On the February 28th episode of “Behind the
Headlines,” Eric Barnes interviewed Mayor Wharton and the city finance director
Brian Collins. The interview is
centered primarily around the city finances, but at the end of the segment,
Mayor Wharton discusses the issue of crime in Memphis. While Wharton has a lot to say on the
issue, there are quite a few problems that pervade this portion of the segment.
Mayor Wharton discusses the fact
that young black men have become the face of crime in both Memphis and the
nation. He applauds President
Obama for directly addressing this fact and for supporting a new program called
“My Brother’s Keeper.” This
program will be used to help young black men and also address the growing
persecution that they are
facing. Mayor Wharton also
supports this program and says that “black boy crime” is something that must be
dealt with and we must stop “tiptoeing around the issue.” He admits that Memphis is “heavy on
prosecution” when it comes to young black boys. He says that while people must be held accountable, he also wants
to amplify efforts to reengage them in other areas of life in order to move
them away from crime. In order to
do that, however, philanthropies and other organizations must also become
involved because the system cannot do it alone. Mayor Wharton says that everyone who lives in Memphis has
been impacted by what young black men are doing, and because of that, we must
take care of them because they are our little brothers. He also addresses the economic factor
of this problem by saying that people are moving out of Memphis and businesses
are beginning to close due to this problem as well.
It is wonderful that President
Obama and Mayor Wharton are directly addressing this problem, but there are remaining problems that must be addressed. President Obama just
announced this new initiative so it is understandable that Mayor Wharton’s
ideas remain ideas rather than actions.
However, if the system cannot do it alone then something must be done to
motivate philanthropies to take up the issue of “black boy crime” that Wharton
says is an issue they so often deny to address. That will take a lot of time because the philanthropies and
organizations will have to change their mindset in order to help young black
men. However, young black boys
cannot wait forever for these organizations to start caring. By the time these organizations do start
helping them, many of these young black boys will have become men and will be
forced to confront the prejudices that society and the penal
system enforce upon them.
It is obvious as well that Memphis
is still not very willing to directly face this issue. “Behind the Headlines” is about a
twenty-five minute long segment, but only about five minutes were dedicated to
discuss this very large and complex issue. It is apparent that Wharton had more to say when he was cut
off by the show’s credits. The
host, Eric Barnes, also makes a somewhat ignorant comment as well. He says to Mayor Wharton, “It’s 2014, not 1968. Is it a more comfortable
conversation? Can you talk about black men and the problem there without
vilifying a whole race of people?”
Mayor Wharton says that he would see no problem if he were addressing
this issue and black male youth programs in a room that was 100% black. Barnes’ statement may have been used as
a prompt for Wharton, but I find it ignorant because it is obviously still not
a comfortable conversation. The
trials revolving around Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis brought out the best
and the worst in people. Some
people saw the obvious race factor in the cases, but others did not. While it is not 1968, it is still very
dangerous to be a young black boy living in America and in Memphis in
particular. Black men continue to
be vilified as a “whole race of people” and this is apparent in the
discrepancies in prison statistics when it comes to white men versus black
men. Many people still refuse to
accept that, but what may be worse is that the people who do recognize that
this is an issue refuse to publicly acknowledge it and help change it. This is a problem
that Memphis is facing due to the fact that philanthropies and other
organizations recognize that there is a “black boy crime” problem, but refuse
to address it and make it a part of their agenda. Due to this, I fear that, despite Mayor Wharton’s ideas and
plans, young black boys will continue to have limited support in Memphis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdkmjT0hmuY#t=41
I find this take to be an interesting way of addressing crime by black youth in Memphis. While the focus on "My Brother's Keeper" is to help black youth is to have conversations about how to address their growing persecution, there currently is no program to address why and how these young black males are systematically persecuted. It individualizes the problem to place the blame on black youth as opposed to bringing to light how the criminal justice system has been placing this idea of black men, and here youth, as the "dangerous group." The Mayor admits that the city is "“heavy on prosecution” and that 'they' must be 'held accountable' pushing further the idea that crime among black youth is not a result of limited resources (whether it be job, education, or social mobility). The criminal justice system, as noted in the post, has systematically marginalized black men and this initiative furthers the argument that we must stop this life of crime while these men are young. I find this approach to be increasingly problematic, especially in light of the Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis case, and look forward to including this discussion at the next conversation in the Mayor's Multicultural Coalition.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately for area's like Detroit and Memphis these issues are all to real and unfortunately the number of solutions is too few. The "My Brothers Keeper" program mentioned by both Wharton and Obama will hopefully lead toward a future in which young African American men have a bright future but sadly the program does nothing to change the current situation. What is dies do is pull efforts by foundation and companies to try and find solutions to the problems listed above, but it takes no action, leaving the status quo intact. While it makes sense to study your options before moving forward, we know for certain that increasing economic opportunity statistically has positive on crime rates which makes sense. By removing the fiscal need to committee violent crimes in a community the government will be able to improve places like Memphis, restoring this city to the thriving metropolitan center it once was.
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