A Nation Divided... or is it?

A protester in Ferguson, MO after Michael Brown was killed by a police officer

It is no secret that many of America’s greatest obstacles are largely systemic. It is also no secret that America is a heavily divided country on a plethora of issues. But while our divisions persist, there is more common ground than we realize, and we're ignoring this due to our inability to simply focus on the bigger picture. We continually find that while Americans, our media, and our politicians have no problem discussing the smaller, specific, more emotionally charged problems that arise from clashes of identities (race, class, sexuality, political ideology etc) - we all too often ignore a myriad of major issues facing our nation where Americans are actually in agreement.

For instance, Americans agree on a host of substantive policy points such as certain gun control programs which came nowhere close to passing congress.  But incredibly, even though many are in support of the same legislation, Americans are divided down the middle on whether stricter gun control programs should be introduced. Meanwhile, our gun death epidemic persists. When it comes to healthcare, there are similar contradictions. Before the passage of Obamacare, the vast majority of Americans voiced their support for most of the bill's provisions, which called for, among other things, the elimination of pre-existing conditions to deny health insurance or allowing children to stay on their parents' insurance until 26, both alterations to previous legislation that prevented both. However, when asked if they supported the law as a whole, the majority of Americans responded with "no." While ACA has certainly taken it's lumps, the GOP have continually called for an altogether abandonment of the program, scrapping those many provisions of the bill that Americans want in the process. A deeper look at the general "yes or "no" responses on ACA or stricter gun control laws reveals a split down partisan lines, with conservatives making up the vast majority of one side, and liberals the other. And yet, when asked more broader, big picture questions regarding actual specifics of policy, the divide dissipates. Maybe we disagree on these matters in many areas, but the differences of opinion are not black and white.

There is perhaps no other issue where we are unnecessarily divided than issues surrounding our criminal justice system. This system represents one of America’s most unsettling and abhorrent examples of “systemic discrimination." Among the horrifying realities are that we imprison the most of our own citizens compared to other developed countries, and it's not even close, we employ an archaic system of mandatory minimums that has destroyed millions of lives, and even worse, this era of mass incarceration has a clear and substantive trend of racial bias. Much of this legislated/systemic discrimination began post-Civil War, when politicians established a variety laws aimed specifically at restricting the black vote/influence with coded language such as a poll tax. This "coded" discrimination continues into today, perhaps best represented in our criminal justice system, where the failed War on Drugs provides us with the best example of institutionalized prejudice in America today. The reforms pushed through in the 1980's by the Reagan Administration (met with bipartisan support in congress) called for exponentially harsher treatment for drug users/distributors, and it's impact inconclusively represents one of our most failed and detrimental governmental initiatives. Since those reforms, the War on Drugs has had at best no impact on drug addiction, despite billions and billions of dollars spent. And much like the poll taxes of Reconstruction, the legislated discrimination had a disproportionate impact on America's lower socioeconomic classes, in particular people of color. This imbalance persisted even though upper class whites, and whites overall, use and distribute drugs at an equal, or even higher rate than other Americans. The reforms also included a variety of stiff penalties for non-violent offenders such as mandatory minimums, permitting pretrial detentions for a wider range of criminal defendants, and a slew of oppressive forfeiture laws. The "tough on crime" era was in full effect.

Over thirty years later, with these reforms clearly having only negative results, Americans have once again divided themselves into groups on an issue where they are closer than they realize. Perhaps no instance embodies this division than the case of Michael Brown, which sparked mass protests throughout the county after a grand jury exonerated Officer Darren Wilson, who shot and killed Brown on Aug. 9, 2014.

We won't rehash the details of the case in full (hit the link should you want to learn more), but much of the debate surrounded whether Brown's hands were above his head when Wilson fired the fatal shots. As often was the case, the divide in opinion regarding Wilson's guilt essentially split racial lines.

The reality of Brown's death will always be disputed among us in the public. But we do know about the justice system, and the police department, in the area where Brown resided. Brown's St. Louis County is a sad example of a broken justice system where "justice" is seemingly fleeting (SERIOUSLY IF YOU ARE GOING TO READ ONE ARTICLE IN THIS BLOG, MAKE IT THIS ONE). This is a county that  routinely imprisoned non-violent offenders for failing to pay fines for speeding tickets, tickets which generate nearly half of the revenue in the county's strangely numerous principalities. This is a county where outsiders were prevented from its court rooms until a judge finally ruled this in direct violation of the Missouri Constitution. This is a county where a town of 52,000 has 11,000 warrants out for arrest, and some counties have more warrants out than they do residents. A county where some chief prosecutors are also judges in different municipalities. This is a county where citizens are treated as paychecks by those who are supposed to protect them. Sadly, it's a county that represents many of the problems with our nation's justice system - prioritizing profits via over-policing, conflicts of interest, systemic bias, and mass incarceration. But was this the story on CNN or at your Thanksgiving table? No. We just wanted to discuss whether Michael Brown's hands were above his head before meeting his demise.

However, just as we learned to be the case with healthcare and gun control, the seemingly massive divide between both sides of the coin simply isn't the great chasm we believe it to be. Similar to the artificial divide on Obamacare support was divided by political partisanship (to be fair, the structural flaws of legislation surely are not helping the bill as insurance premiums continue to rise), the artificial divide on social justice falls along racial lines. But the split comes mainly in response to more hyperbolic questions for Americans such as "whether they trust or approve of the police" (a similarly generalized question like "do you support Obamacare?"). But what do Americans think when it comes to specific reforms aimed at bettering the relationship between communities and the system? Once again, the divide isn't quite what you'd expect. When it comes to those mandatory minimums, non-violent offenders, and the overall American epidemic of mass incarceration, Americans agree on a vast array of changes that might help to alleviate some of the pain caused by the system. They agree on reforms ranging from easing restrictions on employment of non-violent ex-cons, to the elimination of mandatory minimums. Across the board, Americans want the criminal justice system to cease with the "tough on crime" policies that began in the 80's.

When it comes to emotionally charged and racially charged issues like whether Michael Brown's hands were up, the divide is obvious, and it is certainly one we must address. But again, there is some common ground when we discuss less emotionally charged topics, and instead discuss specifics processes which enable the system that made Brown's death the proverbial "straw that broke the camel's back" for the people of Ferguson. The Brown case is certainly an unsettling story, but it's only the tip of the iceberg when you look at the criminal justice system in the U.S. And as we find out so often, the divisions become less stark when we take a deeper look at opinions on the fundamental causes of said iceberg.

Proper discourse in America regarding these issues of great importance is prevalent, yet there is a troubling insistence on grouping ourselves into "right or wrong," "black or white," "republican or democrat" when having these dialogues. And certainly, there are some very crucial issues facing the U.S. where we are truly divided along those types of lines. But often, the divide simply isn't as deep as we think. And this inability to have a discussion of substance has truly prevented progress within a criminal justice system, a system that quite clearly is working to the great detriment of the public. We could easily proclaim that mandatory minimums be scrapped, and put pressure on our politicians. We could easily call for an independent DA for all criminal matters involving the police department. We could easily vote out judges who sentence harshly. But instead, we decide to discuss the narrower, more emotional issues - we don't want to talk about the broken system in St. Louis County. We want to talk about whether Michael Brown's hands were up, a question for which we'll never has an answer. We'll talk your ear off about Darren Wilson, but what we don’t discuss is the embedded corruption and incompetence that spurs on so many of these tragedies in the first place.

There are many reasons for the current divisions in America. But perhaps our most frustrating flaw is our ability to arbitrarily divide ourselves on maters where there is actually widespread agreement. And the lack of progress we’re seeing across the board is much in part due to this lack of proper dialogue.

If we can alter our discourse to focus on the bigger picture, and paint our challenges with a broader, more inclusive stroke that discusses the bare bones of reform to systems that we all know need fixing, we may find there are plenty of overlapping opinions among us. If perhaps we can make this fundamental change, we may find that we are frustrated and angered by many of the same things. Perhaps with this realization, an informed and engaged American citizenry may hold more genuine power than ever before, and generate the true reform needed to fix our systemic flaws.