COVID-19: The Simple Solution to Racial Riots

From Worldometer,  COVID-19 new deaths:

DAY           USA   WORLD  Brazil  India South Africa

May     13    1772     5314

            14    1715     5317
            15    1595     5072
            16    1218     4360
            17      865     3618
            18    1003     3445
            19    1552     4589
            20    1403     4685
            21    1418     4934         1188     150         30
            22    1293     5252           966     142         28
            23    1036     4183           965     142         10
            24      617     2826           703     156         22
            25      505     3096           806     148         52
            26      774     4048         1027     172         43
            27    1535     5283         1148     190         28
            28    1223     4612         1067     177         25
            29    1212     4873         1180     269         34
            30    1015     4084           890     205         32

Summary: All drops.  Good.  However, reportage lags on weekends.

The circumstances surrounding racial riots is another example of perceived reality, a state of mind that regularly appears on Sundays.  If a thousand smart people wrote a thousand books on the solution to racial riots, nothing much will spur a real solution.  For one, this has happened already and the nation is today afire.  So what are the odds for me in the next few words to develop the first fail-proof strategy?  Read on.

Let me start with me.  I was born in 1940.  Hawaii had a white above all mentality then.  The society was paternalistic.  Non-whites were largely second-class in stature.  Caucasians never had any kind of racial majority at any time, unlike in the USA, which historically has been white:  81% in 1790, 90% in 1940 and 72% today.  Racial percentage in Hawaii:

           Caucasian  Japanese

1940          26            37
1950          25            37
1960          32            32
1970          39            28
1980          33            25
2010          41            23

In summary:

• Legislators and business leaders were mostly Caucasian.  
• There was racial unrest, mostly due to strikes.  
• Then came World War II where the heroics of the Japanese totally changed the local society when they returned.  The GI bill and new found voting power switched political control from white to asian.   
• Statehood came in 1959 and today the ethnicity with the highest percentage is Filipino, with Caucasian #2 and Japanese #3.  
• Of course there remains a legacy of racial prejudice here and there, but there has never been racial riots.  
• Even when I returned back home to work in the 60's it was difficult for a Japanese-American to find a position in industry, even if you had a chemistry or engineering or architecture degree.  Thus government and education jobs were all that were left.  Engineers worked at Pearl Harbor and females became teachers.
• When I left for Stanford University I was coming from the ghetto called Kakaako which had 90+% Japanese, and a high school known as Tokyo High.  It was a shock to be the only Japanese in my class, with no Blacks.  I also don't remember anyone who was Hispanic.  I was so much a minority that I certainly was not a threat, and I found absolutely no prejudices.  
• My professional career saw this transition.  The sugar industry no doubt made a decision to expand opportunities, so they hired me, and treated me well.  But Stanford taught me how to get along with Caucasians, something that also was helpful when I eventually became a university professor.
• However, it was still a problem to move into certain neighborhoods in the 1960's.  The sister property of 15 Craigside, Arcadia, for example, did not allow asians to move in.
• When I went to LSU I was caught in-between black and white.  Turned out asians are considered to be sort of white in Louisiana and the south.  My wife and I had no problems with life in Baton Rouge, and could drive and stay at hotels throughout the nation.  The Green Book is a good example of how difficult it was for blacks.
• The result is that Hawaii is now a symbol of racial equality and harmony.  Again, this is not totally true, but a lot better than anywhere else...and certainly the other 49 states.  If you think Alaska is like Hawaii, I was just there and saw some problems.

I can't use Hawaii as an example of what the USA can do.  We are different, we worked out our differences, and lucked out by the circumstances.

So what is my fail-proof solution for the nation?  Time, effort and persistence.  How much time?

• Slavery ended with the Civil War.
• However, it took a century for the Civil Rights Act to pass.
• You saw yesterday a list of all those racial riots, where I stopped counting at a hundred.
• Crime is complex subject.  For statistics, go here.
• Stereotyping has a hugely negative connotation.  But it is real.  We all store in our mind information that determines how we react to situations.  No one would pass a morality test based on our experiences.  Perceived reality is not always right or fair, but you regularly need to make instant decisions.  Let's take a simple case of a white person walking towards a black male on a dark street.  Just one bit of information in your mind (and there are hundreds, like films you've seen, TV news stories, etc.) is the following:

• If you're white, you know that blacks can be dangerous, for they dominate the prison statistics.  There will be a tendency to be watchful, so you walk across the street or whatever your perceived reality decides.  We all have ingrained survival instincts.  Is this wrong?  Probably. But it's my life.
• Similarly, a black youth just approaching a white policeman.  Can you image what is going through the minds of both.  This happens many times a day, your whole life for some, with horrible memories.
• Police officers are mostly dependable at work.  However, growing up, I noticed that there were "many" classmates who were the bullies in school and who did the hijacking joining the police force.  Certainly most will mature and become more responsible, but not all.  Incredibly, 40%...40% of police officer families experience domestic violence.  Say this 5% of the total force, and it could well be 1%, are prone to violence.  When you have 1000 of them in your city, 1% results in 10 danger spots.  Sure you should cull out the worst ones, but the scary part about this potential is that these ten are usually asymptomatic.  You really can't predict what will happen in a crisis.   In an emergency, not knowing the perpetrator (who could well be totally innocent), sometimes the worse can happen.  I think this is what occurred in the George Floyd / Derek Chauvin incident in Minnesota.  It will happen again, and again...for the next few decades.
• People in this democracy have an obligation to protest inequalities.  But peaceful doesn't mean blocking roads/bridges, looting and setting things on fire.
• Sure, you can restructure rules, set curfews, better train the police, pass more laws and everything else that has already been done, many times, without much effect.   
• Equal rights crusades, Black Lives matter or whatever, nothing seems to have any kind of salvation effect.
• How do you get people more equal?  In the U.S. we have recently gone in the wrong direction.  The rich get richer.  Or is this the American way?  Working harder and becoming successful has definite racial overtones.
• You are politically powerless if you are in the minority. That is how the Constitution was written.   In Hawaii it might have been different, but circumstances are not always the same.  
• Why after a century has the black community not normalized?  Look at George Floyd, he abandoned his wife and daughter in Houston, where he spent time in jail for armed robbery.  And, incidentally, nowhere on news channels do they even mention this.  Why?  Blacks:
• and Hispanics have less education and live in higher poverty
• have a household income average of $30,555, less than half of whites and one-third that of asians
• two-thirds of children live in a single-parent family
• What happened to Equal Opportunity?
• equal opportunity is supposed to be a state of fairness in job applicants
• but if your education level is lower, you don't get this opportunity
• But there was an Equal Educational Opportunities Act of 1974:
• it has mostly worked, for discrimination and segregation were made illegal
• in fact, some universities interpreted this to be:  admit blacks even though they are not quite qualified, for they have financial and educational limitations and need some extra help
• What is equal?
• interestingly enough, the Ivy League schools adjusted their selection requirements to use other factors than say grades or exams to balance their classes, leading to a lawsuit by asians for denying them entrance by merit because they scored so much better than other races
• entrance exams in the University of California System led to an even lower black enrollment and much higher asian percentage, leading to abandonment of these tests
• To summarize:
• a hundred years after the end of slavery the plight of blacks have materially improved
• more than half a century after the Civil Rights Act, with additional laws to skew the educational and job factors to help deserving ethnicities and a past Black President, the relative lifestyle remains deplorable, considering the "greatness" of America
• One thing not to do is to say, forget it, it's impossible and hopeless, so give up.
• I don't think Congress passing any more laws will make much difference, but if Democrats control both houses and the White House on November 3, they can begin to make adjustments that can help in the long term.  Only 8% of blacks voted for Donald Trump in 2016, and this percentage won't change much this year, although surprisingly, it could rise to 10%.
• Essentially, you need to raise the economic level for blacks, which will, over time, lead to a more stable life.  The nuclear family is disintegrating anyway, so the disparity will decrease into the next century.
• When you come down to it, you would hope that education can ultimately make the key difference.  
• Democrats tend to be a lot more understanding, while Republicans push for private schools, so politics can be a difference maker
• as good black role models at home increase, so will motivation for the next generation
• The answer to fewer racial riots is a future with more equal income and education levels for blacks.
• Mutual respect can only come when respect is earned.  We are nowhere close to getting to this stage.
• It would really help if the President of the USA is someone who is not like Donald Trump, who only knows how to worsen any crisis.
• The right prevailing attitude from all sides will naturally evolve, but only if a certain level of equality and respect is reached.  I'm a Democrat, but I never before had any notion that Democrats actually held the key for making Americans better.  Yet, from a Republican viewpoint, will the economy suffer because of this transition?
• So back to Time, Effort and Perseverance.  This will take generations, but only with true effort, persistence and attitude.  That is the Simple Solution.

I'm into 1999, a momentous year for me, as I retired, totally changing my life.  Otherwise:

• The Euro is introduced.
• China controls internet at home.
• Pluto, now not a planet anymore, which was closer to the Sun from 1999, entered an orbit further away than Neptune.  Pluto will again be closer in the year 2231.  It might still not be a planet, by definition.

• Bill Clinton acquitted of impeachment.
• Hungary, Poland and Czech Republic join NATO.
• For the first time, the Dow Jones closes above 10,000.
• Bill Gates becomes the wealthiest person on Earth.
• Oklahoma tornado hits 301 miles/hour, highest ever.

• After 22 years of restoration, da Vinci's The Last Supper (above) is placed back on display in Milan.  Wait a minute, I thought I saw this painting in the Vatican?  Nope, the one I viewed was by Cosimo Rosselli and Biagio d'Antonio, and finished 15 years before da Vinci's.

• Falun Gong banned in China.
• U.S. Senate rejects ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.  Big deal you say?  Nope, our Senate rejects all treaties.  Long story.  What about the Kyoto Protocol for global warming?  President Clinton just bypassed the Senate, and signed the treaty.  The Paris Agreement?  Sure Trump will pull out, but he can't until November 4 by how the document is written.  In any case, the U.S. Senate hasn't ratified it, and won't, ever.

• Exxon and Mobil merge, creating the largest corporation in the world.
• Macau returned by Portugal to China.
• U.S. gives up the Panama Canal to Panama.

• Vladimir Putin takes over as leader of Russia.  Yup, he has, changing titles every so often, been running the country for more than 20 years.  I wonder how Donald Trump will try to do this?

Here are the #1 hits of 1999 in seven minutes.  I must have been out of the country, because it took me into 3 minutes of this clip to recognize the first song, I Want it That Way by the Backstreet Boys.  When this was over, I knew three songs.  See how you do.  The #1 song of the year was Believe by Cher, who was 53 years old then.

Today, I end with puppies (what a home!):

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