Sunday, June 14, 2020
By:
Week two has been full of unique opportunities and activities, yet thankfully, I have been able to stay on top of my work load. I am narrowing down my research topic, and am now examining sources for data. AMPO (Advanced Manufacturing Program Office) staff have been incredibly supportive, and have offered to help me find data from sources such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
However, my meeting on Wednesday with the economics professor willing to help me with this research had to be postponed. Though I was looking forward to the meeting and was prepared, I am glad we took a raincheck. For those readers who may be looking back in time at this post, our country is currently undergoing a period of strife. There are many Americans who are deeply upset by seeing their fellow citizens suffer. Wednesday was an opportunity to reflect on the suffering of Black men in America, minority experiences in general, and what kind of country we want to be moving forward.
My perspective is that the Declaration of Independence moved us from a backwater British colony to the preeminent power and democratic foundation of the world for the last two centuries. While the Declaration is not legally binding, it has immutable explicatory power. The Constitution may be the letter of the law, but the Declaration embodies the spirit of our laws. Our system of laws distinguishes between De Jure and De Facto. Our Supreme Court recognizes legal statutes such as Plessy v. Ferguson or Korematsu v. US, as having been legally valid at the time, but blemishing our democracy and wounding Justice herself. As a Jew, the Nazi Holocaust is a grim reminder that legal does not mean moral.
The founders were well aware that humans “are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.” Without question, the civil unrest we see now is a reflection of society saying that extrajudicial killings and the treatment of people of color in this country are no longer sufferable evils. This will be a messy and transitory time; with history written in watercolor and not precise pen. This does not mean that we will not get through this time, only that as a country we need more than a Wednesday to reflect on race relations throughout our nation’s history.
Though these words are my own, this platform belongs to SPS/AIP. For lack of a better term, it is sad that professionalism dictates that anyone refrain from expressing social or political beliefs and so I have tried to balance my words carefully. Though I understand why, but I would not be a Mather policy fellow if I didn’t care about this country and didn’t want to look at how to improve it.
Max Dornfest