Achieving Civil Rights in the Face of Stop & Frisk Abuses
There are pundits who place the US Civil Rights era between
the years 1955 and 1968. This placement
suggests the struggle for civil rights for African-Americans and other hyphenated
Americans was just a 13-year ordeal. Is
this actually the case? Can national
ancestors such as Mississippi NAACP leader Medgar Evers rest easy, assured that
their bloodshed brought franchise, fair deals and justice?
“Much has changed for the better since Mr. Evers’s brutal
death 50 years ago—but there is also much we can still learn and put in use
from the brave life he lived”, reflects St. Senator Eric Adams (D, WF) 20 SD. “Certainly, if he were alive today, he would
be at the front lines against the abuse of Stop and Frisk…Yes, this City would
do well to consider his courage and continue the fight against inequality and
injustice that still exist today.”
The Senator speaks with authority regarding the flaws of the
NYC Police Department’s procedure officially named Stop, Question and
Frisk. Prior to gaining the NYS Senate
seat, he was a NYPD Captain in central Brooklyn. He distinguished his police
career by co-founding 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care with several other
peace officers. Since taking his NYS
Senate office in 2006, Adams has kept an eye on NYPD activity. A visit to his State Senate website reveals
his dedicated attention to local police matters. There is a downloadable 23-slide presentation
entitled Stop, Question and Frisk
Procedure in the ‘Report’ section.
This slide show gives the objectives of Stop, Question and Frisk; the
procedure for carrying it out; and the four scenarios when a police officer can
conduct Stop, Question and Frisk. Using
2009 Center for Constitutional Rights’
findings and statistics, the State Senator makes a strong case that the
procedure “has unmerited focus on African-American and Latino youth; the
required reporting is not being followed; and the negative impact it has on
youths of color’s psyche and criminal record.” The slide show purports “Of the
four scenarios when a police officer should execute the practice, the
overwhelming scenario is to fulfill quotas or gather names for the NYPD
database”.
It appears that Stop, Question and Frisk flies in the face
of civil rights. When queried about the realities of
Stop Question and Frisk the State Senator posits, “Protecting New Yorkers and
protecting their civil rights do not have to be competing interests. We must give our law enforcement the tools
they need to keep us safe. The abuse of
Stop and Frisk is not useful in preventing crime. In fact, it sours communities against working
with police and that means crucial information isn’t shared to stop violence
before it can occur. The practice must
be reformed to better meet the necessary standard of reasonable suspicion, to
remove discrimination, and to ensure more criminals and fewer innocents are
targeted for Stop and Frisk.” His study
and assessment of Stop, Question and Frisk is comparable to Medgar Evers’s work
and concerns. Evers was shot in his back the early morning of June 12, 1963.
Currently the front runner in the race for the Brooklyn
Borough President’s Office, Adams stands to win the election in September. Should he win he will not only be New York
City’s first African American in the seat and but be the first police officer
in several decades. How will he make his
mark as the BP serving all of Brooklyn? Adam
says, “This is a pivotal moment for Brooklyn.
We have become very popular in recent years but that hasn’t meant a
better quality of life for everyone. I
want to turn our popularity into prosperity for all. The BP must have a unifying vision for the
borough that brings all Brooklynites together to make Brooklyn the best it can
be.”
Labels: African Americans, black interest, civil rights movement, community, discrimination, NYC, NYC politics, NYS Senate, Stop and Frisk, urban
The Black Power Mix Tape 1967 - 1975
The Brooklyn Academy of Music put substance into celebrating M.L. King, Jr. Day in Brooklyn. Two theaters within BAM Rose Cinema were packed with people absorbing "The Black Power Mix Tape 1967 - 1975." This documentary is a compilation of interviews and B-roll with people key to the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements done by Swedish reporters very attuned to the social movement occurring in and by Americans. It mixes old interviews with Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture), Eldridge Cleaver, Martin Luther King, Jr., Angela Davis and others with voiceover commentaries from Talib Kweli, Sonia Sanchez, Abiodun Oyewole, and Erykah Badu, to name a few.
The Swedes' persistence in broadcasting what was happening in the United States brought condemnation on them and created friction between national leaders. Even TV Guide--not associated with Pulitzer Prize winning journalism--criticized the reporters for exposing only the social problems. In the spirit of the New York Times, they were simply broadcasting all the news that was fit to air.
The time period contains the expansion of Martin Luther King's concerns to global and class struggle, King's assassination, the birth of the Black Panthers, the evolution of SNCC, the arrest of Angela Davis, the Vietnam War, the heroin epidemic, and the choices the larger US black population made in carving a place within US society. The feminist and gay rights movements acknowledge using the terminology and tactics of the Black Power and Civil Rights leadership.
It was uplifting to see the jovial and warm side of Kwame Ture. Angela Davis was the epitome of grace under fire as she spoke passionately about the irony of black people being characterized as violent when she remembers her four young friends in Birmingham being killed by a bomb's explosion or the need for her male family members and neighbors to patrol their community armed due to the frequent brutal and lethal attacks by white society.
While it was later revealed in US news reports that many of the servicemen's corpses held bags of heroin as they were wheeled off the planes and onto American runways, it was startling to revisit the Vietnam war to learn many documented as dying in combat where actually deaths from drug overdose.
The connection between the heroin flooding inner city communities and the average black persons resolve to learn more and do more to change his circumstances was strongly made. The clip of radio announcer Vy Higgensen's lamenting the life of a newborn addicted to heroin is one of many poignant moments in the documentary.
Thought and the clouding of it, is one element of the human dynamic. Most of the leaders featured--Huey Newton, Eldridge Cleaver, Angela Davis, Martin Luther King, Jr, and Kathleen Cleaver--had a lit cigarette between their fingers. Did they consider how their smoking habit impacted their health or the cigarette producers' revenues. Seated behind a desk with stacks of books, the manager of Liberation Bookstore contends the road to black people's empowerment is gaining knowledge and applying it. Unfortunately, narcotics, alcohol and chemicalized food are plentiful in the ghetto.
Getting free from mood altering substances and the promise of what a disciplined life yields was and is the charm of the Nation of Islam (NOI). A young dewy-faced Louis Farrakhan reveals in an interview the stance that the white man is the devil if one understands to be a devil is to be wicked; and the white man has been wicked to blacks. The NOI's ability to rehabilitate drug addicted and undereducated people was well-known during this time. There's footage of a long line of young boys dressed in suits, ties and bows orderly getting on buses. This is a relief from seeing unwashed and miskept children in earlier scenes.
Black Power Mix Tape is not a feel good documentary; rather it is a neutral archive of locations, people, statements and occurrences for the viewer to experience. It is for the viewer to digest and assess. It is for the viewer to make use of the stories relayed.
Labels: black power movement, civil rights movement, community control, drug addiction, heroin, NYC politics, Vietnam War
NYC Charter Revision Commission
Mayor Bloomberg appointed the latest
charter revision commisssion, March 3, 2010. This commission will review the city's existing charter, which is similar to the by-laws and articles of incorporation for a nonprofit. The last charter revision was done in 1989. The issue is what is prompting Mayor Bloomberg to want to tweak the charter but another time? Judging from his success in extending term limits, cutting community board budgets by one-third, bringing the NYC Department of Education under mayoral control, joining the Administration for Children Services with the Dept. of Juvenile Justice--the department that operates three secure juvenile detention centers--and his move to close unionized publicly-funded child care centers while bringing in Philadelphia-based child care enterprise Bright Star (possibly non-unionized in NYC), New Yorkers need to listen and participate in the process. After all, New Yorkers will vote on the changes election day November 2.
It behooves New Yorkers to know the names and backgrounds of the eleven men and four women who comprise the commission. The public hearing in Brooklyn is slated for Tuesday, April 20, 2010 at St. Francis College at 180 Remsen Street, 4:00 - 6:00 PM and thereafter the public meeting. The Queens public hearing and meeting is Monday, April 19 at LaGuardia Community College. How many people are aware that public hearings and meetings occurred in New York, the Bronx and Staten Island earlier in April?
Items for review include the continued existence of the 59 community boards, the public advocates office and the five offices of the borough president. Community boards were given formal governmental roles in 1975--through charter revision--to include average residents in budgetary, land use, and city service delivery decisions. Community boards review NYS Liquor Authority license applications for bars, restaurants and cabarets. The office of the borough president was a critical selling feature to get five cities to become one. With a population over 2.4 million in Brooklyn and over 2.2 million in Queens, it is readily understood how important it is to maintain the borough president position for managing city services, structures and employees.
The
public advocate is an elected position and is an ex-officio member of all NYC council committees. The current public advocate, Bill de Blasio was a council member who chaired the general welfare committee. Should this position be eliminated, New Yorkers lose another means to have their concerns positively addressed.
Mayor Bloomberg, in his March 3, 2010 press release, "charged the commission with examining the changes made by the 1988 and 1989 Charter Revision Commissions, and other subsequent changes, in light of the lessons learned over the past two decades and the new challenges and opportunities that have since arisen." This event is an opportunity to include New York residents in the process. What must be in place is media coverage, on-the-ground outreach to New Yorkers and frequent open public forums. When the changes go to a general public vote in November will New Yorkers be informed voters? As of April 10, 2010, the CRC Web site doesn't schedule public hearings and meetings beyond April.
Labels: charter revision, NYC, NYC politics
Mark Griffith, Young Lion Proceeding Instinctively
Was it the words of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. in his “Why We Can’t Wait” speech that encouraged
Mark Winston Griffith to run for the 36th NYC Council seat? Was it simply a personal vision of change in his community? Whatever compelled him, Griffith diligently connected with grassroot, borough and city stakeholders, while respectfully acknowledging encumbent Albert Vann. During his brief speech November 1, 2009 at the Pre-Black Solidarity Day Rally at Boys and Girls High School, Griffith asked for the audience to “vote for him though, he realizes he sits on the shoulders of Albert Vann and sees Vann as a mentor.” CEMOTAP executive Betty Dobson remarked “It’s always good when there’s competition.”
Griffith, a Brown University graduate, dubs himself a community activist. Prior to directing the Drum Major Institute, he was a senior policy analyst there. Before that he worked with Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project where he studied predatory lending patterns existing in New York City. His community-based experience includes the Central Brooklyn Partnership and Crown Heights Neighborhood Improvement Association. This campaign has him view his role as “a paid community organizer rather than a legislator.”
The September 15, 2009 primary election results were Griffith being 600 votes shy of winning. The close results had the Griffith campaign team see a chance for victory and constituents were willing to consider someone other than the 35-year veteran of public office. Mark Griffith endorsers mounted to include United Auto Workers, ACORN, Educational Justice PAC, New York Daily News, Council of School Supervisors and Administrators and the Working Families Party. Momentum increased when on October 26, 2009, Council member Charles Barron and Rev. Al Sharpton endorsed Griffith.
“Public office isn’t holding onto power as long as possible but being a connective tissue,” opines Griffith. Vann’s vote for term limit extensions greatly impacted him. “Consider change…hold our leadership accountable and consider a new generation of ideas to come in,” were Griffith’s requests to his neighbors. During a talk at Betsy Ross Apartments in Crown Heights two days before the general election, he acknowledged being “audacious to run against Vann and that as a Working Families Party candidate he was fighting against automatic ticking off down the Democratic column at the poles.”
Election night November 3, he switched between New York 1 and Brooklyn 12 TV stations. By 10 o’clock the final tally of Vann receiving 64% and Griffith receiving 32% was “disappointing” to him. “We knew it was an uphill battle; however, we’re impressed with the 5,000 votes and pleased that a third party line garnered the numbers,” Griffith states reflectively days later. His family and campaign team took cues from him as to the mood during the after party at Akwaaba Mansion. He’s pleased he contributed to getting people to use the Working Families Party to vote for the mayor and 36th CD.
Griffith’s immediate task following the election was completing his chapter on economic recovery strategies for New York City for the Drum Major Institute’s upcoming book. Other issues with which he will be involved are the school to prison pipeline and healthy food delivery to communities of color.
Labels: Brooklyn, NYC politics, Working Families Party
Keeping NYC Kids Needs in the Budget
Families, nonprofits, unions, and NY City Council members converged on City Hall’s steps, on May 28, 2008, in a show of solidarity for quality and adequately funded programs for New York’s kids—from crib to the high school prom. In the face of a “4.2 billion city budget surplus,” these advocates are amazed that Mayor Bloomberg intends to drastically cut money for child care centers, public schools, Beacons, afterschool programs, the Summer Youth Employment Program and Runaway and Homeless Youth Shelters. Cries of “Keep the Promises,” “Joe Klein Must Go,” and “No Cuts, No Cuts” rang in the air. Being more than a ‘photo opp’, leaders asserted the balance of power between the people, the City Council and the Mayor. Councilmember Lew Fidler, Youth Services Committee Chair, said, “The City Council will be dragging Mayor Bloomberg, kicking and screaming, to pass a budget that covers our young people.” Councilmembers Charles Barron, John Liu and Finance Committee Chair David Weprin declared, at different points, “The Mayor must be reminded that the Council passes the budget.”
The show of unity consisted of three press conferences. District Council 1707, AFSCME co-sponsored with Councilmembers Bill deBlasio, Diana Reyna and Letitia James the first one, at 11 AM, to stop child care defunding and further center closings by the Administration for Children’s Services. DC 1707 Executive Director Raglan George, Jr. presented highlights of the draft “The Better Way Alternative to ACS Child Care Funding Formula.” The “Better Way” includes continued full coverage of centers’ fixed costs, restoring the number of eligibility workers in ACS resource areas, reinstatement of “BIG MAC,” a citywide enrollment campaign, and keeping children in centers for the full year when parents’ pay raises bring household incomes over the income ceiling. General Welfare Committee Chair Bill deBlasio promoted Resolution No. 1415, a resolution that requires ACS to set tangible goals for the Full Enrollment Initiative. Councilmembers Reyna and James went a step further by introducing Resolution No. 1420, which calls upon the Bloomberg Administration to place a moratorium on the implementation of ACS’s “unproven” Project Full Enrollment Initiative. Educational Director for Stagg Street DCC and head of the Professional Association of Day Care Providers Larry Provete was one of many workers and families representing the interests of working families.
The New York City Youth Alliance, an umbrella organization for such groups as The After School Corporation, The New York Immigration Coalition, YMCA of Greater New York and Human Services Council of New York City, took over the steps, by noon, to decry the lack of support for older children. NYC Coalition for Educational Justice’s Ernesto Maldonado echoed the frequent observation of the Bloomberg Administration’s $1 billion funding of Yankee Stadium’s renovation yet, cutting $38.15 million in such youth and family programs as SYEP, Adult Literacy and Beacons. Directions for Our Youth’s Cary Goodman explained that “An average of 22,000 pupils drop out of public schools yearly yet, the money for drop out intervention is cut.” The Youth Alliance continues its daily vigil at City Hall during budget negotiations for fiscal year 2009. The United Federation of Teachers and Keep the Promise Coalition held the third press conference. UFT President Randi Weingarten stamped her feet as she derided Chancellor Joel Klein’s “ Robin Hood divide and conquer mentality.” She, along with Councilmember John Liu, urged advocates not to give into distinctions between high performing and challenged schools, low- to moderate-income neighborhoods and affluent ones or division by color. Rather, the City Council must vow to vote no for city cuts to public education and restore $428 million to the Department of Education’s budget. Each councilmember, then, came to the podium to make the vow.
Labels: Joe Klein, New York City, NYC Executive Budget, NYC politics, society, youth agenda
