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In Philly, Protect Everyone or No One
Date: Tuesday, August 16, 2011, 5:46 am
By: Chris Wilder, Special to BlackAmericaWeb.com
Why is Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter responding to crime like this, right now? <span style="font-weight: bold">Is it because the victims are white</span>? (AP)
"This nonsense must stop. It must stop. If you want to act like a butthead, your butt is going to get locked up. And if you want to act like an idiot, move, move out of this city. We don’t want you here anymore. First, I want to apologize. I want to apologize to all the good, hard-working, caring people here in this city - and especially our good young people here in Philadelphia. But I have to tell you this morning that I am forced by the stupid, ignorant, dumb actions of a few, that we will announce tomorrow actions that we will take that, unfortunately, will affect many here in our city ...
"If you want black folks, if you want white folks, Latinos, Asians, or anybody else to respect you and not be afraid when they see you walking down the street, then leave the innocent people who are walking down the street, minding their own damn business, leave them alone. Stop it. Cut it out. We’ve had enough of this nonsense going on. We’ve had enough. Some of them should be ashamed of their behavior. And some of them have made shame on our race."
And with that Aug. 7th speech at West Philadelphia’s Mount Carmel Baptist Church, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter practically declared a state of emergency in his city. He and District Attorney Seth Williams instituted a new 9 p.m. weekend curfew in Center City (Philadelphia’s downtown area) and the area around the University of Pennsylvania for teens under the age of 18. The curfew in other areas of the city remains at midnight. In addition, neighborhood recreation centers will be kept open late. The idea is that these kids will retreat to the safety of their neighborhoods and stay away from Center City and Penn.
This comes in response to recent violent flash mobs in which large groups of black teens roam the streets robbing and beating people, apparently at random. Since 2008, there have been several incidents in Center City and on South Street, which is an area with vibrant nightlife and is attractive to tourists. There was also an incident at 69th Street, which is the end of West Philly’s EL train but is technically Upper Darby and not part of the city. Several people have had purses and cell phones taken; others were knocked to the ground in the melee. <span style="font-weight: bold">But in all honesty, compared to the violent crime that goes on in other parts of this city, these crimes are minor.
</span>
According to the latest Census, in this city with more than 1.5 million people - despite a declining population - black people are the largest group, and Philadelphia’s violent crime rate is no secret to anyone in this country. <span style="font-style: italic">There has been a lot of crime here for a long time. So, why is Mayor Nutter responding to crime like this, right now?
</span>
<span style="font-weight: bold">The answer is simple. Now, the victims are white</span>.
<span style="font-weight: bold">As long as</span> the violent crime remained in North Philly, Southwest Philly and Germantown and the victims were Black, things were fine. The police would roust some young adults around the neighborhood; the newspaper would have some cursory coverage or no coverage at all, and life would go on as normal. <span style="font-weight: bold">Suddenly,</span> when some white people got their cell phones taken, the mayor and the city have come up with a response worthy of worldwide attention. CNN has been all over this, and BBC and Al-Jazeera sent writers to Philadelphia to cover the first night of the curfew and compared the goings-on here to the riots in London.
why hasn’t the city responded to the crime in the city’s black communities? Again, in comparison, what has happened with the flash mobs is minor. <span style="font-weight: bold">The Philadelphia Daily News ran a story about a white woman who fell to the ground and broke her leg in a flash mob</span>. <span style="font-style: italic">But</span> in the same week, four defendants went to court because back in June, they ran onto a city bus in North Philly and shot it up with a shotgun and a couple of hand guns simply because a black man scolded a black teen mother for beating her 10-month-old son. The mother called the baby’s uncle, and they met the bus at her stop. There is even video of it.
Also, two white people were eating at an outdoor café in Center City when a crowd rushed by and someone snatched their cell phones. But there was also a recent incident in which a man was put out of a bar in North Philadelphia, only to return with a gun and subsequently shoot four patrons.
<span style="font-weight: bold">Crime against black people in this city has been much worse than being pushed to the ground or having your cell phone taken. I’m sure someone lost their cell phone while that city bus was under siege</span>. But the city has never had this kind of response.
Mayor Nutter is missing the point here. <span style="font-style: italic">By bending over backwards to protect only the white people in a city that is majority black sinks to the level of fomer New York mayor Rudy Guiliani, who, in the 1990s, sent waves of underage police officers into places like Bed-Stuy to terrorize and harass black people. Nutter is doing the same thing; he’s just doing it to the black people in white areas</span>.
Back when he was running for mayor, Nutter was not that popular amongst Philadelphia's black population, but as the Democratic candidate, blacks knew better than to vote for the Republican alternative. He has been criticized by John Street, the former two-term mayor, as having black skin but not being black. Nutter even supported then-Sen. Hillary Clinton over then-Sen. Barack Obama Obama in the 2008 Democratic primaries.
The people lost in all this mess are kids like my son. We are black, and we live in Center City. So, the police now have free reign to harass and arrest him just for sitting in front of our house (not that they didn’t before). The mayor acts as though all children live in the outlying neighborhoods where he has made it safe from curfew and even opened up the rec centers. There are no rec centers open late in Center City. My son won’t even be able to go to a neighbor’s house without risking arrest. There needs to be a better plan.
The flash mobs are scary to white people. At 40-plus-years-old, I, along with another black man, stood in the middle of one of these flash mobs once, and no one attacked us or even looked our way. While Nutter and countless others have railed on about the lack of fathers in the black community, there still remains a level of respect that black men receive from black youth. I see it every day. Putting black men - not police - out on the streets would be a far better solution than to round up all teens guilty or innocent, throw them in paddy wagon and fine their parents. There is a group here called Black Men United for a Better Philadelphia. Maybe he should talk to them. I’ll bet they have a plan.
<span style="font-weight: bold">The real issue with the city here is the disparity</span>. Why have the curfew in Center City and at Penn, but nowhere else in the city? The mayor needs to extend the curfew for the entire city or not have it at all. Protect everyone, or protect no one.
However, the larger question remains,
Date: Tuesday, August 16, 2011, 5:46 am
By: Chris Wilder, Special to BlackAmericaWeb.com
Why is Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter responding to crime like this, right now? <span style="font-weight: bold">Is it because the victims are white</span>? (AP)
"This nonsense must stop. It must stop. If you want to act like a butthead, your butt is going to get locked up. And if you want to act like an idiot, move, move out of this city. We don’t want you here anymore. First, I want to apologize. I want to apologize to all the good, hard-working, caring people here in this city - and especially our good young people here in Philadelphia. But I have to tell you this morning that I am forced by the stupid, ignorant, dumb actions of a few, that we will announce tomorrow actions that we will take that, unfortunately, will affect many here in our city ...
"If you want black folks, if you want white folks, Latinos, Asians, or anybody else to respect you and not be afraid when they see you walking down the street, then leave the innocent people who are walking down the street, minding their own damn business, leave them alone. Stop it. Cut it out. We’ve had enough of this nonsense going on. We’ve had enough. Some of them should be ashamed of their behavior. And some of them have made shame on our race."
And with that Aug. 7th speech at West Philadelphia’s Mount Carmel Baptist Church, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter practically declared a state of emergency in his city. He and District Attorney Seth Williams instituted a new 9 p.m. weekend curfew in Center City (Philadelphia’s downtown area) and the area around the University of Pennsylvania for teens under the age of 18. The curfew in other areas of the city remains at midnight. In addition, neighborhood recreation centers will be kept open late. The idea is that these kids will retreat to the safety of their neighborhoods and stay away from Center City and Penn.
This comes in response to recent violent flash mobs in which large groups of black teens roam the streets robbing and beating people, apparently at random. Since 2008, there have been several incidents in Center City and on South Street, which is an area with vibrant nightlife and is attractive to tourists. There was also an incident at 69th Street, which is the end of West Philly’s EL train but is technically Upper Darby and not part of the city. Several people have had purses and cell phones taken; others were knocked to the ground in the melee. <span style="font-weight: bold">But in all honesty, compared to the violent crime that goes on in other parts of this city, these crimes are minor.
</span>
According to the latest Census, in this city with more than 1.5 million people - despite a declining population - black people are the largest group, and Philadelphia’s violent crime rate is no secret to anyone in this country. <span style="font-style: italic">There has been a lot of crime here for a long time. So, why is Mayor Nutter responding to crime like this, right now?
</span>
<span style="font-weight: bold">The answer is simple. Now, the victims are white</span>.
<span style="font-weight: bold">As long as</span> the violent crime remained in North Philly, Southwest Philly and Germantown and the victims were Black, things were fine. The police would roust some young adults around the neighborhood; the newspaper would have some cursory coverage or no coverage at all, and life would go on as normal. <span style="font-weight: bold">Suddenly,</span> when some white people got their cell phones taken, the mayor and the city have come up with a response worthy of worldwide attention. CNN has been all over this, and BBC and Al-Jazeera sent writers to Philadelphia to cover the first night of the curfew and compared the goings-on here to the riots in London.
why hasn’t the city responded to the crime in the city’s black communities? Again, in comparison, what has happened with the flash mobs is minor. <span style="font-weight: bold">The Philadelphia Daily News ran a story about a white woman who fell to the ground and broke her leg in a flash mob</span>. <span style="font-style: italic">But</span> in the same week, four defendants went to court because back in June, they ran onto a city bus in North Philly and shot it up with a shotgun and a couple of hand guns simply because a black man scolded a black teen mother for beating her 10-month-old son. The mother called the baby’s uncle, and they met the bus at her stop. There is even video of it.
Also, two white people were eating at an outdoor café in Center City when a crowd rushed by and someone snatched their cell phones. But there was also a recent incident in which a man was put out of a bar in North Philadelphia, only to return with a gun and subsequently shoot four patrons.
<span style="font-weight: bold">Crime against black people in this city has been much worse than being pushed to the ground or having your cell phone taken. I’m sure someone lost their cell phone while that city bus was under siege</span>. But the city has never had this kind of response.
Mayor Nutter is missing the point here. <span style="font-style: italic">By bending over backwards to protect only the white people in a city that is majority black sinks to the level of fomer New York mayor Rudy Guiliani, who, in the 1990s, sent waves of underage police officers into places like Bed-Stuy to terrorize and harass black people. Nutter is doing the same thing; he’s just doing it to the black people in white areas</span>.
Back when he was running for mayor, Nutter was not that popular amongst Philadelphia's black population, but as the Democratic candidate, blacks knew better than to vote for the Republican alternative. He has been criticized by John Street, the former two-term mayor, as having black skin but not being black. Nutter even supported then-Sen. Hillary Clinton over then-Sen. Barack Obama Obama in the 2008 Democratic primaries.
The people lost in all this mess are kids like my son. We are black, and we live in Center City. So, the police now have free reign to harass and arrest him just for sitting in front of our house (not that they didn’t before). The mayor acts as though all children live in the outlying neighborhoods where he has made it safe from curfew and even opened up the rec centers. There are no rec centers open late in Center City. My son won’t even be able to go to a neighbor’s house without risking arrest. There needs to be a better plan.
The flash mobs are scary to white people. At 40-plus-years-old, I, along with another black man, stood in the middle of one of these flash mobs once, and no one attacked us or even looked our way. While Nutter and countless others have railed on about the lack of fathers in the black community, there still remains a level of respect that black men receive from black youth. I see it every day. Putting black men - not police - out on the streets would be a far better solution than to round up all teens guilty or innocent, throw them in paddy wagon and fine their parents. There is a group here called Black Men United for a Better Philadelphia. Maybe he should talk to them. I’ll bet they have a plan.
<span style="font-weight: bold">The real issue with the city here is the disparity</span>. Why have the curfew in Center City and at Penn, but nowhere else in the city? The mayor needs to extend the curfew for the entire city or not have it at all. Protect everyone, or protect no one.
However, the larger question remains,