Unlike Gil-Scott Heron’s ’60s anthem, this revolution will be televised… it just won’t be homogenized — revolutions rarely are. By their very nature they are messy affairs, but that should not stop us from finally realigning the country financially. Things are so far out of kilter that a complete overhaul might be the only solution. And now that the “enemy” (every revolution must have one) has been named and made palpable, things might pick up steam rapidly for the occupying forces.
“Banksters” (sort of rhymes with “gangsters”) is the derisive term that’s been coined to identify the greedy bastards on Wall Street that have looted the American economy and so far gotten away with their crimes… crimes that we now know hurt the country so badly they border on treason. In many countries of the world they would be made to pay with their lives — or at least a decade of their liberty.
But, as my friend Larry Durstin noted, we Americans historically have never much cared to be too critical of the rich… simply because most of us wanted to one day be one of them. However, with that option now firmly off the table as the American Dream disintegrates into a dystopian nightmare… the generation now entering the workforce to be the first one in our history worse off than their parents… all bets are off. If supporters of the status quo want to call it class warfare, then we’ve got some young people willingly manning the ramparts in an attempt to save their country.
And they have every right — just as much as the right-wingers — to wrap themselves in the American flag. The cry from conservatives used to be “America… love it or leave it.” How about “America, love it and change it”? Game on.
Getting a “GRIP” on guns
News of a new gun suppression initiative, “V-GRIP” (a collaboration of various area law enforcement agencies, focused on the mean streets of Cleveland and the thugs that run amok in them), should be welcomed by all. There’s an old saying “bullets don’t have eyes” and stray gunfire has taken the lives of too many innocents in Cleveland in recent months… some of them mere children. Truly enough is enough.
Indeed, studies show that young Black males who’ve dropped out of high school and become immersed in thug life are twice as likely to die in the streets as they are in prison, so locking them up when they break the law could very well be saving their lives. Other studies show that by the time one of these same young males is killed by gunfire, on average, they’ve had ten encounters with police before dying. So, in the vast majority of cases, it’s not like the bad actors are unknown… to the police and to the community.
With that said, the problem becomes one of how do the people in charge of the initiative keep those few police officers (both Black and White) who see this as an opportunity to make some overtime honest? A few cops might use the pretext of a “gun suppression” dragnet to stop virtually any young Black males they see, hoping to find anything… even a nickel bag of weed… so they can charge them with a crime and then have to go to court to testify against these “dangers to society.” Oh, and do so while collecting overtime.
That’s one of the dirty little secrets of policing hereabouts. I still recall the woman that was stopped for J-walking on 71st and Central, searched, and BINGO! when the officer found a crack pipe — “cha-ching!” — it was like hitting the Pick Three… instant cash. He hit a quick lick.
The problem is, a few cops strongly believe in the “give them a number early” program; they’ll find any reason to felonize (I think I just invented a word here) young men of color early-on in their lives, sort of like conditioning them to accept their lot in life.
In New York City a battle is raging over the police “stop and frisk” policy, which, while it supposedly is a gun suppression program, has resulted in few gun arrests, but has ruined the life prospects of over 40,000 young men of color who have been tagged with possession cases over small amounts of weed. And some civil libertarians in New York are saying this is not an “unintended consequence” but a planned program of economic disenfranchisement.
The other problem is that these types of intensified law enforcement programs are always stop-gap and short term… they don’t solve long-term problems. They can accomplish the mission of getting some guns off the streets right now, but it’s been the experience in other cities that over time things go right back to where they were… we’ll never be able to “police” our way out of the problem — we have to at some point engage in long-term programs like the Harlem Children’s Zone, which drastically reduces the number of inner-city youth who fall victim to thug life in the first place.
And, as to those who loudly decry the lack of good citizenship on the part of folks in urban communities who don’t step up and provide information on who the shooters are… let me see how fast they would be willing to put their lives on the line doing their civic duty. When the police begin a program of offering real protection to those willing to testify, more people will step up and do it. However, as it now stands, someone offering information is on their own once the police are through with them.
So, while I’m all for gun suppression, how about some oversight this time so that it’s not viewed as a license by some young cowboy cops to saddle up and ride roughshod through Black neighborhoods… arresting anyone they can on any charge they can simply to line their pockets via overtime.
Signifying
While Al Sharpton didn’t name anyone by name, it seems as if he turned the Ohio Black Legislative Caucus’s dinner this past Saturday night in Columbus into a roast when it was his turn to speak. However, it’s yet to be seen if his sharp words of criticism and wisdom will be heeded by the person he was directly and unambiguously addressing. Only time will tell.
From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://www.neighborhoodsolutionsinc.com.
4 Responses to “MANSFIELD: Notes on the Revolution”
Indy
Some revolution. Why are people who smell bad and take drugs always lionized by the Left if the merely call themselves revolutionists in stead of what they are: bums.
Art McKoy
Art McKoy is with you, my understudy… weed and crack pipes are A-ok in the hood. No justice, no peace.
Thomas
See you made the top five clicks last week with “Doing What Works to Curb Urban Violence”. Nice work.
Kate Klonowski
I appreciate your appeal for long-term solutions that go beyond lame attempts to patch a broken system. So many think it’s all about one thing–it’s always deeper.