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Baltimore, Newark and justifying the unjust

Posted 5/7/15

The recent riots in Baltimore, Md., are reminiscent of the riots in Newark, N.J., that occurred 48 years ago. The complaints of the black community in regard to the actions of police and their …

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Baltimore, Newark and justifying the unjust

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The recent riots in Baltimore, Md., are reminiscent of the riots in Newark, N.J., that occurred 48 years ago. The complaints of the black community in regard to the actions of police and their economic lot in life have not changed much in over half a century. Are their complaints less or more valid today in comparison to yesterday? Do African Americans have greater opportunities for advancement and justice than they did in the past? Can anyone justify criminality as protest despite the catalyst for their compliant?

Also, are black leaders posing the right questions, or are they voicing issues already resolved in our society to further their own industry of social divisiveness?

As a boy growing up in my home state of New Jersey, my stable, working-class world was rocked by the Newark Riots of 1967. It was the only time I could remember seeing my father, a World War II veteran, nervous and scared for his family. Cars were set ablaze everywhere in numerous conflagrations, mom-and-pop storefronts were broken in a barrage of rocks and clubs and then looted afterwards, and anyone who was not African American was targeted for beatings.

Newark had once been a destination for the immigrant Irish and Italian to settle in America, but generational ties to the community were fraying. If a family was financially able, they migrated to suburbia as property values in the city had fallen and feelings of safety had eroded.

The populous in 1967 had grown to 50 percent African American, and the character and identity of the neighborhoods were fading into history. In place of Irish and Italian festivals, parish-centered block parties and elaborate parades had entered a vacuum of non-existent celebratory events. Instead of proclamations and demonstrations of ethnic pride, there were multitudes of displaced people loitering in seemingly endless cycles of despair. There were growing incidents of vandalism, petty crime, drug activity, and predatory punks who believed if they resided on a particular street they owned it and one must pay homage to them. A culture of hopelessness and bitterness was evolving.

The close-knit Irish and Italian ethnic communities were fast becoming eclipsed by an atmosphere of desperation emitting from the new inhabitants of the old neighborhoods.

For almost a week in that hot July in 1967, we kids did not venture outside. My brother and I could not deliver our newspaper routes or serve Mass at our church, and my mother had postponed her usual frequent visits to her favorite grocers. My dad had left for work fretting for his family and lecturing us males about protecting the females of our family in the event our doors were rushed or our windows were smashed. We were hunkered down as prisoners in our self-imposed bunker, accused of the crime of being white and therefore somehow guilty by association.

Akin to the recent complaints by African Americans in Baltimore, in Newark, black people had claimed police brutality. An African American cabbie, John Smith, had been pulled over for a traffic violation by police. He was combative and would not comply with police orders and police apparently overreacted with excessive force. He was then taken to the hospital for treatment. However, rumors were started that he had died in police custody. This incident occurred just as African Americans were being evacuated in Newark’s central ward from low-income housing to make way for a new dental school. The combination of the two events ignited a firestorm of rioting and lawlessness. At the end of the melee, 26 people had been killed and several hundreds injured from beatings, rock throwing, and being assaulted while trying to defend their livelihoods.

Leaders in the African American community at the time cried foul about the disproportionate amount of white policemen on the force as a trigger for the violence. They objected to the lack of job opportunities as the reason for the unrest. They cited the lack of money spent on job training and they felt social services were inadequate.

Despite the leaders’ proposed justifications, all the presented possible excuses could not justify the actions of the rioters. Good taxpaying and law-abiding citizens were assailed literally and figuratively by the actions of the city’s insurrectionists.

After the riots subsided, my father had an epiphany. For his family’s safety and well being, we had to leave the city that our family had called home since they came to America from Ireland.

The events in Baltimore this past week have afflicted me with a sense of déjà vu. A man in police custody named Freddie Gray had been taken on a “Rough Ride,” meaning he had not been buckled in while being transported in a police van. In this case he died from his injuries of being tossed around in the van or self-injury in the van. Whichever was the specific cause, the police did not follow procedure. So like Newark a half-century ago, a mishandling of a suspect ignited the unrest. Also like that New Jersey riot long ago, arson, looting and rock throwing were prevalent in the protests. However, in Baltimore six police officers were charged with crimes ranging from second-degree depraved murder to voluntary manslaughter. Problems with the overstepping of police authority seems a viable question for any society, but attributing the lack of opportunities for economic advancement as a license to burn down any city is an unjust overreach. Thus, there is no justification for injuring 20 police officers in Baltimore, destroying numerous storefronts, setting tens of cars ablaze, despite what valid questions of concern one might have with law enforcement. Furthermore, what sense does it make to destroy ones own environment as a statement in regard to a lack of economic opportunity?

To state one is downtrodden today, 50 years after the inception of Affirmative Action, the Educational Opportunity Fund and the Great Society Programs defies logic. African Americans, or whatever heritage one might have, can succeed today dependant upon their individual capaciousness, degree of independent drive, and determination to achieve in our society. The doors are open. To state that racism is culpable for one’s failure to achieve in 2015 is erroneous. Despite all the advances that African Americans have made in our society in the last 50 years, the arguments to justify civil unrest in regard to the Baltimore riot remain the same as they did in Newark in 1967. Yet, the black middle class has increased 17 percent over the last half century. So has the number of black millionaires skyrocketed. And black professionals are now serving the good of our society in abundance. Forty-four members of the United States House of Representatives are African American, as are two United States senators. Of course, one must mention that the president of the United States, Barack Obama, is African American.

So, how can today’s leaders in the black community such as MSNBC commentator Al Sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson continue to complain that race is the obvious impediment to the socioeconomic advance of black people? Both Sharpton’s “National Action Network” and Jackson’s “Rainbow/Push” organizations have made millions by continuing to promote race divisions in our country. Both promulgate the notion that society has not evolved greatly for our black citizens since the 1960s, which belies the overwhelming evidence.

Perhaps their denial of progress ignites bad acts like people destroying property, setting arson fires, and looting and engaging in all detestable types of civil unrest. Yet, they deny the opportunities for societal advancement that are so conspicuously obvious today? They create a culture of self defeat by their rhetoric which is really a stranglehold on lower-class African Americans. They inspire a sense of oppression in the mind, which becomes a self-imposed oppression in reality.

If black leaders confined their stated objections to valid questions about the application of police power and procedure while opposing civil unrest, then they would gain credibility. On the contrary, to tie lawlessness as the effect with the cause being lack of jobs, training, and economic opportunity is an example of pure illogic.

Additionally, that idea demeans their own community and negates the great achievements of so many of our black citizens.

No matter what the perceived injustice may be, there is no excuse for acts of criminality to make a point. Whether we are examining the events of Newark 48 years ago or Baltimore today, we should embrace the example of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King and express our concerns with non-violent protest. Our fellow citizens who believe they are treated unjustly by authorities should use their pens, keyboards, voices and representatives to make their concerns known. No family should have to leave their home city, no businessperson should have their shop damaged and looted, and no worker should lose their transportation to arson in order for the aggrieved to complain. No African American should be incited to act upon the words of self-interested charlatans who profit from unrest. Take pride in how far those of your mutual heritage have come!

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