Dear Cardi B,

I know you didn't ask to be a role model.
I know you're entitled to have and hold your own opinions.
But at some point you bear responsibility for those emulating you for their actions.

When you look at the violence in Minneapolis and try to justify it, you do two things. First, you suggest that people of color are some how incapable of responding in a rational way to events. Before you take offense, remember that in this same city a woman named Justine Damond called the police because she thought she was witnessing domestic violence. During that event, the first Somali cop hired shot and killed Justine. Justine was white and the cop was black.
Were there riots of white people?
Did white people loot stores and steal big screen TVs?
Did white people set fire to schools, stores and a police station?
Please explain how this is in any way justified.
It's almost like saying you believe people of color are incapable of behaving any other way.

Secondly you give rioters a justification, flimsey as it is, for criminal activity.. I believe you said "It is What it is."

What it is is this: More than 125 businesses torches and looted. 190 residents waiting for affordable housing are now without that option thanks to arsonists parading as social justice warriors. All those jobs lost. Three different Target stores looted. Numerous smaller stores, some owned and run by people of color, destroyed. And all those jobs gone for the time being or maybe forever. After being torched and looted twice, CVS didn't rebuild in Ferguson. Neither did the hairdresser who worked for years to build her clientele. The same thing will happen in Minneapolis and all they need is celebrities like you throwing gasoline on the fire.

Before you blame Trump, remember that Minneapolis is run by Democrats.
The governor of Minnesota is a Democrat
Keith Ellison, the AG of Minnesota, is both Muslim and a Democrat.
Amy Klobuchar, who had been a prosecutor in Minnesota is a Democrat. And as a prosecutor she avoided going after police behaving badly.
Why would she do that? Why would they all do that?

I'll tell you why. Because UNION votes matter more than BLACK votes. Minnesota is a UNION stronghold. Their teachers, firefighters, public workers and COPS are all card carrying union members. Klobuchar, the Minneapolis mayor and the governor all belong to the most far Left version of the Democrat party and they embrace organizing as a means to achieve socialism. You may think you like socialism and even be promoting it as an alternative, but you haven't endured real socialism yet. Real socialism will tell you what to say, what to sing, what to do and can take it all away in a heartbeat if you don't conform. Cardi B, I'm not a fan. I know you like to parade around as some sort of limit breaking rebel but the fact is you are more a product of consumerism than anyone and every thing you promote says this. When the smoke clears, maybe you should have a long talk with the residents who didn't riot-the ones whose lives were immeasurably changed by a couple of thousand hedonists on the take. Trump didn't do this-Democrats did. Maybe it's time to wake up and smell the coffee. The party's over.

Schools & Society

I think this discussion gets into the role of schools in society. It used to be that a public school offered academics and that was it. You went to school, you learned a modicum of reading, writing, history, science and math and graduated, usually around 16 years old, to move into the military, working at the family business or, if you were especially intelligent and financially able, to a profession such as law or medicine.

Now schools function not just as education entities, but as mechanisms for social change. In some ways that is a good thing. Integration was certainly way overdue and providing adequate education for the physicially disabled was essential, especially after the polio outbreaks of the 1950's.  But as with all things, once power is given you cannot take it back.

We are seeing the third or fourth generation of students who have be indoctrinated into the concept of insured outcomes. That's important because it is not reasonable to expect all people will achieve the same levels of knowledge, ability or success. Yet this is the dogma of education now and is becoming the accepted norm for life in general. Unfortunately this is just not the case.

"You are not promised tomorrow" they say and that is true. You can be the most gifted musician, be in the youth orchestra, go to Julliard, be admitted to the symphony and still get hit by a truck while crossing the street without looking. Right now in the media, the concepts of public health being put forth by clinicians working with data is being pushed as the norm and it is not the norm. Any practicing physician can tell you there are going to be those patients who will die no matter what they do. To expect "all viruses" to go away is not just unrealistic, it's delusional. But for those who believe in insured outcomes, they would rather huddle in their homes for God knows how long rather than risk the less than 2% chance of death from the disease-and that number may be high.

I do think this episode is a cultural bending event. By that I mean the accepted current norms, which were largely based on a rental culture that lives in massive urban cores is being upended. Already the prices are dropping on urban studios and gentrified inner city houses. Young couples are becoming aware that raising a family might be easier in the less chic suburbs. Those folks who thought they were being somehow virtuous by taking up less space in an upscale urban apartment now wonder if they might feel more at home and secure in a suburb or exurb-all of which is contrary to what urban planners and futurists have been pushing for the last ten years.

I think some interesting things will happen as the result of this pandemic. I think families will be closer. I think more young kids will be educated at home until secondary school. I think the school classes that do form will be smaller out of public health necessity. I think more people will work at home at least part time. I think many Americans will be less willing to travel outside the country.