EDITORAL
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The VA riot
There's a riot going on in Americ . It started on the
ban s of the Potomac in Washington, D.C. and it has
spread aero the land leaving devastation in its wake.
Ronald Reag n began it 11 when he pulled the air
tr ffic controller from their tower. ongress watched as
the triking controller, th n the Ea. tern Airlines pilots,
then meal cutler fell under the feet of the scab replace
ment. ru hin in through th • door to the work place flung
open by Rea n.
ongress ucled th mayhem and added to the mob
hysteria when they fell in behind Re g n/Bu hand
rewrote the tax law looting the poor people's prOll'am
and sta hing the wealth in the home of the ricb.
Corporations caught the fever and rampaged with
vengeance. They looted jobs and took the booty to
Mexico, China, Poland and Taiwan. In their ake tand
empty, burned out, boarded up, crumbling fac ory hells.
Surrounding the blight are the ravaged houses, now har
boring crack heads where jobless families can no longer
afford to stay. .
Junk bond king tore up Wan Street while their bud
die looted the avings and Loan in titutions. And it's a
riot that still feed on its own greedy frenzy, yet to be
played out.
From the GM plant in Willow Run to the Caterpillar
plant in Peoria, the violence continues. The most recent
incident is in Detroit where the Veteran Administration
hospital is providing the cronies of George Bush anew
looting opportunity. .
The Texas insider have pried open the VA 'coffers,
eizing the $229 million constructi n job and the Bush
adminstration keeps their night sticks in their belts, their
gun holsters snapped and their heads turned,
The VA has tied the hands of the Black contractors
while inflicting blow after blow, Refusing to release the
minority participation pi n, the Black contractors can't
defend themselve again t the job lock out.
The ugly scars on the kyline of Los Angeles pale in
comparison to the blight on the soul of Detroit, on the
spirit f America,
Llte most preCiOI�$ !Jjs thClt
pm-ents clm�ive P. rhihf is time
rod cotlsistent_3ui d Uti ce.
VIEWS 'OPINIONS
tired."
succeeded Gerald Ford in
Hence the battle cry hich i on' fall from
reverbe d throughout thi nation ntiall y told Blac
and the orld w Ii, "no j tice, no downpl y BI c i u
pe ce." con rns.
In th f of the growin I
popularity of th lac A nd th
ord from Jimmy Carter to BI
Americ w "tru t me." ce
relation nd th plight 0 Blac
p ople b d al 0 fallen from grace
with white America.
RonaldRea n w notinterested
in gaining the tru t of BI ck
America .. The Reagan enda w
clear: promote and exploit racial
fears and ntagoni IDS a of
advancing tb intercs t of the rich and
th super-rich.
Ronald Reagan unapologeticaUy
aunched an era of race politi
calcul ted to plit off a tantial
number of white middJe c1 and
working cla voter from the
o 2Sy
and it' continuing im ct on th
pirations ofBI Ameri not
been major priority on th public
policy agenda.
Once the wall of outhern
ap rtheld crumbled under the
relentle onslaught of the Civil
Righ Revolution in the hite
America see to have grown weary
of the dvil rigb movement.
With the removal of the "white
only" . gns from ater ountains,
restroo , I h counte ,beac
and other public ccommodatio
and conveya.rces, nd with the
p ge of the Voting Righ Act of
1965, the perception in much 0
white America w that these trides
towards freedom ere ufficient
White America had given enough.
But the rebellion in Watt ,
Newark, Detroit, Washignton, D.C.
and cores of other urban ghettos in
the mid to late ent warning that
the p ge of a fe and the
eradication of the mo t vi ible
indignities not sufficient.
There was the crucial t r of
economic equity and parity for a
people whose free labor helped to
build this nation; a people who e free
labor has never been rewarded with
reparation or a ub tantial
endowment or stake to undergird our
status a "emancipated" African
"ci tizens." '
t t-
tr t gy
hi
Dem tc P 0
become " Oemocra ." To
their di credit, the tion I
D lIti not only retreated
m it' commitment to civil righ
nd ffinn live crion, the
D 0 ere majority in
both the Ho of p n tiv
and the Senate, voted the "Reagan
Revolution" into I revolution
which de troyed social nd
economic upport progr IDS for
minoriti , poor nd orking people ,
and the urban center while
imultaneou ly Incre ing
military/War pending and providing
gaping tax loopholes for the wealthy.
By 1988, it w leade from the
moderate-co rvati e Democratic
Leade p q>nference ithin the
De tic Party like Governor Bill
Clinton ho ere urgi g the
Democra c Party to become more
" e ane que" in order to in
eieeuo . '
Presidential candidates like J
Jackson ere shunned for being too
liber 1 on racial i ue and
ocial-economic policy.
Lester's World@1992KDGINc.
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IT WAS THESE questio of
equality and parity which Martin
Luther King was beginnIng to rai
when he was felled by an assassin's
bullet in Memphis in 1968.
The Kerner Commission which
studied the rebellions of tbe 60s,
including the violent reaction to
King's assassination, concJuded, in
es ence, that there was two
Americas, one white, one Black,
separate and unequal.
The cold fact i that in 1992 for
the MASSES of Black people very
RO
o IE
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ow the bitter harv t of lIC· m, .,
abandonment and neglect has come : _
to fruition and the verdict rendered '
by the masse at the gras roots is that I
America is guilty of massive human .
rights violations and aim against I
humanity. ::
The entence is "no justice, no ::
pe eel"
,.
,
Ron DllIIkls serves as President
of the Institute for Community
Organization and D�lopment ill
Youngstown, Ohio. He may be'
conmcted at (216) 746-5747.
. ,
I
I DON'T KNOW ...
I JUST PULLED HIM OVER
FOR A MISSING TAIL LIGHT
AND THE GUY SAYS THAT'S
OKAY. HE'LL DO IT HIMSELF.
• COfOV'UGHT 1002 KiAN DIDION GROUP INC.
All. ",QH1't III DEfNED
precipitated a national outrage. The
verdict and aftermath of the trial of
the officers accused in the boating of
Rodney King in Los Angeles will be
viewed by many as another test case
on the capacity of the criminal
justice system "to police" the police.
THE OU CEl\{ENT by
the city of Los Angles that Willie 1...
Williams, an African American, is to
be the new Chief of Police of Los
Angeles follows the current national
trend.
William, who is the Police
Commis ioner of the City of
Philadelphia, an outstandiD&
record of effective la enforcement
and a demo ttated 'commitment to
improving police and community
relations. We note that Los Angeles
Police Chief Daryl F. Gates refused
to attend the pres conference in Los
Angeles that presented Police
Chief-to-be Williams.
The pe on in cbar of the police
department in any city help to set
the tone and character of the
department. Police officers are in
fact influenced by their chain of
command and key leadership. So
much of the negative
police/commUDl relA in
el ,
city ,: diIedlya:tti1bWDd
views and eli
Chief Williams will, therefore,
Afr· can-Am rican I ...... de hip:
c lIing 0 chi f f lic
t
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BENJA IN
CHAVIS
It is historically noteworthy that
25 years after the U.S. Kerner
Commission called for a substantive
change in police and law
enforcement .pracnces and attitudes
toward the nation's "minority"
communitie the largest cltie in the
United States increasingly are now
calling on African Americans to be
Chiefs of Police.
As the demographic
characteristics of the major
metropolitan areas continue to
become more multiracial, the
demands for racial ju tice in
municipal 1. enforcement are
beiD made tbrenewed vigor.
Although th overwhelmi g
number of the rant aDd file; police
officers ac the nation are not
persons of color, the fact that a
significant number of the' "top brass"
leaders of metropolitan police
departments are DOW African
Americans and other persons of
color i an important dynamic to
monitor. Unfortunately, much of the
pasthi tory of relationships between
people of color communities and
police departments, urban and rural,
bas been a history of antagonism,
unbridled police brutality and utter
diatruat.
Lat year the videotaped ep
of the Icio racially-motivated
beating of an African-American
motori t by hite officers of the Los
Angeles Police Department,
come into a situation that has been
racially polarized for years. It will
not be easy, but we believe that
Williams has both the competence
and compassion necessary to rise to
meet this critical challenge.
Hopefully, all of the citizens of Los
An8eles will benefit from baving the
police department head in a new
direction.
No one seems to be paying
attention to the progress that Police
Commissioner Lee Brown has made
since he became head of the' nation's
largest police force. To be sure there
are still problem between the
Afric n-AlD rican, and
HI panic.-Amcr1can communitie
police in ork City.
BUT, IT IS also true that there
has been a decrease in the number of
cases of the kind of brutal and violent
racially-motivated police
misconduct that were disturbingly
evident in Ne York City prior to
Lee Brown' administration.
Brown's effective leadership in law
enforcement is internationally
recognized.
The undergirding issue is that
African-�erican leadership of
police cle a
i .•. , li1DR1lW11lC
in African
Chief or Pollce
Commi ioner ill in i elf liberate
people of color communities from
•
years of oppression and exploitation.
The positive difference is that
having a person from the Black
community, which has historically
been victimized by the police, get
into the position of leading a police t
department will at least make the
police potentially more sensitive to '
the diverse needs of different racial
and ethnic communities.
ALL COMMUNITIES are
entitled to ,falme , justice and
re pect a ell as prudent nd
e .YO law enforcement. There
direct correlation between the
stability and empowerment of a
community and the presence of
economic and racial justice
equitably distributed to all. A police
department cannot enforce judicial
j tice onto a community in the
, b ence of racial and economic
justice.
All this means is that the truggle
for freedom and justice must
continue and in citie and
communitie where African
American and othor have
COJJ�IIDK autlllodty over police,
etta to for all
S ould not be diminilhed but
ocelerated.