BLACK AND TAN: Sometimes you see what you want to see. Other times, you see what you need to see. Last Thursday, I got to see both during an extraordinary meeting convened by the county supervisors to discuss safer, cheaper, and more just alternatives to locking people up in the county jail.
The meeting—held in response to the escalating COVID crisis coupled with the political whirlwind known as Black Lives Matter—suggested an alarming outburst of sanity: perhaps even an epidemic. At the risk of hyperventilating, we appear to be on the precipice of a historic moment.
Here are a few basic facts.