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A Rage in Oakland
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Why both parties refuse to stop black-on-black crime.
A few nights ago, there was a riot in Oakland, California, in response to the shooting death of an unarmed black man by a transit police officer. Yes, there was a cause but the violence got out of hand as violence almost always does in these situations. Cars were set afire, business windows smashed, and one young black woman seen on CNN said that people were rioting because they live in a state of terror and wanted to make others feel terror, too. Different people said that they were tired of black males being murdered by the police. They should be tired whenever it is murder, or such irresponsibly excessive force that it might as well be. But there is something else.
While black people scream, chant, and holler about killer cops, the central cause of death among black males is not excessive police action. There is however plenty of chilling documentation that proves we have among us a national slaughterhouse—the roller coaster numbers of black people, especially males, killed by other black males. In Oakland, black homicides number ten times those of other ethnic groups and are, shockingly, closer to the average oppression by black crime across our country than they are anachronisms.
The left has an understandable but irrational hatred of law enforcement that obscures what is a clear and present danger to the lives of American citizens.
A sociologist named James Fox from Northeastern University has just released a study called "The Recent Surge in Homicides Involving Young Black Males and Guns: Time to Reinvest in Prevention and Crime Control." Uh oh. The mere suggestion that our society should invest in the prevention of murder and crime in black communities from coast to coast is thought reprehensible by those on the left and the right. When Barack Obama said that it was time for the brothers to pull their pants up, he could add that it is also time for those who purport to think about urban problems to open up their eyes and ears so that they can see that the ambulances arriving after the bullets fly are not the siren songs of mythic tales and those put on the stretchers or in the body bags are not play-acting in a perpetual Halloween slaughter. They are the ugly details of the real deal.
Though these homicides have continued to pile up over the last two decades, the crisis has largely been ignored by the civil rights establishment, our Marxist university professors who fat-mouth past the facts, our white liberals who remain as lame as ever, and, finally, way over on the other side, the hard core social and fiscal conservatives who usually stand mute on the issue (a brilliant exception being Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute). The social and fiscal conservatives should be alarmed by—if nothing else—the billions this country has to pay for the murders, the rehabilitation, the mutilations, the disability, the psychological trauma, and so on. But no: whether on the left or the right, they are all pigs at a trough of clichés.
But James Fox has a stump to fit their rumps. His study of national crime statistics shows that, as Daily News columnist Errol Louis wrote in New York, "the number of black male youngsters who were murder victims rose by 31 percent between 2002 and 2007—and the number of black juvenile murder perpetrators jumped "43 percent.” The report also says that this was "consistently true for every region of the country."
The left has an understandable but irrational hatred of law enforcement that obscures what is a clear and present danger to the lives of American citizens. The hatred is rooted in the civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s as well as the inarguable excessive force and Keystone Kop level of police work that has jailed some innocent black people. (When I taught a black literature course in the penitentiary in California, all of my students described themselves as "political prisoners" until I asked how many of them were serving time for crimes that they did not commit. None raised their hands. By political prisoners they explained that they meant they lacked the money to hire the kinds of lawyers that got those white crooks off. There you go.)
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Stanley Crouch's culture pieces have appeared in Harper's, The New York Times, Vogue, Downbeat, The New Yorker, and more. He has served as artistic consultant for jazz programming at Lincoln Center since 1987, and is a founder of Jazz at Lincoln Center. In June 2006 his first major collection of jazz criticism, Considering Genius: Jazz Writings, was published. He is presently completing a book about the Barack Obama presidential campaign.
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Stanley Crouch's culture pieces have appeared in Harper's, The New York Times, Vogue, Downbeat, The New Yorker, and more. He has served as artistic consultant for jazz programming at Lincoln Center since 1987, and is a founder of Jazz at Lincoln Center. In June 2006 his first major collection of jazz criticism, Considering Genius: Jazz Writings, was published. He is presently completing a book about the Barack Obama presidential campaign.
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Stanley Crouch's culture pieces have appeared in Harper's, The New York Times, Vogue, Downbeat, The New Yorker, and more. He has served as artistic consultant for jazz programming at Lincoln Center since 1987, and is a founder of Jazz at Lincoln Center. In June 2006 his first major collection of jazz criticism, Considering Genius: Jazz Writings, was published. He is presently completing a book about the Barack Obama presidential campaign.
I remember a few years back when Jessie Jackson, walking with a reporter, said they'd better cross the street when approaching a handful of black males idling on the street. The journalist reported this, Jessie denied it. If Pull Up Your Pants and Crouch's candor mean we have turned a corner, that's good news. But is Maxine Waters still blaming the CIA for inner-city havoc?
Excellent post, Mr. Crouch.
Stanley Crouch, you are absolutely the best writer on planet Earth!! I lived in Brooklyn, NY from 1999-2006 and read your column every single day. I'm now back in Texas and SO glad to be reading your articles again. You are wise, intelligent, well-spoken, fair, and inspiring. Keep up the good work!
Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote about this kind of commentary yesterday here: http://ta-nehisicoates.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/01/do_blacks_care_abou t_black_on_black_crime.php
and I'm going to quote from the comments:
"It's a very big deal when a cop is killed in the line of duty -- shouldn't it be a very big deal when a cop kills someone in the line of duty?"
I agree that this is an excellent, well-reasoned, and articulated article. There were two parts to the Oakland story.
One was the actual incident that inspired the anger that fomented the street riot. The second was the actual riot itself, which happened a couple of days after the initial incident.
Having viewed the live videos of the initial incident, the Oakland BART shooting, it is clear that the very same violence and intimidation referenced by Crouch, was the catalyst for the shooting by the cop. The film clip being given the most prominence, clearly shows an unruly crowd of New Year's Eve revelers ramping up their anger.
The cops were subduing a group of minority youth, who had been intimidating and fighting other passengers on a subway train. While the cops were subduing the initial rowdies, other minority youth were coming off of the other train in the station, and doing their own intimidation dance around the cops.
These thugs were doing the gangbanger strut up towards the police, up and back, then they were pelting the officers with all kinds of stuff, it sounded, and looked like a feeding frenzy. So, by bringing the violence and intimidation of this ghetto-attitude towards a fragile situation, these hoodlums panicked a young cop, who had just the very day before become a father for the first time.
I am not trying to excuse the killing of the youth, who was in a submissive position face-down on the ground. But it is clear that the panic the cop felt, was what led to a twitchy trigger finger, on a gun that discharged practically before it had cleared leather.
The riots that occurred days later, the violence and intimidation of that riot were randomly targeted against other, mostly minority "regular people", their cars, and storefronts.
Mob mentality is the lowest common denominator for us humans. We all touch into it at our packed football stadiums, basketball arenas, and other large venues. It can be an
exciting and always intimidating thing. "The home field advantage" is worth a few points in the betting spread.
But, in Society at large, we look to our system of police, and military to protect us from its more dangerous aspects. To do the gangbanger strut is to walk the plank!
I live in Richmond, CA and take bart through Oakland often.
I would like to thank the police for trying to keep us safe.
You wouldn't believe some of the things I have seen people do on bart.
Especially from the black community. So many of them act entitled like they don't have to follow the same rules as the rest of us.
So, Mr. Crouch, what options are there to stem this culture of violence? Where do we begin? You say that "Americans love the spectacle of blood spilled at a distance." I assume you're talking about wars abroad; however, the same can be said of the entertainment value of the blood spilling from our televisions, computer screens, and music. Simply put, violence has become an enjoyable, and profitable, pastime.
Obviously, this is too complex a problem to be summed up in a few sentences. It's certainly beyond my ability to do so. Do you believe there is a practical solution to societal violence? Or, are we stuck with the same old cliched responses from the same old entrenched interests? Short of pulling our pants up, what next?
Well done, Mr. Crouch. I hope your message reaches a wider audience.
The general coarsening of society troubles me greatly. I'm saddened that so many young people, of all races, are attracted to the absolute worst in our culture.
How do you think Obama should use his bully pulpit to start to change the conversation?
This is one of the best explanation I have ever read about the conflicts Mr. Crouch. The thing is we have to stop the race and color thing that is over in this globalize world if we want to survive, and I´m talking just live to see the next day, because the next generations will have much more issues at hand besides gangs and if they do not know how to coexist in peace and respect they wont be able to overcome the bigger conflict such as lack of drinkable water in the planet or fish in the ocean, right now we as humans are in a conundrum. Are we going to be able to get along and avercome social issues in order to assure our existence? Thoughts anyone
Excellent article. I appreciate your honest assessment, Mr. Crouch.
I think that one of the reasons white liberals don't make more noise about this is that we don't want to seem to be telling black folks what to do.
How do you think this can be approached in a way that doesn't feel like us against them, but all of us together confronting an critical problem?
Good article, it sights alot of truth. These young people need not be held up as victims. There is a definate responsibility for right and wrong. They are murdering off the future of a race of people. On the other hand can you say genocide. We have a society that sits back and watches (unless it touches them) as these mostly young men kill each other. This same society that has no real expectations for these children . Won't educate them about themselves won't employ them even in unskilled jobs , won't declare war on the gross poverty that they come from. They (society) sell bling, gangsterism and violence in the name of entertainment and keeping it real. Inpoverished schools, drugs (keep it in the dark neighborhoods they are animals anyway), crime, hopelessness and seemingly no way out. We sit back and watch and when things come to a boil (riot) we say oh my god what's wrong with them. Stop the genocide, raise hope and expectations. Educate, educate, educate. Let them know that came from kings and queens, built pyramids, pioneered open heart surgery. Show them the possibilities of the future, after all it does lay with them.
Well written and reasoned. However, in a civilized society, this type of law enforcement can not be tolerated and civil unrest seems to be a viable alternative to bring media attention to the plight of urban murders. While I do not espouse to violence, I do sympathize with the feelings of injustice that continue to befall our people in system that is inherently unjust. Anytime a people do not have access to equality, the struggle must rise and remain steadfast until change should prevail.
Questions of a race are a sub-topic in the main issue of gun violence.
Australia successfully summoned the political will to get serious about gun control, and very significantly lowered the violent crime rate on a continent.
No American leader has yet dared to imagine that anything similar could be achieved here.
PS - Love the image of pigs feeding at a trough of cliches!
Stanley, who's better than you? And you're right that white liberals and other whites who are afraid of being called racist is a big part of the problem (or worse yet, buy the self-esteem crap). What we really need is for there to be an end to the McCarthyite practice of calling any white person who fairly criticizes minority behavior a "racist". Heather McDonald of course has to tolerate smears also, but she just doesn't care. She's more interested in truly treating everyone as equals and holding everyone to the same standard. We need more like her and you, Stanley, to help lead the way.
Excellent work, Mr. Crouch!
The statistics regarding black on black crime are not new. Neither are the statistics regarding the number of babies born out of wedlock to teenage black girls. Woe betide the observer who points this out! Anyone who says that these disproportionate numbers need addressing is either a racist pig or a sell-out. Nonsense! As you so eloquently put it, nobody likes it when the red splashes on us. This is our problem, our community, our neighborhood, our city, our nation, and we must address these problems before they either kill us or bankrupt us. As a nation, we spend more on criminal justice than we do on education. We spend more on welfare and medicaid than we do on prevention of unplanned pregnancy. We spend more on catching and punishing folks than we do on addressing the root cause of these issues. Maybe there isn't just one cause, maybe there are a lot of contributing factors, but it must be all of us who stand up and say that we will not tolerate this insanity any more. This is not an issue of race, and anybody who thinks it is hasn't been on the streets if far, far too long, or they are just living in the groung like a turnip, head first.
Commenting from Oakland: Generally speaking, I'm a fan of your writing, Mr. Crouch, but this seems opportunistic. The killing of Oscar Grant, whether it was a mistake and the officer meant to use his taser or whether it was an intentional vicious act, is tragic. His mother has publicly called for an end to the violent demonstrations in Oakland (by the way, you might have noted that as this kind of response goes, the demonstration was relatively small and even mild--a few dumpsters set on fire, a few cars turned over and/or burned). But as long as you are ragging on how Black people treat each other, you might want to take a look at the less than stellar job Dellums is doing as mayor. In response to Grant's killing, he first said the Oakland police had no role in investigating it--as if he believed BART cops have jurisdiction over the BART trains and platforms. The next day he said the Oakland cops should be investigating the killing. He is so unconcerned with the city that he can hardly be bothered to pay attention to what happens in it. Chip Johnson of the SF Chronicle reports on the Dellums train wreck almost daily.
Hockeydog might want to take a look at the video in which the BART cops standing with Mehserle (the man who shot Grant in the back) react in horror at the shooting. Everyone is entitled to an opinion on these forums, but with important issues like this, you might want to look at more than one source before you comment. I live in Oakland, so I am no doubt seeing more than you, but it is not the case that the armed BART cops were threatened by people getting off BART. If they can't take a little hooting and hollering, they need to find another line of work. Grant and his friends were involved in a scuffle, not an all out brawl. Don't try to make it seem as though Grant created some kind of violent atmosphere that the violent dog crowd at the BART station began to feed on. It simply did not happen that way.
Oscar Grant, the young black man shot in this incident, did not appear to exhibit behavior that would warrant being tasered, much less shot. That having been established, I doubt whether many of the critics of the BART officers' behavior have ever been in a dangerous, chaotic situation like this. The body's physiological response to a rush of adrenaline is the "fight or flight " response, a situation in which our lizard brains reacts (or in most cases, overreacts) to perceived dangers and threats. Even with the best of training and experience, horrible mistakes are made. I think that this is exactly what happened here. People who know Mr. Mersele, the BART officer, say that is devastated by this incident.
One of the issues not addressed here is why Mr. Grant, who had a four-year-old daughter, was out partying and drinking with his friends on New Years night. While no one deserves to be shot by anyone for what he did, the fact remains that had he been at home with his family, he would probably be alive today. If the victim had been the four-year-olds mother, not father, I'm sure these questions would have been asked by now. Instead, we assume a rather racist and misogynistic perspective by not asking that question: "What the hell was he doing drinking, partying and getting into fights?" The unspoken assumption is, don't all inner-city men of color leave their families, go out drinking and parting on New Year's night and get into fights?
As Bill Cosby pointed out, until we have expectations that young black men will step-up and behave responsibly, many of them won't.
Oscar Grant was no kid. He was 23 years old, already had a rap sheet and had served time. The Oakland/ Fruitvale BART station is one of the most dangerous places in the Bay area late at night. But, as you pointed out, Mr. Crouch, if you're a young black male, the usual danger comes not from BART police shooting you, but from another young black male shooting you. We've become so accustomed to black-on-black shootings of inner-city males by inner-city males that they are hardly reported anymore.
No person should have to worry about being harassed, beaten, shocked or shot by a police officer during an arrest. Yet as adults we all make decisions about our safety and calculate how our behavior (choosing to get into a fight ,hanging with the wrong crowd, etc.) increases or decreases our safety. Oscar Grant made some very bad decisions. What happened to him was truly tragic. Yet, again, he had some responsibility in his tragic demise. It was not as if the BART cop came upon him and just opened fire.
Ironically, one of the last things Mr. Grant was purported to have said was, "Don't tase me. I have a four-year-old daughter!" It's really sad that he didn't think more about his daughter before leaving with his friends that night.
Thanks for speaking the unspeakable.
Dear Mr. Crouch,
I think you deserve the award for non sequitur of the decade! Clearly, black-on-black crime is a problem but this killing is a different issue. The one is not an appropriate response to the other. You could solve the black-on-black crime issue and find that those policemen who are racist will still kill black people or other minorities. Long before inner city black crime existed, there were racist killings.
For you to use this incident as a platform for your social commentary is tragic and reprehensible. We see a young man on the ground, shot in the back by police (4 standing around him). In your mind, the fear of police is irrational? Are you crazy?! Kindly, have your larger discussion outside the door. For now, we are deeply concerned about being shot by police. Why? Because it does happen and we have seen it happen. College students, professionals, we've seen it happen. Black-on-black crime DOES NOT MAKE IT OKAY.
The next time you get pulled over, remember this, it could just as easily be you! Or your son, daughter or wife. As with most things, people wax poetic when they are not the ones hurt.
We don't, and shouldn't, live in a society where the police are judge, jury and executioner. Unless you're a direct danger to others or yourself, lethal force should not come into play at all.
The real question here is: does this sort of thing happen more to blacks than to whites?
As usual Mr. Crouch. Whenever, whites do something to blacks, you don't mention whites, but hit blacks like a ton of bricks.
You know this is a very disappointing situation. But why does it seem that when we talk about crime..their is a sense that it is a black problem and everybody else is saint worthy? The last DOJ crime statistics (2006) of the 11 million arrest in the USA..9 million were whites..yes look it up..but we never hear about it on TV or in print..I wonder why?? of course the reason is to make black people look like fools, criminals, not trustworthy etc...when we discuss drug use..it has a black face on it...but when you talk to a Columbian drug lord on a PBS special last year..he said the biggest clients in the US is the white male ..BY FAR as he laughed in the camera..if this country wants to stamp out crime and other social ills..it must first BE HONEST about the root of the problem and stop with the blame game on a particular race...
Thank you , Mr. Crouch
ThinkingMan & Maliksmama exhibits and express the type of DANGEROUS defensive posture that plagues nearly every black community in America. What matters most is the message, not the opportunity taken to send it.
ThinkingMan, (if you say so) your concerns are purely cosmetic and vanity has no place in the ugly lives of those negatively affected by murderers. You're the kind of guy that would burn down his house to save the toilet....Idiocy wears thin real fast.
Maliksmama...if you're white, you're a racist. If you're black, then you're a damn fool or maybe Malik, your son (not ours) is one of the disturbing influences we need to exorcise once and for all. Shame on you for that "hit blacks like a ton of bricks" psychobabble you're dribbling. I, for one, don't care to feel your burden of guilt by racial assignment, so wipe your chin and speak for yourself.
You two are losers whose self-loathing kills innocent people; literally and spiritually.
Thank you.
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