Black Lives Do Matter - so what do we do about it?

I am not a fan of the organization that goes by the name "Black Lives Matter" but I am in complete agreement with the concept that Black Lives Matter.  There are three events in recent months that should be rallying points for all people to come together and recognize it is time to not just protest but offer ideas on how to do more to end the inequality that still exists in America.

The events I refer to are:

• The killing of Ahmaud Arbery - in Georgia a young man killed for no apparent reason while he was jogging and then the local police and local DA find no reason to charge the perpetrators
• The killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis 
• Learning of the higher impact of the Coronavirus on black communities

All Americans, regardless of color, deserve to be viewed as individuals and not by skin color, religion, or any other grouping.  All Americans deserve the same opportunity, the same treatment and respect, the same justice.  Unfortunately, the three events I mention show black Americans are not being given that.  

The question is what do we do about it.  I've written that I reject violence as an answer and that we are missing an opportunity to unite behind ideas to fix these problems.  The next step is to offer ideas to fix the problems.  And it is "ideas" - plural - because there is not one magic idea that solves everything and this won't be fixed overnight either.

Law enforcement:

• The Minneapolis City Council President wants to "dramatically rethink how we approach public safety and emergency response."  I encourage them to do so and look forward to what ideas they come up with.
• Lessons learned - pick 20 instances where black men or women died in an encounter with police, include situations where the police officer was found to not have done something wrong (example as what happened in Ferguson, MO, where the Obama Justice Department determined the officer was not wrong), and evaluate what could the officers have done differently to prevent that death and develop training based on that.  Deaths don't need to happen, justifiable or not.  Give cops real life examples showing how things can be done better.
• Punishment - The toughening of criminal laws that Joe Biden got passed in the '90's went too far one way.  NY's policy of letting people go without bail or regard to their likelihood to commit new crimes, and giving the criminals the names of their accusers so they can hunt them down is too far the other way.  We need to find the happy medium that also eliminates bias based on skin color.

Other public/government sectors

• Re-examine public union contracts.  Reuters published a Special Report - "How union, Supreme Court shield Minneapolis cops." The President of the Minneapolis police union is going to try to get the cops who killed George Floyd reinstated to the police force because their firing did not give them "due process."  We need to re-think every public employee union contract and how they protect employees. 
• Schools - As President Obama stated - "You can't expect to drop out of school and drop into a good job."  Urban school districts still leave too many kids behind.  The solution is not just throwing money at the problem.  Just adding standardized testing is not the answer.  To borrow from the Minneapolis City Council President "we need to dramatically rethink how we approach public education."
• Re-evaluate programs that require participation of minority and women owned businesses on government contracts to ensure these businesses are not just token operations hired by large companies to meet federal requirements but real businesses that have the ability to grow and expand and someday compete to be prime contractors.
• One reason blacks were disproportionately affected by the Coronavirus is that blacks hold jobs that exposed them to the virus, like driving buses or working in mass transit.  Do a lesson learned from Coronavirus - what could have been done better to protect those employees.  Perhaps stockpiling masks and gloves.  Organizing teams to go out and disinfect facilities immediately instead of much too late.  I'm sure there are protocols that could be developed.
• Use the power of government spending to change corporate behavior.
• Pass laws requiring state and local pension programs that invest money to only invest money in companies that meet diversity standards for their Boards of Directors.  Do not allow public funds to be invested in companies with Boards of Directors that are all white or all black or all any one thing.  And limit how many Boards someone can sit on to assist with helping companies qualify for the diversity limit.  You don't want two individuals on 100 boards.  We want to create opportunity for qualified people to rise.
• Consider similar laws relating to awarding contracts - i.e. mandate board diversity on publicly traded companies to qualify to bid. 
• If government employees are offered 401k type options, require the investment firm to include a diversity mutual fund in the portfolio - i.e. it only includes companies that meet a diversity standard.

Economy 

• Using the Coronavirus inspired PPP program as an example, how about low or no interest loans to businesses in black communities that were looted, damaged or destroyed in the recent events to help them re-open, with full loan forgiveness if the business re-opens and employs the same or greater number of people as before.
• We are going to bring supply chains back to the US from China, how about incentives to locate those manufacturing sites in cities.  
• Entice corporations to work with city schools and community colleges for job specific training programs.  In the school my kids attended, you could graduate with a Cisco certification for a technical job.  In Helena, the two year college has a training program that is tied in with the local hospital and another program tied in with the Boeing plan nearby.
• Require companies struggling to find Americans to fill jobs to post to a national job listing board as a condition for being able to import workers from other countries.  This way Americans can find and apply for those positions.  Tie that into unemployment to encourage people without jobs to look to that posting board to find a position.
• Dramatically rethink how cities and states regulate, tax, and otherwise burden businesses causing companies to leave cities for suburban, rural and foreign locations.  If black Americans live disproportionately in cities and you want them to have job opportunities then you have to entice companies to want to do business in the cities.

Health care

• Government medical licensing boards and Departments of Health should investigate how the Coronavirus impacted black and other minority communities.  For areas where the virus had a greater impact, determine why and what needs to be done to improve responses in the future
• Evaluate the quality and availability of care generally in black and minority communities.  Look at how to improve.  For example:
• Create score cards for medical providers in minority communities the same way Medicare does.
• If some doctors really suck, then medical boards should pull their licenses.
• Short term - be prepared to increase Medicaid spending - if you're only paying for 60% of the cost of care as Medicaid does, then don't expect people on Medicaid to get the same level of care that rich people do.  That could be an initiative funded by the Federal government.  Ideally, if the economic ideas work people will get jobs and not be on Medicaid.
• Medical college tuition forgiveness for primary care practitioners and dentists who are willing to work in cities.  Rural areas do this to get doctors to locate where they are, we need to do something similar in cities where people cannot find quality health care.  Perhaps couple this with malpractice protections to restrict suing doctors filling these roles.

Housing 

• Similar to the PPP program, offer loans to rebuild housing damaged or destroyed in the recent events.
• HUD used to have unused housing on its books.  If so, they should partner with organizations that screen families and provide support to those families to get ahead.  In Montana, there are two such organizations - Family Promise, which offers temporary shelter to families, and the YWCA.  Both require people to demonstrate they are going to "pull themselves up by the bootstraps" and provide other assistance to help their beneficiaries do just that.   
• Cities should greatly strengthen licensing and inspection programs that inspect low income housing and increase enforcement actions against landlords.
• Federal and State agencies should greatly enhance oversight of cities to make sure they do enforce housing regulations.  The city of NY for years was the landlord for hideously substandard housing, while agency officials profited outrageously.  That should never be allowed to happen again.

Some don'ts

• Don't expect instant success.  
• Don't continue to support programs that don't work.  President Lyndon Johnson declared a "War on Poverty" in 1964.  We are now 56 years and trillions of dollars of government spending later and we still have poverty and we still have many of the same programs that were started in 1964 that haven't eliminated poverty in 56 years.
• Don't make people dependent on these programs.  The goal is to create a situation where people have the opportunity to get ahead based on their ability and willingness to work hard so they can stand on their own and be judged for who they are without bias. 
• Don't pass something and declare victory.  We need to evaluate whether improvements are happening and modify our approach. 

We are all Americans and as Americans, regardless of color, sex, creed, gender identity, age or anything else, we all deserve the same opportunity to an education that gives us a chance to learn, the same opportunity for justice from law enforcement and the courts, and the same opportunity to succeed in business.  I'm not a fan of the government guaranteeing our success but by the same token, our Government must not stand in the way of it, and does have a role in removing unfair obstacles, such as racism, from our path.  

So now you see my ideas.  What are yours.