The wrong
targets
While
religious and community leaders are getting a lot of media attention lately, I
believe their efforts are distracting from the real issues at hand.
It is easy to blame the police
department when suspects die in their custody. However, it should not be
forgotten that police officers are called to the scene after situations have
gotten out of control.
In the “controversial” cases
that have dominated local news this summer, the suspects were engaged in dangerous,
criminal behavior. One was driving a stolen vehicle at police officers, one had
stabbed his wife and was approaching police officers with a knife in his hand,
and the most recent bit the fingertip off of a police officer.
I’m sure that our community
leaders have the best intentions and desire a better community, but their
methods are clouding the issues. Our attention as a community should be focused
on dealing with issues such as drug abuse and untreated mental illness, and
with motivating teenagers and children to steer them away from criminal
activity.
Coincidentally, these are all
areas that will be severely affected by upcoming cuts in the Monroe County
budget. Community leaders should not waste time condemning the police
department during high-profile press conferences or requesting congressional
investigations. This time could instead be used to help the members of our
community who are at risk of becoming the next “controversial” news items.
Brice Meade, Rochester
Dealing with racism
“Interviews Afield: Policing and Racial Bias”
(August 14) was interesting, but (for the most part) old information. We don’t
need a study to tell us that police profiling, based solely on race, has always
existed and will probably continue to exist unless a critical mass of people,
especially those most negatively affected, organize to stop it.
For
decades (if not centuries), there have been studies on top of studies, and
literally hundreds of reports, including those of the famous Warren Commission,
regarding racist policies, procedures, attitudes, and behaviors on the part of
police and government officials in the US. All, including the one commissioned
recently by the NYCLU, contain the same types of conclusions: Yes (whether
intentional or not), racism exists within police policies and practices. It is
wrong, and needs to be corrected.
The
corrections never seem to happen. Thus, round and round we go — another
study, another report, same conclusions, another study….
Professor
Eileen O’Brien’s comments in Mr. Spula’s article are profound, especially her
statement regarding the need to “talk about how to restructure the system
which was built on racism.” That is the most important point relative to
change — if change is what we (the NYCLU and others who claim to be
concerned) really seek.
Mr.
Spula’s article left me asking: “So what’s new, and what’s next?” Paula Clark
is probably correct that “there will need to be more studies.” But
what, specifically, should future studies focus on? As noted by Professor
O’Brien, we need to move beyond finger-pointing and instead begin to deal with
the root problem of deeply embedded systemic racism.
I
would like to suggest a starting point. According to Mr. Spula’s article,
Rochester’s mayor is concerned about “city kids who tell him they want to
live in a neighborhood where they’re not going to get shot.” Let’s begin
by studying where huge caches of illegally owned weapons — which are rampant
in neighborhoods where city kids worry about getting shot, but not in
surrounding suburban neighborhoods — are coming from.
Let’s
study where the illegal weapons originate, and how they so easily end up in
certain neighborhoods, but not in others (just a few miles away).
Secondly
— since the NYCLU report shows that drug activity accounts for 55 percent of
FIF’s” and “no other context accounts for more than 10 percent” — let’s
study how huge caches of illegal drugs end up in the open-air market (side by
side with illegal weapons) on certain city streets, but not other streets
within the city, or within surrounding suburban areas.
I’m
certain that this research would lead us toward a discussion of
“restructuring the system which was built on racism.”
For
example, we would begin to move away from focusing on the symptoms of the
multibillion-dollar illegal drugs and weapons industries, which are manifested
among predominantly black and brown people on ghetto, city streets. We would
move in the direction of the sources, which would undoubtedly lead to much
larger numbers of white, middle and upper-class individuals and establishments.
This
would help provide confirmation that “more blacks being arrested or being
in jail is not at all an indicator of more blacks committing crimes,” but
instead represents the inevitable outcome of the fact that “the social
[economic, and political] contract stipulates that police attack street crime
— not so much crime in the suites — with force.”
Howard J. Eagle, Rochester
Logic lapse?
Perhaps it was fitting that the news item “Starless and
Bible Black” (MetroInk, August 28) was printed below “Way Below Radar,”
though perhaps “Way Beyond Logic” might have been a more proper heading.
I
share the writer’s dismay about the deep funding cuts Jack Doyle is proposing
for the Rochester Museum and Science Center. However, the writer would somehow
have us believe that the star shows at the planetarium have value because they
“help kids indoctrinated to believe in the bland Christian cosmology” question
these “myths.”
Following
this logic, would the writer then support the funding cuts if he determined
that these same star shows might actually strengthen some children’s faith,
that they might, in fact, make someone question how such an amazing universe
could just “happen” on its own?
I see
the hand of God at work in all aspects of life — in art, in science, in our
relationships to other people. My faith also affects my concerns about how we
care for and educate not only our own children but also those of the entire
community.
The
museum, its planetarium, and the Cumming Nature Center are important resources
for all the people of Rochester — whatever their religious beliefs. If City
wants to call people to action, to have readers voice their support of the
Museum and Science Center to Jack Doyle and the legislature, why frame the
argument in such a ridiculous way? There is really no logic in creating this
needless divide.
Heidi
Zinkand, Furman Crescent, Rochester
Primary
notes
I just
read the article about the primary race for governor (“Primary Time in the
Puppet Regime,” August 18), and I am very disappointed in your views of the
candidates. For example, you don’t know whether Tom Golisano is using this race
to up his stock’s price; as I understand it, he’s doing fine all by himself.
Carl McCall is probably the
best comptroller in our state’s history. Where a man comes from and his
upbringing are unimportant and hardly a scandal. It sounds like you’re fishing
for something that you’re not gonna find.
I am sure that Pataki hides a
lot of things. Next time, do some real reporting. Report the great things that
the guy has done and have gone unreported. Your skills as a journalist need to
be vastly improved. McCall is the best candidate, hands down. He is what Upstate
needs: a real man for the job and not a store-brought clown working for the
corporate jerks who take the hard-working people of this city for granted. Are
you people blind or what?
Alphonso B. Dailey,
Eldorado Place, Rochester
Welfare and work
The state is granting applications for welfare at a rate
less than 30 percent in 2000, down from 60 percent in 1995, according to
figures maintained by the state. Meanwhile, requests for help at the House of
Mercy shelter and soup kitchen on Hudson Avenue are up from about 4,00 each
month to 6,000.
“They
should get a job,” many respond. In Monroe County, we require welfare
recipients to weekly find 10 employers who are seeking employees, fill out 10
applications, and deliver them. This requirement is in addition to whatever
personal responsibilities they may have. If they cannot accomplish this, they
lose their benefits.
Albany
County requires four job searches weekly, a telling comparison about attitudes
in our county, or perhaps only attitudes of our county leadership. Sister Grace
Miller of the House of Mercy relates that this strict requirement causes many
people such difficulty that they must give up and turn to shelters long-term
for survival.
Shelter
staff also describe that whereas they used to serve the very poor, now at least
20 working people a month seek assistance from the House of Mercy. These
stories bring shame to our well-endowed society. Many people in our community
have much, much more than enough for their family.
Sixty-six
years ago, poet Langston Hughes wrote, “Let America be America again.” We need
to disavow unhealthy materialism, and become reasonable and equitable in our
economics. We can support achievable job searches, with necessary job training,
and provide a minimum wage that provides for a family. Or we will pay a high
price in crime, prison terms, and the wasteful, rampant tragedy of poverty.
By
redistributing wealth, we all stand to gain, in peace of mind, sympathy, and
community.
Claire
Olson, Benton Street, Rochester
Help city
schools
The
article “After Cliff Janey” (August 28) struck a chord with me.
Clifford Janey is not solely responsible for the City School District’s woes.
I am not sure what the all the
answers are. The schools do need funding. I know, however, that there are some
great kids in city schools. I was a temporary employee at Frontier Corporation
in 1998, and I met some single mothers whose kids went to city grammar schools.
Their kids are great and sought the same kind of excellence their suburban
counterparts do. They just do not have access to the tools to get them to that
place.
I feel, however, that certain
segments of the Rochester community do not care about the schools’ problems,
because they have no direct effect on them. That is not a good way to look at
things. Do not complain about something and then not be part of the solution.
Some district employees are
really concerned with the betterment of our kids. My mother retired last June
after a fruitful career of teaching in the district, and at her retirement
party I noticed the sense of togetherness her co-workers had. There are some
hardworking individuals trying to make a difference in our community.
People have to feel like they
are part of the process, to feel needed, and be nurtured. Pointing fingers and
suffocating are schools are not the answer.
Jason Muskopf, East Avenue,
Pittsford
This article appears in Sep 18-24, 2002.
