FORUM
NEW PITTSBURGH COURIER
Time to take Black community heroin overdoses ignored, the ‘deplorables’ White community heroin overdoses a crisis seriously Are your friends, acquaintances, or colleagues a “deplorable”? Are they the “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic—you name it” people of Hillary Clinton’s basket comment? Or in some other manner, are they a . . . gasp . . .Trump supporter? (Insert Alfred Hitchcock-like theme music here.) Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump’s supporters apparently are not who we think they are. Trump is actually leading by 5 percentage points in a new Bloomberg poll among Ohio voters. Yes, you read that right, leading. A whole state is taking him seriously. (Trump is leading in Florida too— by 2 percentage points—but politically, that’s not a real state. After the hanging chads thing in the 2000 presidential tallies, it became more like an outlying land mass of unpredictability that we all have to tolerate.)
Sheila Simmons
Commentary The Bloomberg poll says Trump’s supporters are made up of more than just uneducated White people. They now include the educated White people—the supposedly more enlightened. Personally, I don’t generally do name-calling. So Clinton’s description of American residents whom she might have to serve later left me slightly uncomfortable. But then came word of the protest at a Trump rally in Asheville, N.C., where a 73-year-old South Carolina man punched a female protester in the face. The 69-year-old victim, recalled the incident recently on WLOS-TV, the local news station in Asheville, saying, “I said, ‘You better learn to speak Russian,’ and I said, ‘The first two words are going to be ‘ha ha.’ He stopped in his tracks, and he turned around and just cold-cocked me.” She reported falling on her oxygen tank, and being left with sore ribs, a sore jaw and a cut to her elbow, according to the story on WLOS.com. Cold-cock a 69-year-old woman with an oxygen tank? Who does that? People who are, err, deplorable? The deplorables are not ashamed of their deplorableness. In a rally in Ohio recently, Trump supporters showed up with “Deplorable Me” T-shirts. It all has the eerie glee of a KKK rally, or one of those pick-a-nigger (picnic) events whose images featured smiling children. Trump’s base is still largely White. According to Bloomberg, his biggest demographic is White men without a college degree (+43 percent), White men overall (+27 percent) and White women without a college degree (+23 percent). It also said 7 in 10 of the Trump supporters polled in Ohio acknowledged that the Mexican wall was “unrealistic.” (“Dumb” is a better word, but hey, I don’t write the poll questions.) For the voters surveyed, their negative feelings about Clinton boiled down to their distrust around the 2012 Benghazi attacks in Libya (59 percent), her private email server (57 percent) and the Clinton Foundation’s donors (53 percent). Fifty-seven percent were also skeptical of the trade deals. Unemployment and jobs were also top issues. In Ohio, enough people had worked through their issues on race to give Barack Obama a more favorable opinion than of Clinton or Trump. Forty-six percent indicated they viewed him favorably. So Trump supporters are not exactly illiterate people who’ve never traveled beyond the hills of West Virginia. Some are part of our daily lives. And they don’t care if their leader has called Mexicans racists, ordered supporters to sock protesters in the face or called a woman a fat pig. They’re with him. But Black voters and others who have laughed off such episodes need to start taking Trump seriously. We need to consider that this man could be the next leader of our nation and of the free world. Pennsylvania voter registration deadline is Oct. 11. If you’re not registered, get on it, before we become what the rest of the world considers—a nation of “deplorables.”
(Sheila Simmons is an award-winning journalist and a public relations specialist. She is the author of “Memoir of a Minnie Riperton Fan.” She can be reached at ssimmons@phillytrib.com or www.simmonssheila.com.)
As a teenager growernment from the federing up I witnessed drug Louis ‘Hop’ Kendrick al level to the local level dealers and users from a did not give a damn, afdistance. We were pointter all no one was using ed out who the dealers the junk but the monwere, the ones with the keys, “colored folks”. fancy cars, pretty womTwo experiences ocen, and pockets full of curred in my lifetime money. They were big when I was a narcotics spenders and usually detective that I will albig braggers about how ways remember. The much money they were making. Often they first occurred during a raid where no drugs would come in the bars, clubs, buying alcohol were found and the chief who was in charge of for the entire bar, front and back. All of their the raid asked the man where do you live and jokes were funny, their view point was always the reply was Homewood. The chief then said right because they were the big spenders. The we will be back Friday, if we don’t find any users were generally the ones always in a hur- drugs we will bring some, so take your poison ry and sometimes they looked like they were out our town and take it back to “Homewood sleeping, but it was the effect of the drugs, it where it belongs.” The second was the Diswas referred to as nodding. However the first trict Attorney issued a directive to the office time some others of our football team and I after my partner and I went to Mt. Lebanon witnessed the effects of drugs close up was on a drug raid that from that day no raids during a night football game our team was were to be conducted in the affluent White playing on Kennard field. The quarterback neighborhoods unless his top D.A. cleared was calling signals and all at once he grew the warrant. A reporter asked me about the silent. We glanced and he was nodding, the directive and I responded that it was unconyear was 1950. Those of us who realized what stitutional and racist to have two standards was going on called time out and replaced the for White and Black persons. That following quarterback. The next day a meeting of the Monday when I arrived in the office I was football team was called and to our dismay told to surrender my gun and badge. It was there were about six other players who were the end of my understanding from the inside shooting heroin, and over an extended peri- how the system does not work equally. od of time some others became involved. At a Open drug corners still exist in Black neighperiod of time there were 27 members of our borhoods in September 2016, because the club, but as I write this column only two of us powers to be don’t care and try to justify it are still living. by saying, “Blacks don’t care.” Some Blacks The selling and using of heroin began to ex- try to justify our sons and daughters’ actions pand and the dealers were now known across by saying Blacks don’t have ships and planes Allegheny County and they were idolized by to bring drugs in the country and they are some and known by untold numbers of per- right, but they are the ones who bring it into sons. The majority of people did not view the our neighborhoods. When Blacks cried out for dealers as merchants of destruction, but as help we were ignored; they continued to echo neighborhood guys, who were making mon- in the inner office “it is the monkey’s probey. After all they did money favors and even lem.” financed sport teams and contributed to the Tragically in the White influential commueconomy. How? The police would accept their nities “chickens have come home to roost” but money, or confiscate their money, bonds men they still are reluctant to call it like it is; they got rich, and lawyers got rich, certain judges want to be different than us they’d rather use prospered, and certain politicians Black and terms like overdose crisis. (Louis “Hop” Kendrick is a contributor to the New White benefitted financially. In my estimation the greatest tragedy was that the gov- Pittsburgh Courier.)
To Tell The Truth
All police shootings are local In the 1980’s speaker woman. There were of the house Tip O’Neil J. Pharoah Doss four officers, three male always emphasized “all and one female, and the politics is local”. In othwoman fired her gun at er words, the hierarchy the same time another of problem solving for officer fired his Taser. the citizen is local, state, In less than a week she federal. was charged with first He’s right. degree manslaughter. One problem, nothing After the officer was has been more opprescharged the sister of the sive for Black Americans than this hierarchy. victim said, “We know the history of these Black Americans had to appeal to the federal cases, we know this is a formality, we know government to declare local and state laws she’s been charged, but then we get no conunconstitutional. victions.” The LA Times called the felony That’s history. charges “unusual” and said, “Since the fatal And based on that history President Barack shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo, Obama said racism is in the DNA of America, in 2014 the string of officer-involved shootbut is it possible the byproduct of that DNA ings has given visibility and momentum to is that Black Americans automatically indict the Black Lives Matter movement … And the nation for local incidents? members of the Congressional Black Caucus Example: in Washington stood outside the Department Back during the 2000 Presidential Race civ- of Justice and demanded a stronger, toughil rights advocates made racial profiling, or er response to repeated instances of police Driving-While-Black, a national issue. These shooting Blacks.” advocates asked candidates if they were Sounds good. elected president, would they sign an execuExcept they recited a national narrative tive order banning racial profiling. Candi- that is not representative of the local realidates either made a campaign commitment ty, just four months ago in Tulsa a volunteer to consider the possibility or they promised, sheriff’s deputy was convicted of second-delike George W. Bush, that as president they gree manslaughter by a jury with no African would end the practice. American members. He was sentenced to Bush became president. four years in prison. The volunteer sheriff’s In 2003 headlines read: Bush Issues Feder- deputy stated he mistook his handgun for his al Ban on Racial Profiling Taser when he shot and killed an unarmed It was the first time the federal government Black man last year. imposed across the board guidelines on racial This case in the same city of Tulsa is a profiling. It governed the conduct of 70 feder- better comparison than what took place in al law enforcement agencies. Ferguson, New York, or Baltimore because Great. the recent incident with the woman officer But there are over 12,000 local police de- also involves the use of a gun instead of a partments, each with their own policy man- Taser. The fact that two officers with the ual, which a federal ban can’t regulate. The same training, with the same equipment, in Washington director of the American Civil the same situation pulled different weapons Liberties Union said, “This policy acknowl- means one of them inaccurately assessed the edges racial profiling as a national concern, degree of the threat and the inaccurate offibut it does nothing to stop it.” cer was charged. Sound familiar? And she’ll be found guilty. President Barack Obama has been accused But after the woman is convicted in Tulsa of doing nothing to stop police shootings of those that automatically indict the nation for unarmed Black men in America but all police local incidents will change my title to the disshootings are local. missive: All convictions are local. (J. Pharoah Doss is a contributor to the New Pittsburgh Recently in Tulsa, Oklahoma another Black man was killed by a police officer, a White Courier. He blogs at jpharoahdoss@blogspot.com)
Commentary
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SEPTEMBER 28-OCTOBER 4, 2016
A9
Ebony Chappel
Commentary
When catcalling kills INDIANAPOLIS—Tiarah Poyau. She is one of the latest names added to a growing list of young women whose lives have been brutally cut down at the hands of men who couldn’t accept that their advances had been spurned … men who couldn’t take no for an answer. Poyau, a 22-year-old student, was fatally shot while walking the J’Ouvert parade route with her friends this past Labor Day weekend. Witnesses say she told the alleged shooter to “get off of her” before being shot at close range above her right eye. The accused gunman, 20-year-old Reginald Moise, was trying to grind on Poyau before their brief and deadly exchange. Moise reportedly left the scene soon after, and four hours later was picked up by police for drunk driving and shooting up his cousin’s Brooklyn apartment. In an hour-long interview with the Daily News, Moise was remorseful and added that he has no recollection of his actions that night. This disregard for human life, this reckless behavior and toxic masculinity can be a woman’s worst nightmare. Just ask the friends and loved ones of Mary Spears or Janese Talton-Jackson. In January, Talton-Jackson, 29, was shot in the chest and left to die on a Pittsburgh city street after reportedly telling Charles McKinney she wasn’t interested in his date offer. In October of 2014, 27-yearold Spears was out with her fiance at an American Legion Post on Detroit’s east side when a man approached her, asking for her phone number. He became upset when she didn’t oblige, and even after being escorted out of the nightclub, he took things to another level by letting off a couple gunshots in the venue. One of those shots fatally wounded Spears. Despite the numerous instances of fatal catcalling encounters, there are some men who believe conversations around street harassment are overblown and frivolous. I’ve experienced this personally when explaining to my male friends and family what is and is not OK when interacting with the opposite sex. One friend remarked to me that he hates it when he goes out to clubs and all girls want to do is hang out with the friends they came with. I probed deeper to get more of an understanding of what, exactly, frustrated him about this. “Well, what’s the point in them getting all dressed up to be anti-social all night?” I explained to him that a woman’s choice to engage or not engage him in dancing, conversation or whatever is just that— her choice. Women do not owe men anything—not our time, attention, phone numbers, or bodies. Nothing. It bothered me that this seemingly simple concept didn’t click right away. For him, there was still room for debate. It made me wonder what happened in his upbringing that allowed for this sort of thinking. I imagine he received certain social cues from his father, brothers and uncles about how men and women should interact with one another. Judging from his reaction to our talk, I think it’s fair to infer it was his first time being informed on a woman’s right to choose, and that’s scary. Though street harassment is a grossly under-researched topic, international advocacy organization Stop Street Harassment reports that of 2,000 people surveyed, 65 percent of women had experienced street harassment. Of that number, 23 percent had been sexually touched, 20 percent had been followed and 9 percent had been forced to do something sexual. The numbers are startling, and for those of us who have experienced such, the fear of being harassed—or worse, physically attacked—causes you to constantly be on guard, analyzing your surroundings, clothing choices and the way in which you respond (or don’t respond) to unwanted advances. It is exhausting and troublesome. In fact, if I had $1 for every time my friends or I experienced harassment, we’d probably have enough to live on an island, free from potential harassers. So where do we go from here? I don’t believe law or policy are viable methods to end street harassment, and to be frank, as long as people exist on this planet, someone will be disrespected, someone will be mistreated and someone will be harassed. It is an unfortunate reality. I believe we lessen the instances of street harassment by continuing to educate our brothers, fathers, boyfriends, teachers and our children on what it means to be an asset to society, as opposed to a liability. I think that we need to provide more safe public, professional and social places for women to exist without fear of onslaught. If you see something, say something. If you’re out and you see a young woman being put in an uncomfortable situation, a simple, “You OK, sis?” (Thank you, Feminista Jones) could literally save a life. If you’d like more information on street harassment or would like to share your own story, visit stopstreetharassment. com. (Ebony Chappel, The Indianapolis Recorder @ EbonyTheWriter)