As Americans, we crave the simple solution. Just give us that one thing we can do to make a problem go away. There has to be an answer, right? Anything can be fixed. The trouble is, the actual world is more complicated than that. Most of our problems will not yield to easy answers. In fact, very often, if a solution to a serious problem is even possible, it is likely to be a very complex, multifaceted, and inconvenient one. That’s the last thing we want to hear.

And yet, here we are, faced with enormous challenges, decades – even centuries – in the making. Problems like climate change, a matter so enormous most of us just turn away. For those of us who believe the overwhelming scientific consensus there is a human role in climate change, far too many feel that this is something that can be solved by driving a Prius and screwing in a few LED light bulbs. Those are good things, but this is not the type of challenge that is going to yield to small-bore actions carried out at a personal level. This will take a major reshaping of our economy, our use of resources, our entire approach to the Earth. Half measures won’t do it.

Same thing with regard to the rash of police killings of unarmed black men.  It’s easy to lay it on the cops, and sure, police practices nationwide need reform, but this problem runs much deeper than law enforcement. Issues of race and racial exclusion on a profound level, reflected in government policy at the local, state, and national level, have brought us to where we are today. The practice of criminalizing black life goes back to slavery, to be sure, but so does shutting black families out of certain neighborhoods and effectively confining them to others. This is a case wherein justice delayed is truly justice denied – keeping these families out of home purchases in the years following World War II denied them the ability to build equity, increase their wealth, and move into the middle class. Employment discrimination contributed to this, of course. New rules for the police won’t undo that sad, sick history.

No quick fixes, people. We need to find solutions that match the scale and depth of the problems we’re attacking. Easy just won’t do it.

luv u,

jp