Anonymous wrote:If you're not interested in county efforts to make sure that county government works as well in areas with less-affluent people as in areas with affluent people - then, ok, I guess? But I am.

DP. A “Commission to Reimagine X” doesn’t actually help anybody.

I want our county executive, councilmen/women, and state delegates or senators get on I495 in SS and drive to Tysons corner between 7 to 9 am everyday for one week.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Rhetoric. Word salad. Meaningless blah blah blah.

Tell us exactly what we need to invest in so that everyone achieves equity.

BTW, I’m a liberal who has never and will never vote Republican. Nonetheless, I’m growing tired of the performative wokeness that prompts meaningless rhetoric in the form of knee jerk lectures. Even worse: throwing money down the drain on things that yield no measurable results.

I’d love to see MoCo have tough conversations about why migrants who arrive without knowing English can manage to thrive after a generation while some black residents cannot similarly achieve. Both groups face racism, so that can’t be it. Determine what the problem is and fix it.

Consider the possibility that not everyone experiences exactly the same racism in exactly the same ways, nor has exactly the same resources to overcome barriers.

As for the advisory committees, work groups, studies, etc. - that's not "performative wokeness," whatever that means. That's the way Montgomery County has done things for many decades. And when Montgomery County doesn't do things that way (or even when Montgomery County does), a vocal contingent of older affluent white homeowners shows up to complain vociferously about lack of community involvement.

So you still want to blame racism because the black Americans continue to not succeed while the newcomers who are black or Latino and can’t speak English succeed after one generation?

What resources are the newcomers getting? Hint: they are not eligible for public assistance. They are not eligible for subsidized housing (except legit refugees arriving through ORR with time limited assistance...and that’s a select few).

Maybe it’s something else we should be tackling?

I mean, if we can’t demonstrate success until we magically end racism, good luck. Everyone has bias. Everyone. While we can improve systems by eliminating blatant racist practices, we cannot implement mind control regarding bias.

Anyone willing to discuss the inadvertent consequences of public assistance and subsidized housing prompting some people to maintain the status quo rather than strive for something better? It’s a thing. You can google it. We whisper about it in the advocacy world, but we never address it head on.

There is truth on both sides of this debate. But government can only undo what government has caused. And it does have an obligation to do so. Still, Montgomery County government is all talk, no action. Elrich is racist himself and doesn't even realize it. Particularly since we are taught that racism is not intent but impact. He appoints a Black police chief, but he creates a 70 member task force to make sure the chief doesn't get to run his own department.

Diversity in appointments? Check.
Equity and inclusion in appointments? Nope.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you're not interested in county efforts to make sure that county government works as well in areas with less-affluent people as in areas with affluent people - then, ok, I guess? But I am.

I’m all for implementing solutions and supports.

I’m not interested in funding more studies.

I’m beyond frustrated with mcps. We used to have one of the best school systems in the nation, and now it’s a joke.

Did you think equity would not come at a price?

Big picture: white privilege is entrenched in America and getting whites to give up their unearned privilege is proving extremely difficult. People just won’t do the right thing here.

But the winds of change are blowing.

Rhetoric. Word salad. Meaningless blah blah blah.

Tell us exactly what we need to invest in so that everyone achieves equity.

BTW, I’m a liberal who has never and will never vote Republican. Nonetheless, I’m growing tired of the performative wokeness that prompts meaningless rhetoric in the form of knee jerk lectures. Even worse: throwing money down the drain on things that yield no measurable results.

I’d love to see MoCo have tough conversations about why migrants who arrive without knowing English can manage to thrive after a generation while some black residents cannot similarly achieve. Both groups face racism, so that can’t be it. Determine what the problem is and fix it.

Not to mention the research by Thomas Sowell on the black family post slavery and during Jim Crow. It wasn't until the Sixties that black out-of-wedlock births started to take off, so it was not due to the effects of slavery and Jim Crow.

The statement "racism exists and affects people's lives" does not "blame" racism any more than the statement "the sun rises in the morning and affects people's lives" blames the sun.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Rhetoric. Word salad. Meaningless blah blah blah.

Tell us exactly what we need to invest in so that everyone achieves equity.

BTW, I’m a liberal who has never and will never vote Republican. Nonetheless, I’m growing tired of the performative wokeness that prompts meaningless rhetoric in the form of knee jerk lectures. Even worse: throwing money down the drain on things that yield no measurable results.

I’d love to see MoCo have tough conversations about why migrants who arrive without knowing English can manage to thrive after a generation while some black residents cannot similarly achieve. Both groups face racism, so that can’t be it. Determine what the problem is and fix it.

Consider the possibility that not everyone experiences exactly the same racism in exactly the same ways, nor has exactly the same resources to overcome barriers.

As for the advisory committees, work groups, studies, etc. - that's not "performative wokeness," whatever that means. That's the way Montgomery County has done things for many decades. And when Montgomery County doesn't do things that way (or even when Montgomery County does), a vocal contingent of older affluent white homeowners shows up to complain vociferously about lack of community involvement.

So you still want to blame racism because the black Americans continue to not succeed while the newcomers who are black or Latino and can’t speak English succeed after one generation?

What resources are the newcomers getting? Hint: they are not eligible for public assistance. They are not eligible for subsidized housing (except legit refugees arriving through ORR with time limited assistance...and that’s a select few).

Maybe it’s something else we should be tackling?

I mean, if we can’t demonstrate success until we magically end racism, good luck. Everyone has bias. Everyone. While we can improve systems by eliminating blatant racist practices, we cannot implement mind control regarding bias.

Anyone willing to discuss the inadvertent consequences of public assistance and subsidized housing prompting some people to maintain the status quo rather than strive for something better? It’s a thing. You can google it. We whisper about it in the advocacy world, but we never address it head on.

Damn you, Poe's Law!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Rhetoric. Word salad. Meaningless blah blah blah.

Tell us exactly what we need to invest in so that everyone achieves equity.

BTW, I’m a liberal who has never and will never vote Republican. Nonetheless, I’m growing tired of the performative wokeness that prompts meaningless rhetoric in the form of knee jerk lectures. Even worse: throwing money down the drain on things that yield no measurable results.

I’d love to see MoCo have tough conversations about why migrants who arrive without knowing English can manage to thrive after a generation while some black residents cannot similarly achieve. Both groups face racism, so that can’t be it. Determine what the problem is and fix it.

Consider the possibility that not everyone experiences exactly the same racism in exactly the same ways, nor has exactly the same resources to overcome barriers.

As for the advisory committees, work groups, studies, etc. - that's not "performative wokeness," whatever that means. That's the way Montgomery County has done things for many decades. And when Montgomery County doesn't do things that way (or even when Montgomery County does), a vocal contingent of older affluent white homeowners shows up to complain vociferously about lack of community involvement.

If the myriad committees, work groups, studies, etc. actually did something, then they wouldn't be performative. But if you attend any of these things (and most are open to the public) all you hear is opinion after opinion, and repeated validation from the group, and NOTHING ever gets done. Nothing is actionable. Nothing.

Nothing has been done? Really??

Montgomery county’s school system has transformed from one of the best and most admired public school systems in the USA to its current state as a disaster that grows worse each year.

Things have been done. They need to be un-done.

I agree with you. But Elrich doesn’t control the schools.

No, Elrich doesn’t control the schools. But Elrichism does.
The entire county government at every level is plagued by this same failed ideology and Elrich is the main pillar of it.

Performative wokeness that accomplishes nothing, walk-on-eggshells safetyism that panders to public sector unions and CYA policies that satisfy the litigious crowd, and the always offended by something fragile white people.

That’s why the economy here drags with such malaise. Any innovators here have SO many bureaucratic hurdles to clear and on top of that they have to worry about who they might be offending and whether they operate with a racial equity lens.

These politicians dress everything up with racial equity and social justice language just so it looks like they are accomplishing something, and they’re not. It’s all just Woke Bureaucracy.

And to the surprise of no one, they aren’t improving anything at a racial and social justice level. Marc Elrich is the worst of it. He reminds me of Andropov and Chernenko, the ancient bureaucrats that briefly led the Soviet Union before Gorbachev. They weren’t even good at Communism or competent dictators like Stalin or Brezhnev, and didn’t even pretend to be reformers like Gorbachev. Elrich is like one of them, a relic of a dying system and dying ideology. Everything that the MoCo government does is just like the Soviet Union politburo and elevates the government at the expense of the people.

And don’t even be fooled, David Blair wouldn’t change much at all. He’s already becoming part of the Democratic Party machine. In MoCo except for Elrich our problem isn’t Communism as much as Machine politics. Blair is becoming part of the establishment with the same committees and work groups and social justice causes.

Montgomery County needs a Republican. Or and Independent, better yet. Someone who is not and will not become part of the machine. Someone who is a Doer not a Talker. Just the fact that a Republican could be elected by a voter revolt at the polls could shake up the machine Democrats and show them that what they’re doing is not working.

Meanwhile, I could totally see Elrich reading the joke PP who said “we should create a task force to document a commission to study the racial equity and social justice problems in our county” and say “hey, that’s a great idea, let’s do that, and I’m going to hold a 45 minute announcement about it!”

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Rhetoric. Word salad. Meaningless blah blah blah.

Tell us exactly what we need to invest in so that everyone achieves equity.

BTW, I’m a liberal who has never and will never vote Republican. Nonetheless, I’m growing tired of the performative wokeness that prompts meaningless rhetoric in the form of knee jerk lectures. Even worse: throwing money down the drain on things that yield no measurable results.

I’d love to see MoCo have tough conversations about why migrants who arrive without knowing English can manage to thrive after a generation while some black residents cannot similarly achieve. Both groups face racism, so that can’t be it. Determine what the problem is and fix it.

Consider the possibility that not everyone experiences exactly the same racism in exactly the same ways, nor has exactly the same resources to overcome barriers.

As for the advisory committees, work groups, studies, etc. - that's not "performative wokeness," whatever that means. That's the way Montgomery County has done things for many decades. And when Montgomery County doesn't do things that way (or even when Montgomery County does), a vocal contingent of older affluent white homeowners shows up to complain vociferously about lack of community involvement.

If the myriad committees, work groups, studies, etc. actually did something, then they wouldn't be performative. But if you attend any of these things (and most are open to the public) all you hear is opinion after opinion, and repeated validation from the group, and NOTHING ever gets done. Nothing is actionable. Nothing.

Nothing has been done? Really??

Montgomery county’s school system has transformed from one of the best and most admired public school systems in the USA to its current state as a disaster that grows worse each year.

Things have been done. They need to be un-done.

I agree with you. But Elrich doesn’t control the schools.