Urban Capital

Post by A. R. Jenkins

During one of our recent road trips along the breathtaking California coastline, my sister and I treated ourselves to a rare recording of Malcolm X exhorting black communities to trade within their neighborhoods, a message and reminder of modern day opportunity for self-sufficiency through micro markets of exchange within local communities.

However, I am certain Malcolm did not intend blacks to sell exaggerated stories of violence to media and the world in efforts to achieve economic equality. This monetizing of black neighborhood violence ranges from selling your story to Journalists and book publishers as former black Baltimore Police Detective Kelvin Sewell did with “Why do they Kill? The Pathology of Murder In Baltimore.”    To the all too easy and all too common practice of playing on fear exploiting images of supposed, widespread, endemic violence to convince community leaders to swing votes your way in the waning hours of elections.

C.W. Nevius’ November 5, 2011 piece in the San Francisco Chronicle is an example of the latter, timed just that way, hitting the wires a mere 3 days prior to San Francisco’s contentious mayoral election. In this case, Nevius’ “urban war” story (a version of the “urban legend”) was by a candidate’s tour of one of the city’s public housing developments. The candidate used this “tour” to add a bit of reality TV “drama” as a backdrop for this war story.

Nevius opens the narration of this little urban triptic with a scene of a child playing with a chrome pistol pointed at another child’s head as if he just happened on to the city version of terrorist training camp, instead of a scene from the cops and robbers most kids still play. That is, when their thumbs and minds are not being callused from the repetitive action of shooting just about everything playing over the top video games.

Nevius also does not miss the opportunity to use the all too common “leverage;” (a good description since we are talking about generating capital), attempting to gain validity by inserting comments from an insider. In this case, the “inside trader” role is played by Malia Cohen District 10 Supervisor. She is black and willing to validate the war story. She pumps up the premise chalking everything up to a “cultural acceptance of violence” in the battle zone, resulting a “desensitizing of harm to others.”

This sinister alliance between media and representation, indicts the neighborhood (when it is really just a couple of knuckleheads.) The alliance is like Wall Street, engaging in a lucrative form of derivative trading, in this case the commodity is black neighborhood violence. People who should know better broker the “deal”. Adding to the nastiness of lazy journalism and lack of real representation, some residents open the door to these “money changers,” guiding the “tour” to blood stained sidewalks, piles of cartridge rounds. They act like rating agencies, puffing up the “value of violence” driven monetization.

However, lost to these traders in fear and myth brokering, is the fact of rapid decrease in area violence over the last couple of years. From 2009 to 2010, violent crime in the Ingleside, the scene of Nevis’ crime (entrende intended), dropped ten percent and in the third quarter of 2011 dropped by eighteen percent. But, hey, don’t let a little thing likereality get in the way of a good, too old, should be out of fashion, myth of black neighborhood as a war zone. It’s time for new voices telling real-life stories of long- standing resilience, creativity, and ingenuity, making a way out of no way in neighborhoods that some folks only see as territory supporting their own corrupt version of crime fighting industrial complex driven economy.

Communities deserve more, are more, than this narrow, inaccurate, strangely persistent distortion. Ideally, we’ve reached a tipping point, where the stories we read “capitalize” on true histories of people and place. We will all be “enriched” when they do.

Sources Per SFPD 2010 Ingleside COMPSTAT Report
Per SFPD 2011 Ingleside COMPSTAT Report

Read Warmth of Other Suns with BAJI & Drop the I-Word: Here's How!

Original post by By S. Leigh Thompson, Drop the I-Word Blog

Welcome to our Black History Month reading activity! We're excited to read and discuss The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson together with the Black Alliance for Just Immigration and our friends across the country over the next five weeks. 

Here's how it's going to work. 

What are we reading, and when? 

We've divided the reading into five sections, one each week. We know it's a big book, but think of it this way: to get through you only need to read an average of 15 pages a day over 36 days. That's easy! 

When and where will we discuss the book?

Discussion will begin each week on Wednesdays at 2 PM (Eastern Time). 

Visit the Drop the I-Word Blog for the full list questions about the week's reading that will guide the discussion. The discussion will happen on Facebook on the Drop the I-Word page. Be sure to "Like" us at Facebook.com/droptheiword so you can join in!  

Also be sure to check the blog to read the questions to guide your reading for the following week. You can also read all the questions for the book in the Warmth of Other Suns reading guide.

Five-Week Reading Plan:

• Week 1, Feb 1 - 7: Read pp. 1-123 

The beginning of the book through the end of  "A Burdensome Labor" 

Discuss on Feb 8th via Facebook

• Week 2, Feb 8 - 14: Read pp. 124 - 222 

"The Awakening" through the end of  "Crossing Over"

Discuss on Feb 15th via Facebook

• Week 3, Feb 15 - 21: Read pp. 223 - 331

Part Four through the end of "The Other Side of Jordan"

Discuss on Feb 22nd via Facebook

• Week 4, Feb 22 - 28: Read pp. 332-431

"Complications" through the end of "The Fullness of the Migration."

Discuss on Feb 29th  via Facebook

• Week 5, Feb 29 - Mar 6: Read pp. 432-549

Part Five through the end of the author's Acknowledgements letter

Discuss on Mar 7th  via Facebook

Getting started: Week 1

Here's a preview of the questions to contemplate as you read the first 123 pages. You can share your responses on Facebook next Wednesday, February 8!

1. The Warmth of Other Suns combines a sweeping historical perspective with vivid intimate portraits of three individuals: Ida Mae Gladney, George Swanson Starling, and Robert Pershing Foster. What is the value of this dual focus, of shifting between the panoramic and the close-up? In what ways are Ida Mae Gladney, George Starling, and Robert Foster representative of the millions of other migrants who journeyed from South to North?


2. In many ways The Warmth of Other Suns seeks to tell a new story--about the Great Migration of Black people from the South to the North and those who stayed--and to set the record straight about the true significance of that migration. "What were the major economic, social, and historical forces that sparked the Great Migration? Why did blacks leave in such great numbers from 1915 to 1970?

Additional comments or questions? Post them to the Drop the I-Word Facebook page or Twitter with the hashtag #GreatMigration. 

Share with your friends! Click here to tweet: 

During Black History Month I'm reading "Warmth of Other Suns" w @DroptheIWord & @BAJITweet. Join us! http://bit.ly/wio0T9 #GreatMigration

Celebrate Black History Month: Read The Warmth of Other Suns

February is Black History Month, and to celebrate Drop the I-Word and BAJI, are partnering and invite members of our communities to join us as we read Isabel Wilkerson's monumental book, The Warmth of Other Suns. 

The book, newly available in paperback, chronicles the Great Migration, in which some six million black people migrated to cities in the north and west from the south's Jim Crow caste system between 1915 and 1970. 

Current anti-immigrant rhetoric hinges upon dividing communities of color and explicitly pitting African Americans with roots in the south, against migrants today. It's important that we build bridges and continue to foster respect and knowledge about one another's experiences.

How to join in:

• Buy The Warmth of Other Suns on Amazon or Indiebound for yourself and as a gift for loved ones. 
• Download the Discussion Guide for great topics and thought-provoking questions.
• Like our Facebook page, where we'll be asking questions and guiding a discussion about the book.
• Visit the Drop the I-Word blog each Wednesday in February to join in the conversation on key questions about the book. 

About her book, The Warmth of Other Suns, Ms. Wilkerson told Colorlines.com:

"This book is not just about black people leaving the South, it's about the yearning of anybody who wants to make a life-altering change for something better, for which there's no guarantee of the outcome. I'm hoping that if nothing else, people take that from this book--that they will see that we're all, in this case, Americans seeking the American dream, and African Americans are no different from that. They all shared the desire, when they were participants in the Great Migration, of the immigrant heart--of someone leaving the only place they've ever known, for a place they've never seen, with no guarantees."

 

AFRICAN-AMERICAN LEADERS CALL FOR THE RESIGNATION OF SHERIFF JOE ARPAIO

AFRICAN-AMERICAN LEADERS CALL FOR

THE RESIGNATION OF SHERIFF JOE ARPAIO

African-American Leaders Respond to Findings Showing Pattern or Practice of Wide-ranging Discrimination Against Latinos and Retaliatory Actions Against Individuals Who Criticized MCSO Activities

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Letter from Birmingham Jail, 1963

PHOENIX, AZ – After reading the Press Release of the Department of Justice titled, “DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE RELEASES INVESTIGATIVE FINDINGS ON THE MARICOPA COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE,” dated December 15, 2011 and reading the letter from Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez dated December 15, 2011 to Mr. Bill Montgomery, Maricopa County Attorney, African-American leaders unite with other justice-loving citizens and organizations calling for the resignation of Sheriff Joseph M. Arpaio.

During a meeting with Assistant Attorney General Perez, as he briefed a diverse group of community leaders on the afternoon of December 15, 2011, Dr. Warren H. Stewart, Sr., Senior Pastor of the First Institutional Baptist Church, Phoenix, Arizona, made the following remarks, “This Department of Justice Press Release is like déjà vu.  Fifty years ago this was happening to African-Americans all over the country and especially in the Deep South.  All we have to do is to substitute African-Americans for Latinos in this document and it reminds us of how Blacks were treated during the Civil Rights Movement era (and often continue to be prejudged because of skin color even today). . . . Those of us who believe in justice and the Constitution of the United States of America will not be silent.  We must call for the Sheriff’s resignation.  We must speak to the powers that be, the Maricopa County Supervisors, and put pressure on them that the Sheriff needs to go.  This document is proof that we have become the Alabama of the 21^st century.  It’s like Sheriff Bull Connor has come to Arizona.”

According to the findings of the Department of Justice, Assistant Attorney General Perez remarked, “ . . . this is the worst case of racial profiling seen in the U.S. in the last 40 years.” Therefore, we call for the resignation of Sheriff Joe Arpaio. We will not be silent! Although the Department of Justice plans to work with the MCSO to fix the unjust practices and problems existing in that office, we do not feel that the problems noted in the findings of discriminatory policing, unlawful retaliation and discriminatory jail practices can be corrected with Sheriff Arpaio remaining at the helm of the MCSO. He has been the unapologetic, “in-your-face” perpetrator of mean-spirited actions and attacks on members of the Latino community far too long.  He has become a malignant cancer that must be removed if the body politic of the MCSO is to ever become healthy and properly functioning again.

Millions of taxpayer dollars have been wasted as a direct consequence of Sheriff Arpaio’s unfair, vindictive, arrogant attitudes and actions violating human and civil rights. Moreover, Arpaio’s victims have been fellow human beings created in the image and likeness of God, regardless of their skin color, language of preference and national origin.

Consequently, we, African-American leaders, in the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Cesar Chavez, join our Latino brothers and sisters, and persons of every race, ethnicity, creed, color, class and political persuasion who believe that we are “one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all” in calling for Sheriff Joseph M. Arpaio to resign.

Community Leaders Support List

Dr. Warren H. Stewart, Sr., Senior Pastor, First Institutional Baptist Church

Wilbert Nelson, State President, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

The Reverend Oscar Tillman, President, Maricopa County Branch of National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

Phoenix City Councilman Michael Johnson

Henry M. Wade, Arizona Association of Real Estate Brokers

George Dean, Executive Director, Greater Phoenix Urban League

Pastor James N. Harris, Jr., Moderator, Central District Missionary Baptist Association

Cloves C. Campbell, Jr., Arizona Informant Newspaper, Former State Legislator

Michael Berry, National Association of Minority Contractors

Former Phoenix City Councilman Calvin C. Goode

Senator Leah Landrum Taylor, Arizona State Legislature

Gene Blue, Arizona Opportunities Industrialization Center

Mel Hannah, Chairman, African American Legislative and Leadership Council

Bishop Henry L. Barnwell, Full Gospel International Fellowship

Bishop Harvey T. Young, Arizona Churches of God in Christ

Pastor James N. Preston, Bethesda Community Baptist Church

Superintendent Felton King, Emmanuel Church of God in Christ

Pastor Aubrey L. Barnwell, Senior Pastor, First New Life Missionary Baptist Church

Bob Boyd, Chairman, Combined Fraternal Organization of South Phoenix

Opal Tometi, National Organizer, Black Alliance for Just Immigration

Dr. George Brooks, Jr.

Tonya Norwood, Community Leader

Gail G. Knight, Community Leader

Michael Williams, Educator

This week's Drop the I-Word Friday Friend is BAJI,

Original post from Colorlines.com

The Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI) is an education and advocacy group comprised of African Americans and black immigrants from Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. BAJI's analysis emphasizes the impact of racism and economic globalization on African American and immigrant communities as a basis for forging alliances across these communities. BAJI is an endorser and great supporter of the Drop the I-Word Campaign. 

Read Along with BAJI and Drop the I-Word

From December through February, Drop the I-Word will partner with BAJI and invite members of

our communities to read Isabel Wilkerson's monumental book, The Warmth of Other Suns. The book, newly available in paperback, chronicles the Great Migration, in which some six million black people migrated to cities in the north and west from the south's Jim Crow caste system between 1915 and 1970. Ms. Wilkerson told Colorlines.com:

"This book is not just about black people leaving the South, it's about the yearning of anybody who wants to make a life-altering change for something better, for which there's no guarantee of the outcome. I'm hoping that if nothing else, people take that from this book--that they will see that we're all, in this case, Americans seeking the American dream, and African Americans are no different from that. They all shared the desire, when they were participants in the Great Migration, of the immigrant heart--of someone leaving the only place they've ever known, for a place they've never seen, with no guarantees."

Current anti-immigrant rhetoric hinges upon dividing communities of color and explicitly pitting African Americans with roots in the south, against migrants today. It's important that we build bridges and continue to foster respect and knowledge about one another's experiences.

This is an exciting way to get involved in Drop the I-Word. Start now by buying The Warmth of Other Suns on Amazon or Indiebound for yourself and as a gift for loved ones. Then in January and February join Drop the I-Word and BAJI in the conversation on immigration. We will be offering opportunities on our website, blog, Facebook and Twitter to discuss. 

We are looking forward to this project and are grateful to our Friday Friend BAJI for supporting Drop the I-Word and elevating the conversation about migration.