When Change Becomes Urgent

These are tumultuous times for our nation, for our state. Milquetoast answers will not do. We cannot continue to be but a reflection of the rest of the nation.

+ Police violence? At current, we are, indeed, but a reflection of the rest of the nation. We train our officers much the same, so we should not expect different results. In fact, a greater proportion of Black people in Utah are killed by police than are in any other state in the union, according to a study at mappingpoliceviolence.org. If you have those with racial bias on your police force, you should find them and fire them. Let's background check not only those we hire, but all existing officers, asking their family, friends and past co-workers if they have detected signs of racial prejudice. Such backgrounding and firing of officers is not being done nationwide. Let us be bold enough to do it.

+ We are the most incarcerating nation in the world. We toss people in jail before they are even convicted. Seventy-four percent of the people in local jails are there not because they are convicted, but because they are awaiting trial. Of those in prison, as much as a third are there on parole violations, which often  are for such simple things as failure to report that they've moved to another address. If we would reduce our incarceration rates, we must separate ourselves from the way things are done in other states. We should jail before trial only those who are threats to society. And, we must quit sending back to prison those with such small infractions as failing to provide their new addresses.   

+ We can look at the struggle we are facing to get more money into the classroom, We can look at how our front-line foster care workers are turning over at a 30-50 percent rate each year. Yes, we need more revenue. But in finding a way to fund our needs, we must strive to do so without taxing the average person more. For decades, we have noticed how tax loopholes allow money to go uncollected that really should be collected. If we can see it is wrong, why don't we change it? Though the federal government will continue to leave the offending tax loopholes untouched, let us, as a state, simply close them, and increase our financial coffers.

+  Utah continues to rank at the bottom in women's inequality. Much of this is due to the lack of upward mobility in the workforce. It is a problem women share with others, including immigrants. They arrive here, take jobs, but then are stuck in those same low-paying jobs. In some cases, pay is so low it leads to a life of crime. Let us, then, step up our efforts to train those in lower-paying jobs to advance to higher-paying positions. Let us increase our job-placement efforts, keeping track of all those in low-paying positions and placing them whenever we find spots in higher-paying jobs. This would be an employment innovation not found elsewhere in the nation. 

If we remain but a reflection of the world, we will have all the same problems. Let's take a deep look at ourselves and our values, and reflect them, instead.

Answers that work