How can we End the Protests?

I've seen a lot of suggestions about ending the protests. A common one was "Arresting the 3 other officers who let George Floyd be killed would be a good start."

I have no problem with a good start, but that's not enough. Showing up for Racial Justice suggests white people do five things, including defunding police. Besides questioning the wisdom of that last one, I don't see a visible goal that, if accomplished, will end the protests.

My suggestion is that we end racism. But, how? I suggest we make a national commitment. Just like we committed to putting a human on the moon, before we knew how to do it. The effort will involve funding and staffing. We'll need to develop metrics so we'll know our progress and can know when it's done.

I have a son working on a PhD in psychology. I asked him last night how much we know about ending racism. It turns out we know a lot. There's a good framework for why people join white supremacy movements, and how to intercede.

We also know a lot about why good people make bad decisions when trying to control other people or a situation. We know a lot about training them to act better. We also know a lot about opening up people's awareness to their unresolved conflicts and traumas so they can align their reactions with their commitments instead of "following their gut" to react with violence.

We also know that few police departments have the budgets for thorough training, and we could use many more good trainers and training programs. Plus we know about 2 million students graduate with psychology degrees and many aren't using all of their expertise in their jobs flipping burgers and making cold calls.

Plus, a ton is known about structural racism. It turns out a lot of brilliant minds have been looking at society in new ways, trying to figure out how it is that America, with its ideals of freedom and equality, can have such seemingly racist statistics in school performance, income and wealth, employment and incarceration rates. In the process of shining light on places that were hidden from the view of white society, they found a lot of new things. So just like is needed in the hard sciences and other social sciences, they invented new words to distinguish them. They may sound foreign to many of us, but we, that is, Americans, now know a lot about how we stack up society in ways that make it harder for minorities to thrive.

In 1960, we didn't know how to get to the moon, certainly not how to get a man there and back. But we had a leader with vision- President John Kennedy committed to accomplish it in ten years. And we did it!

I propose we commit end racism. Please, sign the petition to Congress and our presidential candidates. A commitment requires a by-when date. This is lacking so our courageous leaders have something to add. For more information, see EndRacism.us

In addition, I offer my services in leading this project. Unlike many others, I not only know this is possible, I'm committed we can accomplish it. I predict we'll need no new laws to make it happen, just a new project with funding. I suggest we fund it at about the same level as our effort to put humans on Mars.

Ten years from now, as an American, what would make you prouder? Putting people on Mars, or ending racism in America? We can do both.