVID-19?

Truth be told, I’m not sure what’s going to happen but the trends are not looking great. In some ways you first need the story of the numbers which can now give us a glimpse of what we can expect because some places in the world have gone through a viral cycle of sorts. Now while the context of numbers can be lost on some, I want to share where I’m getting this from Duc C. Vuong. A lot of what of this is will be based off his video(s) late in August. He’s been a great resource all through the pandemic but before we get into the roots, the focus is trying to understand whats happening in the world.

During the first wave* of the pandemic we had no context for the numbers of infected and those who died. On April 1st when Spain and France were the face of the pandemic as Italy was beginning to drop, Spain had 9,700 cases (8,000 7-day avg) and on August 28th, they had almost 9800 cases (7,600 7-day avg). Likewise, France had 4,800 cases (4,500 7-day avg) and just had 7,000 cases (4600 7-day avg) on August 28th. The last piece of context is Italy and at their peak when most of the Western World, sadly, began to emphasize with the people suffering from COVID-19. At their peak they were are over 5,000 cases, sustained for over a week. While not as radical, they’re not at the same pace, cases have begun to rise as they’re climbing above 20% of their countries first peak.

*In America, please read: start. context below

In the United States, there was no end to the first wave… for the understanding of the impacts there.

As for the United States, which never flattened the numbers of cases or deaths to any sort of most of the world achieved as, our outcomes may be the most bleak. Now that we have the context for countries above as to where they stand right now (very bleak), how do we contextualize the space the United States is in. An effective way is to attempt to try and focus on the stories the numbers are telling us based on the past six months. Now while I am political this is about empathy as sad or pathetic as that might sound. On the chance anyone outside of my world has a chance to see this and maybe live would be the context above for the analysis below.

There are a few things we can glean from past to give us an idea of the numbers for tomorrow. First would be that the second wave is worse than the first. For countries like Spain and France, unless behavior curbs dramatically, they can see case numbers two to three fold of the first wave. If Italy was on the brink at 5,000 cases a day for a week, what happens if the second wave peak is at 12,000 cases a day? Will their systems collapse and what would that do to all cause mortality? How much non-direct death will be caused from the sheer scale of COVID (3.4% death rate globally: 8-30-2020)? Will there be enough treatment through therapies, or a vaccine by some miracle, to help bring outliers in death rate closer to the mean? Will it be significant enough to combat the pressure that volume of cases puts on their medical systems? Those are the kind of questions Europeans should be asking themselves right now if there’s any way to stymie the second wave begin to crash, west to east.

If those are the questions Europe what are the ones Americans face? What questions give us the context of what’s in front of us? In some ways our adversity is similar, but also quite different. While the scale paints a picture of a death rate between 3 -4% globally, that is not how the United States measure the current crisis. If you took the deaths of Spain (29,000), Italy (35,000), and France(30,000) and compare that to the United States alone the United States during the same period, we still double the deaths. By a factor of 2:1 of COVID mortality since the pandemic began on not a 1:1 comparison, but a 1:3 instead. Simply put, the only way I can contextualize COVID in America is doing what you can to prevent death. How much? It’s not even quantifiable but when we begin to realistically cross into a conversation of being too cautious, maybe that’s when we can find the value of how much or for how long. It’s not relevant when we can’t even prevent the death occurring in this country.

The idea that between 15,000 & 20,000 cases a day before we collectively thought we needed to close schools. Opening them will allow the virus to grow exponentially more than if schools waited a semester especially based on how much worse the loss of life has been in the States. The haphazard decision to open schools by the white house and that being at around 40,000-50,000 cases a day now, how do you begin to reconcile closing them before 20,000 daily cases and opening them before they fall below even 40,000.

Not only do the decisions bare skepticism relating to safety and caution, but the numbers also paint the American reality is worse than the very bleak outlook for Europe. Can the United States rapidly change the behavior of the people? Will there be a fundamental change as far as the white houses approach to COVID? If the numbers of cases can grow as Spain and France are projected above, has the number of people infected potentially limit the growth due to the scale of those already infected? Certainly the United States will have a new peak, but since the first wave never ended, there’s less certainty that can be drawn.

To round out the view Americans should adopt to accomplish as much prevention of death is difficult as our scenario is so different. Personally I believe that sharing our fears and emotions in this moment could be a start (virtually). Outside of that, keeping circles of peoples those whom you truly consider family physically and communicate remotely whether for work or your friends whom are outside of that and be empathetic. This is going to be very dark. Things are going to get worst. As far as death we’re top of the charts and it’s not close. With that, keep in contact with your friends and loved ones. Maintain the distance when in social spaces and do what you can to protect your mouth and nose from either spreading or contracting the virus. In short, wear your masks, wash your hands, and form preventive habits to give you and your family the best chance for lessened pain.

~Stay safe

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How to unpack? Politics

How should we unpack? – White Supremacy (Pt 1)

First, this will be returned to because the biggest issue is first not approaching this from a human looking at an experience of human misery inflected on black people & Native people in the United States.

Below will be sort of a relearning of history that will make you questions what our history class was worth, and rethink when and how we tell it. In short, if you’re informed about this, consider waiting for Pt. 2… whenever that will be. Or check it our to verify what you’re reading.

I like to start by thinking of questions that only exist to say, “but,”. Not because their not useful, but to weed out those whom require a much greater cost (time, patience). If the only point of question is to ONLY bring up doubt without evidence, stop and disengage. The real issue is we’re all ego driven people whom viscerally believe ourselves over others by nature of being alive. In these tense and scary times, us humans can react emotionally and that can create some very divided beliefs. Even so, if we’re to have discourse and have a prosperous society, we must have institutions people believe in. For that to exist, we need to understand our history and the many mistakes that we can learn and correct our entire human experience… is how the argument goes. While the colonization of the Native people and the current day America’s (Central, North, South, or otherwise) is its own tragedy, the humanity stealing and raping white supremacists enacted on black people is unconscionable. In fact it is so deprived, they were in the dreams of what may be the purest form of evil with the systemic video biography and corresponding data the monsters of WWII tracked. Now lets level set.

Long ago in the 1960’s that interracial marriage was illegal. At this point only 51 or 52 years ago was this and a larger scope of corrective policies written as a start of righting the wrong of slavery.
Jim Crow Laws and their impact can only be measured after knowing the scope of impact. The only summary you can take away is the persistence of people who hold these beliefs to deny black people humanity. They’re so ingrained in almost every part of our world and experience. Central Park Karen knows exactly what to do to that would give any person of color an indication of how deep these thoughts are embedded and rot our society.

“The people who settled the country had a fatal flaw. They could recognize a man when they saw one. They knew he wasn’t anything but a man… the only way to justify the role this chattel was playing in one’s life, was to say that he was not a man. For if he wasn’t, then no crime had been committed. That lie is the Basis of our present trouble.”

Eddie Glaude, quoting James Baldwin’s “The White Problem”

The whole essay is entirely worth reading in full but James Baldwin is one of the best voices in precisely showing the links to the past and their effects on the structures build from them echo their very horrors to the present.

Last data point that needs to be shared before Pt. 2 is that prior to the Civil War, there was roughly 4 million black slaves in the United States (1860). To give that a scale of measure, today there are anywhere from 2-2.5 million people incarcerated in the United States. The very caveat of the 13th amendment; “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction,” and understanding that is also the first action of white supremacists answer to that amendment. They tried to create laws specifically to punish black people for the very reason of being black. Since the amendment allowed their to be an exception, they abused that to continue slavery masked under industry (prisons, private or otherwise). Sadly they were successful, but it doesn’t mean society today must accept their vile behavior. We must call it evil and condemn it out of our society.

Until next time~

9-18-20- Pt.2

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Politics Scale Measurement Thoughts

How should we unpack? – Housing

Since the beginning of COVID, I’ve struggled to focus on material benefits. Initially I looked for disagreement because I like to argue on some degree. Instead I want to first see the picture before making any judgement so in that, what is the picture? Where are we as a country and how do we find solutions for material benefits?

The U.S. workforce pre COVID was around 165 million people. Over 40 million folks lost their jobs due to the Coronavirus which converts to an effective unemployment rate of roughly 25%. Will all those jobs be gone forever? No that isn’t likely but there’s a few other numbers to remind ourselves of before we even get there. First is that in 2019, 40% of Americans couldn’t cover a $400 emergency in a reliable way. They would incur a burden that would further their economic disparity. 40% of people living in America is roughly 130-140 million people one emergency away from being unable to pay their recurring expenses. Keeping that in mind, last month, 32% of U.S. households didn’t make their housing payments. In that 19% made no payment, where the other 13% only made a portion of their rent/mortgage. The context from the U.S. Census means that 38 million people in America are at risk for eviction should the trend continue or worsen. Finally, this is also without counting for the racial disparities with this issue from the echoes of Jim Crow making black and brown Americans in particular uniquely disadvantaged. To combat that, any solutions should first tackle the most affected communities because they’re, at minimum, largely in those positions because their families have always been left out in any sort of economic uplifting in the past. Not by accident but purposefully excluded. 

My proposal would be Find, Fill, & Fix. First would be locating the empty apartments, homes, and unused commercial space. Second would be to fill them with people but also fill their hands with tools and their minds with books. Give them time to learn because the first two steps will take some time. Time is needed before the finale, Fix. It is no secret the infrastructure for this country is poor. Implement a federal jobs program for empowering the health of that infrastructure by providing those newly jobless peoples with a guaranteed job with a living wage to help these people break their link to the debt cycles they were caught in prior to the COVID crisis. They would be focused on the areas around the apartment or home and not be limited by uniformity. Allow the people their own space to be creative in their repair of our broken infrastructure so we can begin with a new one one where everyone of every race can be included.

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Pictures

Things to Remember 8/25

😅🤣
Still relevant in the States
😂😂😂😂😂😂
This is ironic. It is also sad. It was also 100% avoidable.