(In a previous post, we discussed how poor education, lack of job opportunity, unfair prison sentencing and the need for rural job creation all play a part in creating the “Dragon” that contributes so significantly to our crime rate and systematically destroys black households in Philadelphia and across the country. Today, we’ll introduce the role that handguns, black community apathy and news media play in this disturbing scenario).
The final feature of the “Dragon’s” design is found in the easy availability of handguns in communities where economically desperate and unemployed people reside.
While those of us in Philadelphia continue to be engaged in a running debate with the State General Assembly about the need to have stronger gun laws here in the City, our political leaders at the federal level are making it clear that we can expect absolutely no support or comfort from the U.S. Congress on the issue. In fact, earlier this year, 55 U.S. Senators and 250 U.S. Representatives filed a brief, urging the Supreme Court to overturn Washington D.C.’s handgun ban.
Amazingly, those who sided with the National Rifle Association on this issue included both of Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senators, Robert Casey and Arlen Specter, and 13 out of 19 of the state’s U.S. Representatives (kudos to Representatives Fattah, Schwartz, Brady, and three others who took a principled stand on this matter). Clearly a message is being sent at the highest level of government that the profitability of the firearms industry is more important than the social stability and safety of black men and other City residents.
So that’s “the Dragon”… as you can see, it’s a beast whose diet consists primarily of African-American men, and which requires constant feeding to be truly productive.
The fact that this inhumane system also destroys families and contributes to successive generations of poverty-stricken black households seems not to be an issue, as long as it continues to turn a profit for those invested in prison services, firearms and narcotics.
Regrettably, when we, together with our local elected officials and business leaders don’t absolutely demand higher educational outcomes for our young people, when we condone the proliferation of hand guns and illicit drugs in our communities, when we put up with shamefully unfair arrest and sentencing disparities, and when we deny black men and women the opportunity to finally be gainfully employed, we remorselessly continue to “Feed the Dragon.”
I firmly believe that we will never substantially reduce the rate of crime in our City, or anywhere else in this country, until we recognize the need to increase employability and economic accessibility for those who have been disenfranchised.
As a case in point, I have watched with interest as Philadelphia praises the efforts to put more cops on the City’s streets. While I’m in favor of these “stop-gap” efforts to achieve greater levels of public safety, I also recognize that for every offender arrested by Philadelphia police, “The Dragon,” left unattended, produces many new potential criminals to take his/her place. It’s like trying to drain the Atlantic Ocean with a tea cup.
As black citizens, we must make clear that unless we are finally included in this city’s economy, there can be no economic benefits for anybody else. That will take effort, organization and “heart,” but that appears now to be the only way we can ensure our families’ futures.
Finally, and just as importantly, I hope that our young people can begin to see that, when they emulate the so-called “gangstas” on the hip-hop videos, and when they finally give in to the environment of the “drug and gun economy,” they are not being a “thug,” nor are they “acting out” against the larger society, at all.
In fact, they are doing precisely what Mary Ellen Keith and others in rural America, and in certain corporate boardrooms, want them to do. They are right on schedule and they are following the script, as written.
No, our young people are not really evolving into a generation of “tough guys” or independent thinkers. Rather, they are well on their way to becoming “21st Century slaves” in our prisons, and the “Dragon’s” next meal.
###
Showing posts with label Prisons/Incarceration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Prisons/Incarceration. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
If We Want to Stop the Violence
If We Want to Stop the Violence, Stop “Feeding the Dragon”
(Part 2)
(In a previous post, we discussed how poor education, lack of job opportunity, unfair prison sentencing and the need for rural job creation all play a part in creating the “Dragon” that contributes so significantly to our crime rate and systematically destroys black households in Philadelphia and across the country. Today, we’ll introduce the role that handguns, black community apathy and news media play in this disturbing scenario).
The final feature of the “Dragon’s” design is found in the easy availability of handguns in communities where economically desperate and unemployed people reside.
While those of us in Philadelphia continue to be engaged in a running debate with the State General Assembly about the need to have stronger gun laws here in the City, our political leaders at the federal level are making it clear that we can expect absolutely no support or comfort from the U.S. Congress on the issue. In fact, late last week 55 U.S. Senators and 250 U.S. Representatives filed a brief, urging the Supreme Court to overturn Washington D.C.’s handgun ban.
Amazingly, those who sided with the National Rifle Association on this issue included both of Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senators, Robert Casey and Arlen Specter, and 13 out of 19 of the state’s U.S. Representatives (kudos to Representatives Fattah, Schwartz, Brady, and three others who took a principled stand on this matter). Clearly a message is being sent at the highest level of government that the profitability of the firearms industry is more important than the social stability and safety of black men and other City residents.
So that’s “the Dragon”… as you can see, it’s a beast whose diet consists primarily of African-American men, and which requires constant feeding to be truly productive.
The fact that this inhumane system also destroys families and contributes to successive generations of poverty-stricken black households seems not to be an issue, as long as it continues to turn a profit for those invested in prison services, firearms and narcotics.
Regrettably, when we, together with our local elected officials and business leaders don’t absolutely demand higher educational outcomes for our young people, when we condone the proliferation of hand guns and illicit drugs in our communities, when we put up with shamefully unfair arrest and sentencing disparities, and when we deny black men and women the opportunity to finally be gainfully employed, we remorselessly continue to “Feed the Dragon.”
I firmly believe that we will never substantially reduce the rate of crime in our City, or anywhere else in this country, until we recognize the need to increase employability and economic accessibility for those who have been disenfranchised.
As a case in point, I have watched with interest as Philadelphia praises the efforts to put more cops on the City’s streets. While I’m in favor of these “stop-gap” efforts to achieve greater levels of public safety, I also recognize that for every offender arrested by Philadelphia police, “The Dragon,” left unattended, produces many new potential criminals to take his/her place. It’s like trying to drain the Atlantic Ocean with a tea cup.
As black citizens, we must insist that unless we are finally included in this city’s economy, there will be no economic benefits for anybody else. That will take effort, organization and “heart,” but that appears now to be the only way we can ensure our families’ futures.
Finally, and just as importantly, I hope that our young people can begin to see that, when they emulate the so-called “gangstas” on the hip-hop videos, and when they finally give in to the environment of the “drug and gun economy,” they are not being a “thug,” nor are they “acting out” against the larger society, at all.
In fact, they are doing precisely what Mary Ellen Keith and others in rural America, and in certain corporate boardrooms, want them to do. They are right on schedule and they are following the script, as written.
No, our young people are not really evolving into a generation of “tough guys” or independent thinkers, rather, they are well on their way to becoming “21st Century slaves” in our prisons, and the “Dragon’s” next meal.
###
(Part 2)
(In a previous post, we discussed how poor education, lack of job opportunity, unfair prison sentencing and the need for rural job creation all play a part in creating the “Dragon” that contributes so significantly to our crime rate and systematically destroys black households in Philadelphia and across the country. Today, we’ll introduce the role that handguns, black community apathy and news media play in this disturbing scenario).
The final feature of the “Dragon’s” design is found in the easy availability of handguns in communities where economically desperate and unemployed people reside.
While those of us in Philadelphia continue to be engaged in a running debate with the State General Assembly about the need to have stronger gun laws here in the City, our political leaders at the federal level are making it clear that we can expect absolutely no support or comfort from the U.S. Congress on the issue. In fact, late last week 55 U.S. Senators and 250 U.S. Representatives filed a brief, urging the Supreme Court to overturn Washington D.C.’s handgun ban.
Amazingly, those who sided with the National Rifle Association on this issue included both of Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senators, Robert Casey and Arlen Specter, and 13 out of 19 of the state’s U.S. Representatives (kudos to Representatives Fattah, Schwartz, Brady, and three others who took a principled stand on this matter). Clearly a message is being sent at the highest level of government that the profitability of the firearms industry is more important than the social stability and safety of black men and other City residents.
So that’s “the Dragon”… as you can see, it’s a beast whose diet consists primarily of African-American men, and which requires constant feeding to be truly productive.
The fact that this inhumane system also destroys families and contributes to successive generations of poverty-stricken black households seems not to be an issue, as long as it continues to turn a profit for those invested in prison services, firearms and narcotics.
Regrettably, when we, together with our local elected officials and business leaders don’t absolutely demand higher educational outcomes for our young people, when we condone the proliferation of hand guns and illicit drugs in our communities, when we put up with shamefully unfair arrest and sentencing disparities, and when we deny black men and women the opportunity to finally be gainfully employed, we remorselessly continue to “Feed the Dragon.”
I firmly believe that we will never substantially reduce the rate of crime in our City, or anywhere else in this country, until we recognize the need to increase employability and economic accessibility for those who have been disenfranchised.
As a case in point, I have watched with interest as Philadelphia praises the efforts to put more cops on the City’s streets. While I’m in favor of these “stop-gap” efforts to achieve greater levels of public safety, I also recognize that for every offender arrested by Philadelphia police, “The Dragon,” left unattended, produces many new potential criminals to take his/her place. It’s like trying to drain the Atlantic Ocean with a tea cup.
As black citizens, we must insist that unless we are finally included in this city’s economy, there will be no economic benefits for anybody else. That will take effort, organization and “heart,” but that appears now to be the only way we can ensure our families’ futures.
Finally, and just as importantly, I hope that our young people can begin to see that, when they emulate the so-called “gangstas” on the hip-hop videos, and when they finally give in to the environment of the “drug and gun economy,” they are not being a “thug,” nor are they “acting out” against the larger society, at all.
In fact, they are doing precisely what Mary Ellen Keith and others in rural America, and in certain corporate boardrooms, want them to do. They are right on schedule and they are following the script, as written.
No, our young people are not really evolving into a generation of “tough guys” or independent thinkers, rather, they are well on their way to becoming “21st Century slaves” in our prisons, and the “Dragon’s” next meal.
###
Thursday, May 29, 2008
If We Want to Stop the Violence, Stop “Feeding the Dragon,” Part 1
If we’re really serous about reducing the crime rate that has disproportionally impacted Philadelphia’s black community, the first thing we have to do is stop “Feeding the Dragon.”
Regrettably, “Feeding the Dragon” is precisely what our business and political leaders just accomplished last week, when they had an opportunity to break the cycle of racial exclusion at the City’s construction worksites, but “caved” in to pressure from the Building Trades.
The “Dragon” is how I’ve begun to refer to the systemic way that Philadelphia has worked to crush the potential of African-American males, especially since the early 1970’s. It’s the deadly combination of poor education, lack of job opportunity, exposure to drugs and handguns, glaring disparities in rates of incarceration, and prison systems whose primary purpose is to create economic opportunity for rural white communities.
I refer to the “Dragon” as systemic because you see the tracks of the “Beast” in virtually every major city in the country, although Philadelphia ranks as a worst-case example, by virtually every standard.
According to a 2006 report by the EPC Research Center, Philadelphia public schools, with a 70 percent African-American student population, had a graduation rate of 55.5 percent ─ better than New York City, New Orleans, Chicago, Houston, Denver, Dallas, Los Angeles and Detroit, but still 55.5 percent. Interestingly, the 2000 Census also reported that high school “dropouts” nationwide had a 52 percent employment rate in 1999. Another related report indicated that “dropouts” represent nearly 50 percent of the country’s prison population, and that 30 percent of African-American “dropouts” between 18 and 24 are incarcerated or on parole.
It’s interesting to note that, according to a report by the University of Wisconsin, these incarceration rates are a direct result of “policies implemented since the mid-1970’s, which created exponential growth in incarceration between 1975 and 2000. This growth was not due to growing crime rates, but to greater use of incarceration for lesser offenses and drug offenses.”
Once illegal drugs are introduced to black communities, there are significant disparities in how black and white users and sellers are apprehended and sentenced. In fact, in 1998, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services disclosed that 72.5 percent of all illicit drug users were white and that only 15 percent were black. Nevertheless, blacks, as early as 1988, were arrested on drug charges at five times the rate of whites. Nationwide, blacks, who represented 13 percent of the national population, constitute 37 percent of all drug arrests and 53 percent of such arrests in large urban areas.
That pattern of disparities in black/white incarceration rates is seen very clearly in Philadelphia and across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
According to a 2001 report by the Justice Policy Institute, Pennsylvania incarcerates a larger percentage of its minority population than any other state. In fact, blacks comprise 9.2 percent of Pennsylvania’s population, but represent 57.3 percent of its prison population. In Pennsylvania, blacks are imprisoned at a rate 14 times that of whites and Philadelphia has placed the largest number and the highest concentration of black defendants on death row of any major city.
Perhaps the “Dragon’s” most cynical feature is the robust growth, since the 1980’s, of a national network of rural-situated federal and state prisons where predominantly black prison populations are housed, all to the decided economic benefit of rural white communities.
According to a recent article in the New York Times,…”as rural economies across the country crumbled in the 1980’s and the population of prison inmates swelled, largely because of tougher drug laws, states pushed prison construction as the economic escape route of sorts. Throughout the 1960’s and 70’s, an average of four prisons were built each year in rural America. The rate quadrupled in the 1980’s and reached 24 a year in the 1990’s. Depressed rural communities came to rely on the prisons as a source of jobs, economic sustenance and services with little effort devoted to attracting other viable businesses.”
That abusive pattern holds up extremely well in Pennsylvania, which ranks second in the U.S. with 9 federal prisons, but also maintains 28 state prisons. As is the case in New York, Pennsylvania’s state prisons are situated primarily in rural areas and 40 percent of their inmates originate from Philadelphia. Conveniently, the incarceration rates for Philadelphians stands at three times the state average.
The economic dependence on prisons extends far beyond jobs in these rural communities. According to the Times, small businesses in upstate New York, for example, have “staked their survival on the prison workers who patronize their stores. Local governments and churches, meanwhile, have come to depend on inmate work crews to clear snow from fire hydrants, maintain parks and hiking trails, mow the lawns at cemeteries and unload trucks at food pantries.”
As Mary Ellen Keith, town supervisor in Franklin, N.Y., explained to a Times reporter, “All those services, when you put that into dollars, there’s no way we’d be able to hire people to perform them.”
By the way, Mary Ellen, where I come from, that kind of arrangement is simply called what it is ─ “Slavery.”
###
Regrettably, “Feeding the Dragon” is precisely what our business and political leaders just accomplished last week, when they had an opportunity to break the cycle of racial exclusion at the City’s construction worksites, but “caved” in to pressure from the Building Trades.
The “Dragon” is how I’ve begun to refer to the systemic way that Philadelphia has worked to crush the potential of African-American males, especially since the early 1970’s. It’s the deadly combination of poor education, lack of job opportunity, exposure to drugs and handguns, glaring disparities in rates of incarceration, and prison systems whose primary purpose is to create economic opportunity for rural white communities.
I refer to the “Dragon” as systemic because you see the tracks of the “Beast” in virtually every major city in the country, although Philadelphia ranks as a worst-case example, by virtually every standard.
According to a 2006 report by the EPC Research Center, Philadelphia public schools, with a 70 percent African-American student population, had a graduation rate of 55.5 percent ─ better than New York City, New Orleans, Chicago, Houston, Denver, Dallas, Los Angeles and Detroit, but still 55.5 percent. Interestingly, the 2000 Census also reported that high school “dropouts” nationwide had a 52 percent employment rate in 1999. Another related report indicated that “dropouts” represent nearly 50 percent of the country’s prison population, and that 30 percent of African-American “dropouts” between 18 and 24 are incarcerated or on parole.
It’s interesting to note that, according to a report by the University of Wisconsin, these incarceration rates are a direct result of “policies implemented since the mid-1970’s, which created exponential growth in incarceration between 1975 and 2000. This growth was not due to growing crime rates, but to greater use of incarceration for lesser offenses and drug offenses.”
Once illegal drugs are introduced to black communities, there are significant disparities in how black and white users and sellers are apprehended and sentenced. In fact, in 1998, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services disclosed that 72.5 percent of all illicit drug users were white and that only 15 percent were black. Nevertheless, blacks, as early as 1988, were arrested on drug charges at five times the rate of whites. Nationwide, blacks, who represented 13 percent of the national population, constitute 37 percent of all drug arrests and 53 percent of such arrests in large urban areas.
That pattern of disparities in black/white incarceration rates is seen very clearly in Philadelphia and across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
According to a 2001 report by the Justice Policy Institute, Pennsylvania incarcerates a larger percentage of its minority population than any other state. In fact, blacks comprise 9.2 percent of Pennsylvania’s population, but represent 57.3 percent of its prison population. In Pennsylvania, blacks are imprisoned at a rate 14 times that of whites and Philadelphia has placed the largest number and the highest concentration of black defendants on death row of any major city.
Perhaps the “Dragon’s” most cynical feature is the robust growth, since the 1980’s, of a national network of rural-situated federal and state prisons where predominantly black prison populations are housed, all to the decided economic benefit of rural white communities.
According to a recent article in the New York Times,…”as rural economies across the country crumbled in the 1980’s and the population of prison inmates swelled, largely because of tougher drug laws, states pushed prison construction as the economic escape route of sorts. Throughout the 1960’s and 70’s, an average of four prisons were built each year in rural America. The rate quadrupled in the 1980’s and reached 24 a year in the 1990’s. Depressed rural communities came to rely on the prisons as a source of jobs, economic sustenance and services with little effort devoted to attracting other viable businesses.”
That abusive pattern holds up extremely well in Pennsylvania, which ranks second in the U.S. with 9 federal prisons, but also maintains 28 state prisons. As is the case in New York, Pennsylvania’s state prisons are situated primarily in rural areas and 40 percent of their inmates originate from Philadelphia. Conveniently, the incarceration rates for Philadelphians stands at three times the state average.
The economic dependence on prisons extends far beyond jobs in these rural communities. According to the Times, small businesses in upstate New York, for example, have “staked their survival on the prison workers who patronize their stores. Local governments and churches, meanwhile, have come to depend on inmate work crews to clear snow from fire hydrants, maintain parks and hiking trails, mow the lawns at cemeteries and unload trucks at food pantries.”
As Mary Ellen Keith, town supervisor in Franklin, N.Y., explained to a Times reporter, “All those services, when you put that into dollars, there’s no way we’d be able to hire people to perform them.”
By the way, Mary Ellen, where I come from, that kind of arrangement is simply called what it is ─ “Slavery.”
###
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