PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

All these gestures to eradicate racism (Confederate flag bans, tearing down statues, renaming army bases, finding examples of 20 year old racial jokes) are generally good things but they only give lip service towards truly eradicating racism. It polarizes just as many people as it energizes and diverts our energies from really fixing the problem of systemic racism to becoming a social justice version of "Karen". The problem will only be truly fixed when Capitalism is overhauled. American Capitalism is tighly knit with racism.  It has gone way too far. It's infiltrated our social safety net. It's made it so people are so enslaved to their low wages they have nothing to give back to society. Poor people are given few choices to improve themselves. Higher education is difficult. So without turning to crime there's few options available. The most lucrative crimes are selling drugs and turning to prostitution. Since neither is legal no taxes can be made from these activities. In order for our country to recoup the monies lost from not being able to tax these things we levy fines and/or incarcerate people. In order to make money incarcerating people we have incentivized our privatized prison system to arrest as many people as possible. First decriminalize drug use. Legalize marijuana. Get people off hard drugs by offering programs that teach and offer alternatives. Decriminalize prostitution and work towards legalizing it so it can eventuality be taxed without unfair restrictions. But most of all institute a socialist system for our necessities and maintain a strong free market capitalism everywhere else. "Poor" will be a thing of the past. But innovators can flourish. Institute a Universal Basic Income (UBI). Add to that "basic income" incentives for innovations that the state can use and allow non-essential innovations and inventions to thrive on the free market. You'll never get rid of racism but if everyone is systemically on the same level playing field the blatant forms of racism based on simple differences can be more easily eradicated. Likewise our ethnic and cultural differences can flourish in such things as art, film and comedy. The "bad cop" problem will take retraining and reallocation of funds. But when the only alternative to "all cops are bad" is "no cops at all" I have to support reform rather than complete abolition.  I don't think any of us are ready for not having a police force. We just need them to do their jobs right. Yes a radical approach is needed. But that's why it needs to be calculated and carefully administered.  I don't pretend to have the answers for all of it but I do think the "racism" problem with cops is more of a "I have power over you" problem that sometimes is racial.