In fascinating juxtaposition to the excuse-making that progressive Democrat U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is enjoying, the folks from Direct Actions for Rights and Equality (DARE) marched in protest of money given to the Nonviolence Institute.  Courtney Carter reported on it for WPRI:

This week, [organizer Cedric] Russell co-released a public letter addressed to the institute, calling for the redistribution of the $500,000 in funding to the community that the institute was awarded by Brown University and the R.I. Foundation, as well as an end to their collaboration with police.

That letter was signed by 17 different groups and more than 80 community leaders.

“They’re just taking it and they are going to reallocate the funds back into them,” Russell said. “This community is tore up, we need so much, more Boys and Girls Club, more outreach, more food, just love and reallocating those funds into a system that doesn’t care about us, that does nothing for us.”

One would only be exaggerating a little to say that a collection drive in the parking lot of Bailey’s Beach Club could raise that kind of money in a week, and these folks are marching to the Nonviolence Institute?

Hopefully we’re in one of those pre-revelation moments for our society; the answers are so clearly right there.  Here’s more from Russell:

“What links systematic racism to violence is that there is no opportunity for people like us, there are no jobs,” Russell said. “They’re just trapped in a system.”

Yes!  This is an effect of progressive policies that restrain opportunity for people of all races, up and down the economic ladder.  Freedom and allowing resources to flow without government redirecting it to insiders and other preferred groups is the most-efficient form of redistribution of wealth.

Another angle:

Harrison Tuttle from the Black Lives Matter Rhode Island Political Action Committee said investing in the youth may help prevent the violence in the first place.

Absolutely!  So what is Tuttle doing outside the Nonviolence Institute while the teachers union and government officials play footsie for years on end rather than resolving the catastrophe of education in Providence?  They know what needs doing; it just isn’t in their interest to do it.

The Nonviolence Institute may be an established part of the old game of shuffling money around while never solving problems (I don’t know enough about it to say either way), but it’s hardly a key player.  Unless the objective is simply to take its place in the systemic grift, anybody who really wants to bring change is going to have to look beyond the bit players to where the real power is, and many who do so will discover that they’ve been played for years.

Featured image by Herrald of Landsberg on WikiArt.