There have been some misunderstandings about the action that I believe should follow from the recommendations in my recent book The Black Poverty Cycle and How to End It. I am afraid that I have not been making myself clear.
I do not mean that the only thing to do is to wait for the people who created the problem to fix the problem. (Both a friend and a rather unkind reviewer on Amazon have interpreted my position in this way.)
Let me try again:
1) It seems to me unlikely that acting within the present framework of practices and policies of the criminal justice system will result in the effects of those practices and policies being substantially changed.
2) It seems to me unlikely that acting within the present framework of school finance that schools can be improved to the degree needed.
Therefore, those two systems must be changed.
I have not said that the only way for this to be done is for racists to have a change of heart (although that would be a good thing!).
I have said, perhaps not sufficiently clearly, that there are various approaches to this, including legal action, political action and direct action.
Legal action would include law suits under the equal protection clause of the Constitution.
Political action would include the creation of coalitions of groups with various motivations, for example, a coalition to abolish reliance on property tax as the main basis for school funding, including people in suburbs whose property taxes are high for the benefit received as well as people in cities whose children's education is inadequately funded.
Direct action -- well, marching season is just around the corner.
A model for what I am advocating would be an alliance between activist community-based organization, public interest law firms, and broadly-based progressive coalitions.
This group of organizations could act in the tradition of the Civil Rights Movement along all three lines of action, simultaneously, by any means necessary.
As the man said.