SATURDAY, JUNE 6, 2020
Baker City, Oregon
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EDITORIALS
Great job,
graduates
You’ll be riding in cars Sunday afternoon rather than
walking across the lush grass of Baker Bulldog Memo-
rial Stadium.
But the setting doesn’t diminish your accomplish-
ments, Baker High School Class of 2020. Relish this
unique event. Know that even though you’re in sepa-
rate vehicles you’re still together. And know that the
community supports you, celebrates your achievements
and wishes you all happy and successful futures.
— Jayson Jacoby, Baker City Herald editor
Honoring
their valor
The Bill of Rights has been on prominent display
recently in America and we’re reminded yet again of
the elegance of that enduring document, the great
wisdom that went into its creation and that still
shines so brightly, more than 200 years later.
We should also remember how many people sacri-
fi ced their lives that those rights should remain part
of America’s foundation. And today, June 6, marks
one of the greatest — and terrible — examples of
such gallantry.
It was on this day in 1944 that more than 150,000
men — American, British and Canadian — landed
on the beaches of Normandy, launching the invasion
that would, 11 months later, vanquish Nazi Germa-
ny and end World War II in Europe.
We owe them — those who survived that day and
the thousands who did not — our gratitude, today
and every day.
— Jayson Jacoby, Baker City Herald editor
Your views
Investing in our community,
not only in policing
The Baker City Police Department
receives the most money from the city
budget, with over $2.3 million ap-
pointed in the city’s 2019-2020 budget.
They repeatedly cite “increased
demand” as justifi cation for budget
increases. Indeed, they have asked
for and received an increase of about
$400,000 in the last three budget
cycles alone. But where exactly is the
need for more money, more policing in
our community?
The population of Baker County
has remained virtually unchanged
for the past decade. So, the same (if
not, fewer) bodies to police. According
to city-data.com, instances of crime
have also hovered around the same
number over the past few years, with
theft being the primary reported crime
in the area. These acts are harmful,
and do represent a problem in our
community, but the solution may not
be as simple, as inhumane, as putting
someone behind bars.
With a critical eye and compassion-
ate hearts we can come to understand
that many people steal due to issues
tied to addiction, poverty, lack of
funds to provide stable housing and
a consistent source of food. These are
systemic issues which are not fi xed
by jailing someone, and criminalizing
people with these needs further disen-
franchises them, which keeps the cycle
repeating in perpetuity. Police do not
make communities safer, better eco-
nomic policies and support programs
for folks who are vulnerable and in
need do that.
As we buckle down to try and face
some of the emotional and fi nancial
challenges of COVID-19 together,
many of us have had to slow down and
notice more thoroughly the intricacies
and challenges within our communi-
ties. We’ve come to better appreciate
parks, walking paths, and places
where we can be safe, socially distant,
and in community.
The Baker City Community De-
velopment budget approved for this
fi scal year is just over $99,000, or
4% of what taxpayers are paying for
police. What might it look like to use
some of our money to reinvest in our
communities together, rather than pay
to police it using the status quo as a
benchmark?
La’akea Kaufman
Baker City
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Changing hearts, minds harder than changing law
The struggle that black Ameri-
cans endured to achieve basic civil
rights was long and bloody, a period
marked by some of our country’s
greatest moments, and some of its
more shameful.
There was the majesty of Martin
Luther King Jr.’s rhetoric.
And the simple dignity of Rosa
Parks.
But also there was the horror of
Emmett Till’s murder, the brutal
stupidity of Bull Connor’s fi re hoses
and attack dogs.
And yet, more than half a
century after such landmarks as
Brown v. Board of Education, the
Civil Rights Act and the Voting
Rights Act, I wonder whether
America’s current challenge with
racial injustice isn’t even more
daunting than what King and so
many other brave and dedicated
people confronted in the 1950s and
1960s.
Here’s why I wonder:
Their goals included specifi c
legal milestones, and that made
it comparatively easy to measure
progress. A law either exists or it
does not.
But the problems that continue
to plague America are problems
that lurk in the hearts and minds
of people, and those have proved
to be remarkably resistant to legal
remedies no matter how well-con-
ceived or rigorously enforced.
Before Congress passed the
Civil Rights Act in 1964, black
Americans and other minorities
could be legally banned from public
accommodations and discriminated
against when they looked for work.
The federal law changed that.
Before the Supreme Court ruled
JAYSON
JACOBY
in Brown v. Board of Education in
1954, public schools could be legally
segregated.
The court’s ruling changed that.
Before Congress approved the
Voting Rights Act in 1965, it was
relatively easy, and legal, to sup-
press voting by requiring, among
other obnoxious practices, some
voters to pass literacy tests before
casting their ballot.
I don’t mean to imply that these
laws and legal precedents imme-
diately solved the problems that
prompted their creation, or have
had that effect in the years and
decades since.
But they were still signifi cant
steps.
They created a legal framework
for people to challenge, and some-
times to triumph over, those people
and institutions that continued to
try to discriminate against citizens.
Yet for all the progress we’ve
made in the pages of statutes and
in the annals of court decisions, the
stain of bigotry still mars the fabric
of American society.
And rarely if ever over the past
half century has that stain been
as conspicuous as during the days
since Minneapolis police offi cer
Derek Chauvin kneeled on George
Floyd’s neck for more than 8 min-
utes during a May 25 arrest, killing
Floyd.
In some important ways this has
been decidedly different from, say,
the Rodney King episode in Los
Angeles in 1992 with its inexpli-
cable acquittals of police offi cers
who beat King.
Chauvin, by contrast, was fi red
almost immediately. He was arrest-
ed soon thereafter, charged initially
with third-degree murder and then,
on Wednesday, with second-degree
murder. The more serious charge
was expected, as the video of
Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck,
combined with the autopsy fi nd-
ings that his death was a homicide,
constitute compelling evidence that
this was far from an unavoidable
accident resulting from the proper
use of police tactics. The three other
offi cers involved in Floyd’s arrest
were also fi red, and on Wednesday
all three were charged with aiding
and abetting second-degree murder
and second-degree manslaughter.
But the swiftness with which the
justice system has moved against
Chauvin and the other offi cers
didn’t assuage the anger that has
prompted demonstrations in cities
across the country.
Protesters — and I distinguish
between the majority who pursue
a righteous cause and those who
pervert that cause by using it as
an excuse to burn, pillage and steal
— have raised legitimate concerns
that highlight the still yawning
racial divide in America.
At the heart of this divide is
the reality that black Americans
are disproportionately affected by
a myriad of societal and health
problems, ranging from arrest and
incarceration rates to the incidence
of diabetes and heart disease.
But those are mere statistics.
They are only a numerical way to
restate the problem.
I don’t believe it’s possible to
conclude, with any sort of precision,
how much of this problem is caused
by a pervasive, even institutional,
racism.
It’s obvious, however, that many
Americans do believe wholeheart-
edly that the situation is causal
rather than correlative — that
racism continues to erode the
principles on which our nation was
founded, as acid inexorably weak-
ens even the strongest steel.
The vexing question then,
it seems to me, is how we as a
society can address that situation.
Repeating the problem will keep
the fl ames of anger fl ickering but it
does nothing to proffer a solution.
And that brings me back round
to my comparison between laws
on the one hand, and hearts and
minds on the other.
I’m skeptical that we can pass
laws which could conceivably pre-
vent the next Derek Chauvin from
slamming his knee down on the
next George Floyd’s neck.
Indeed, we already have laws
against such crimes — laws that
led to the murder charge against
Chauvin.
But how do we change the
hearts and minds of people who
believe that black Americans, or
gay Americans, or any other group
that is a minority solely because of
their race or gender or preferences
in wholly private matters, is some-
how less than equal, less deserving
of the same treatment under law
that’s supposed to be guaranteed
to each of us?
How can we know who those
people are? Moreover, how can we
begin to gauge the extent to which
their personal beliefs — which in
many cases surely are intensely
private beliefs, ones that people
would never admit even to their
confi dantes — are contributing
to the fl aws of a society in which
Derek Chauvin kneels on George
Floyd’s neck?
Perhaps police departments can
change their recruiting policies to
improve the odds of identifying the
likes of Chauvin before they don a
uniform.
We certainly should try to take
such concrete, life-saving steps.
But even if we can weed out
some police offi cers who might be
prone to acting murderously, we
will hardly have changed society
at the fundamental level, as many
people contend we should do.
If this noxious infestation has
as deep a taproot as some believe,
then I doubt it will succumb to
half-hearted measures any more
than a dandelion will yield to a
gentle tug.
For this immense challenge I
have no answers.
No solutions.
What I can do is what I have
tried to do, which is to instill in
those few people over whom I
might have some lasting infl uence
— my children — the notion that
we are all equal.
That each of us has a name and
a favorite color and a preferred
fl avor of ice cream, and that all of
those things, and thousands more
besides, are infi nitely more impor-
tant than the amount of melanin in
our skin.
Jayson Jacoby is editor
of the Baker City Herald.