Racial equality is pressing moral project

Jerry Shenk and Joseph Gale hold unpopular opinions in Montgomery County. Shenk is lucky he is not an elected official, as the wrath Gale has engendered for his off-base characterization of Black Lives Matter to date has included: a House Resolution calling for Gale’s impeachment, Senate Resolution 334 calling for an investigation into Gale’s potential Constitutional violations, a Change.org petition with over 88,000 constituent signatures demanding Gale’s resignation, dozens of stcements from Montgomery County clergy, council leaders, school boards, borough officials, and senators calling for Gale’s resignation, and finally, weekly peaceful protests in Montgomery County against the Commissioner’s views and use of county resources for spreading them.

As a direct result of referring to BLM as a “hate group” and a complete indifference for George Floyd’s televised murder by police, huge swaths of Montgomery County residents mobilized (non-violently) in the call to seek Gale’s removal and advance racial justice in their locaities. In the last month, Montgomery County citizens have met with their local police departments, schools, community centers, and elected officials to discuss how they can improve racial justice and our criminal justice system, together. Though Shenk would make us believe these residents are not “normals,” he is far from accurate. The new normal in Montgomery County is seeking racial equality in our communities and ourselves.

Not only has Shenk mischaracterized Montgomery County residents, similar to Joseph Gale, who inexplicably detracts from racial justice issues by focusing on Black abortion rates (which are lower than White abortion rates in Montgomery County), Shenk’s bewildering argument drifts into issues that have nothing to do with BLM. He ventures into the #MeToo movement, socalled liberal academic “elites,” and racial crime rates.

Furthermore, the points he does elaborate on are maddeningly incorrect. Using the War on Drugs playbook, he discusses Black on Black crime rates as a reason that systemic racism somehow does not exist. Yet nowhere does he say that White on White crime rates are the highest of all, or that intraracial crime is the norm in America.

He speaks about Floyd as a “career criminal”’ and the white cop as a “rogue,” yet refuses to acknowledge that it is a known statistical fact that Black men in America receive harsher punishments at every stage of the criminal justice system than Whites for the same crimes. This is not to mention that Black men are subject to police brutality at rates 2.8 times higher than White and are more likely to be unarmed during these incidents.

Shenk and Gale are flailing. They refuse to accept that Montgomery County residents have rejected racism and division and handle it by focusing on unrelated issues, disparaging the national movement, the victims, the protesters, and their own neighbors’ calls for justice. WE are the new normal.