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VIEWS OPINIONS
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What do Benton Harbor, Highland Park, Muskegon Heights
and Detroit have in common? They are the four most di tressed
cities in the state, according to the Michigan Department of
Commerce. That they are all predominantly African American is
no ccident.
Redlined by the banks, dispo e ed by both political parties,
abandoned by commerce and industry and cash strapped, these
cities struggle to provide the mo t basic of city services as the
streets crumble, thehousing tock deteriorates and "life on the
edge" is not a oap opera, but daily routine.
While politicians and civic leaders pay lip service to restoring
life in the inner cities to a level of normalcy, most plans and
programs are covers to shield the shift of revenue from
government, through city hall accounts, and into the hands of
vulchers of all colors dressed in business suits, hiding out in
corporate uites.
The distress of the people in these Communities becomes a
I1)oney machine.for the opportunistic few. Fancy "improvement"
programs are periodically unveiled with much hoop-lao If it'
housing, in the end, the poor are handed keys to shanty shacks
while the "developers" laugh all the way to the bank.
If it's economic development, closed and boarded-up
storefronts remain havens for crack addicts' and pigeons while
development project plans stack higher and higher on the desks
of program administrators. The same administrators who pull
down the hades at dusk and drive out of the community with a
pay check big enough to feed eight welfare famili
And so the distress continues.
Study the history of Africans in Michigan
if you think that the crack epidemic, the
slums, the miseducation and
abandonment ls an accident.
Unfortunately, the ills are not only foisted on the community,
many are worsened from within. Our young, the super stars and
the college educated, the more affluent community members tum
their backs on parents, sisters, neices and nephews to flee to
suburbia. .
Our politicians pay lip service to Black Pride, but because they
either don't do their homework or in service to their own
selfish-interest, ignore the community and cow-two to the unions
and corporations that financed their election.
But all of this is by design.
If there's anything to learn in February, the month we celebrate
, the hlstoryof Africans in America, it is that the system has been
designed to make money off of people of color.
Start with the three-fifths clause of the Constitution. The
powers-that-be still look on Africans in America as three-fiftlw,
and thank you, they'll take the other two-fifths in profits.
Study the history of Africans in Michigan if you think that the
crack epidemic, the slums, the miseducation and abandonment is'
an accident.
William McAdoo, a Detroiter who has not forgotten who he
'is, provides a history of Blacks in Michigan with his doctoral
disertation, The Settler State: Immigration Policy and The Rise
Of Institutional Racism In Nineteenth Century Michigan,
publsihed by the University Of Michigan Press. .
McAdoo relates that when Blacks first arrived in the state, back
in the 1830's, the law required only these ex-slaves to put up a
$500 bond with the county sheriff to guarantee they would be
law-abiding, productive citizens. Thatis a lot of money today, that
was a fortune then. _
While Blacks had to pay to stay, European settlers were being
courted to come with homestead incentives, promises of
prosperi ty for themselves and their children.
Oppression wasn't only economic, 'it was also political. In
debating what the first state Constitution would mandate, a strong
contingent of representatives led by Calvin Britain argued that
Blacks were inferior and should not vote.
Today, in the state's MOST distressed city, a 93% Black
city-Benton Harbor-there is both a school and a street named
after Calvin Britain.
The oppression of Africans in Michigan did' not end in the
1850's. In the 1880's while the Europeans were bein�ed free
passage to Michigan by agents in emigration offi� �pen� up in
Europe at state expense, 'unemployed Blacks ln Detroit were
charged with vagrancy and locked up in the Detroit House of
Corrections. They were required to work without pay during their
incarceration for the "captains of industry" who sat on the jail'
governing board. These same "captains of industry" )lad a no-hire
policy for Blacks who came looking for WOrk.
Under the deplorable conditions in the House of Corrections,
whole famile of African Americans died of consumption,
tuberculosis.
Today' high infant mortality rates in MiChigan's distressed
cities, the poor education, the high crime rate, corrupt police,
ub tandard housing, rampant drugs ... none of is anything new.
It's not by accident. It's the system.
We're the only one who will change it.
DICT LY nd under-
tandably, there an valanche of
cri tici m denouncing the violent
me portrayed in the video In­
con I tent with Dr. Kin
philosophy of non-violence.
Chuck D., the leader of Public
Enemy, in defending the video,
maintai that the v deo not in­
tended to promo violence. He con­
tends th t the video i imply a
fan y fore ting what could really
happen given the conditions nd
mood in the Bl ck ghett of thi
country.
In my opinion the oblig tory con­
demnations of the video are "cor­
rect", but omewhat superfluous.
The outrage provoked by the video
is eemingly oblivious to the grow­
ing rage brewing In America' inner­
city ghett .
lcolm ould put it, the
ofBI c people are " tchin
more hell" than ever before. In f: ct,
conditio are wo e now for inner­
city Bl th n in 1968 en the
Kerner Commi ion i ued it'
celebrated report in the ftermath of
a erie of urb n rebellio .
There are till "two Am ri ,"
one mosuy Blac nd one m tly
white, epa rate and unequal. The
only thing that has changed that
few middle cia s Bl ck h ve
managed to cape the uburb le v­
log the BI c poorin tateofvirtual
abandonment.
But it was not Bl ck middle c
flight that created the epidemic of
drugs, crime and violence which
plagu America' inner-clties.
OR SEVERAL YEARS, a
number of rap group have been tap­
ping into nd projecting the angry,
ugly mood of frustration festering in
urban Black America. While
"responsible" leaders and much of
U DER THE GUISE of getting
the "burden of government" off the
b cks of the people, it w Ronald
Reagan who drastically cut federal
aid for social programs while trans­
ferring federal re ources to the
"defense" budget. Reagan presided
over the large t peacetime military
build-up in the history of this
country.
The ho ing inventory in inner­
city communitie I r pldly
deteriorating, ho pitals and health
care centers re ctoslng nd public
chool re overcrowded, under-
funded and gro ly inferior to the
school in affluent communities.
CHRONIC UNEMPLOY­
MENT, and underemployment has
produced fertile ground for the illicit
economy, including the drug traffic.
Everywhere in the urban ghetto
there is a ense of abandonment,
desperation and despair.
The e conditions have
precipitated an implosion of internal
violence, death and destruction as'
the victims of ocietal neglect tum on
each other in turf wars over the drug
traffic and other forms of self-
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U.S. slave ship returning Haitian refugees to Port-au-Prince.
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d tructive violence. ::
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Thi ever-pre ent reality 0 op- :
pr ive ghetto life provoke little
more than p ing concern nd com-
ment within majority ociety. :
Blac on Bl ck fratricide and the :.
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conditions which produce it are out "
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of lght and out of mind for much of ,
white America. Because of rac m
nd anti-poor bi and prejudices
in American ociety, the m ive :
violence which ha been he ped :'
upon the Black poor, minorities and :"
poor people in general i not higlron ::
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thi nation' Ii t of priQrlti •
Hence the righteo Indignation
over a rap video is not only uper-.
fluous but hypocritical.
Public Enemy is not the enemy.
Institutional racism, racial politics,
blatant neglect, the acrifice of the
needs, of the poor on the altar of
greed, materiallsm, and militarism :
and societal indifference i the real ::
'enemy. It is these factors which ::
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could cause the fantasy in Public I
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Enemy's video to become a reality. ,
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IF MARTIN LUTHER KING :.
were alive today he most certainly
would plead with Black people to
stay the course in terms on non­
violent resistance to oppression.
However, I think that Dr. King
would also be quick to admonish
America that, "a nation that con­
tinues to spend more money on
military defense than on programs
for social uplift is approaching
spiritual death. A violent and abusive
society produces violent and abusive
people."
Unless those who roundly con­
demn Public Enemy and other rap
groups are prepared to focus on the
root causes of the anger, frustration'
and violence portrayed in their ::
videos, mere condemnation will not "
, be sufficient to avert the spiritual :'
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death that is destined to bring this ,.
nation to it's demise. '
Ron Daniels serves as Presidenl
of the InstitUte for Community Or- ,
ganization and Development in :
Youngstown, Ohio. He may be con- ,.
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tocted at (216) 746-5747. :,
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II Doubting Thoma
turn back on voting right
African-American History
Month is the traditional time that the
nation remembers the history of the
African-American struggle for jus­
tice and freedom. No review of this
history would be complete without
acknowledging the high, blood­
soaked price that African Americans
have had to pay to get "voting rights'
in America.
It is, therefore, quite a slap in the
face of all the acritices of �
Luther King, Jr., Medgar Evers, Fan- .
nie LDu Hamer, and many others, for
Supreme Court Justice Clarence
Thomas to vote against voting rights
on the eve of African-American His­
toryMon�
There were many 'of Judge
Thomas' upporteIS who had argued
that if we "just give Thomas' a
chance, he wW rememberwhcre he
came from and how be got where he
is today.· Yet, thus far Thomas has
consistently taken positions that are
fundamentally opposed to civil
rights. First, be disqualified himself
in the impoI1aDt Mississippi racial
j tice cue on education that the
Supreme Court decided to review.
Now in Judge Thomas' first vote
conceming a civil rights case, he
joined in with the neo-conservatives
on the Supreme Court to rule 6-t0-3
to contradid the Voting Rights Acr.
THE CASE, Presley vs. Etowah
County Commission, involved the
voting rights of African Americans
in the state of AJabama. After
African Americans were successful
in being elected at the county offices,
to prevent African Americans from
being involved in the decisions con­
cerning roads and other matters is a
clear violation of the Voting Rights
Act
Even the U.S. Justice Department
had taken a position in support of the
rights of the African American offi­
cials who sued the Etowah County·
Commission for violating the Voting
Rights Act. In the dissenting
opinion, Justice John Paul Stevens
said that this decision signaled a
retreat on voting rights.
Stevens stated, "The recalcitrant
white majorities could be expected
to devise new stratagems to maintain
their political power" despite efforts
by African Americans to use voting
as a means of political and economic
empowennent \
Although Lawrence Ptealey
the first African American to ever be
elected to the Etowah County Com­
mission, he has been stripped of
ome of his elected powers solely
because of his race. The Supreme
Court of the United States DOW If-
firms this backward step to be legal
and constitutional. Attorney Pamela
Karlan represented Preset y in Court.
Attorney Karlen stated, "If
anyone could understanding the
kind of insidious and subterranean
'discrimination some southern dis­
tricts engage in, it's Thomas." But
unfortunately, Judge Thomas has
forgotten hi early days in the South,
IN AN INTERVIEW with USA
,TODAY, Attorney Karlan in refer­
ence to Judge Thomas emphasized,
"He's been beneficiary of the Voting
Rights Act, but doesn't see that the
battle is still on. .. He doesn't see it or
doesn't care." The civil rights com­
munity can' not afford to remain
silent as Thomas and others on the
Supreme Court take tbe nation in the
direction of racial injustice. '
Of course, there were some of us
who read the handwriting on the wall
in regard to what kind of posture
Thomas would assume on the
Supreme Court. There are also
many ho are praying that "Doubt-
Tbomaa· will change.
Federal Judge Leon Higgin­
botham, Jr. is a highly respected
judge in Philadelphia. He recently
wrote to Thomas in an appeal' for
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BENJAMIN
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CIVIL
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JOURNAL
judicial integrity and historical ,
memory. Higginbotham cautioned "
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Thomas, "You were bom into injus­
tice, tempered by the hard reality of
what it means to be poor and
Black..J trust you shall not forget
that many who preceded you and
many who follow you have found,
and will find, the door of equal op­
portunity lammed in their faces
through no fault of their own. •
We 'must press forwam. Judge
Thomas is a disappointment, but we
must not let his actions deter the
movement for justice. Right will ul­
timately prevail over wrong, 110 mat­
terwhat the color is of the perpetrate
, of injustice.