A Word About Balitimore

I want to say something about Baltimore. I love Baltimore. Baltimore is one of the greatest cities on this planet. Like every other city in America east of the Mississippi, it remains unhealed from the end of the Civil War forward. There remains a tremendous debt to crimes against humanity that were perpetrated against Africans and eventually African-Americans from their arrival as slaves in 1619 to their emancipation in 1864. All you have to do is say "40 acres and a mule" and the persecuted ancestors of our slave owning nation know exactly what you are talking about.

That debt did not cease with emancipation. This nation continued to live deeply unequal lives where schemes and laws were embedded in the culture that treated black people as less than fully human for decades. Laws that eventually came to be know as Jim Crow laws, but actions that were not limited to such blatant legal demarcations. We've never fully accepted responsibility for our racist past or present.

What happened in Baltimore is mirrored in what just happened in Nepal. Years of pent up pressure were released in a 7.8 earthquake of social upheaval. It could have been any city USA. It HAS been to many cities USA.

But about Baltimore. In spite of the legacy, Baltimore is not a caricature of racial strife. It is a city that has made amazing strides forward. It is resilient city. A city that will continue to improve and deserves everyone's support and commitment. This riot is not the end of a conversation. It is an exclamation point to focus that conversation with urgency in a better, more perfect trajectory. The people of Baltimore just want to be treated with dignity and to expect from their police department justice. May this be the legacy of Freddie Grey. May those officers who are concealing the truth find the courage and integrity to name names and accept responsibility for their actions and crimes.