September 10, 2016 ~ By The Policy Geek
Black Crime in the United States
What's In a Name
Original Sin
The only way to talk about the issue is to talk about it. So we're talking about it. Thank you for joining us. America's original sin against our communities of color is never mentioned by the GOP candidate Donald J. Trump as he runs for President. He'll deliver a checklist of things he thinks are the problems. He'll announce that more police are really the solution. But he never addresses the root cause of the generational problems of our neighbors with roots - the ones he refers to as "The Blacks" or his "African-American friends."
Success isn't Always Defined by How Hard You Work
When Someone Else's Success Is Perceived As a Threat
Throughout the brief history of the U.S., there have been tales of successful minority communities, nirvanas of excellence and innovation. And throughout U.S. history there are also less told tales about how those pockets of accomplishment were literally destroyed by white racists. There are too many to go into in this entry, heck it's gonna be long enough as it is, but here is one perfect example. The story of America's Black Wall Street:
Black Wall Street in Greenwood Oklahoma Thriving (1921)
What's left after white rioters burned down Black Wall Street (1921)
Greenwood, Oklahoma - The Untold Story of America's Black Wall Street
Greenwood - a neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma - was home to one of the most successful and wealthiest black communities in the U.S. during the early 20th Century, and was popularly known as America's "Black Wall Street." That is until the Tulsa race riot of 1921, in which white residents massacred hundreds of black residents and burned the neighborhood to the ground within hours. The riot was one of the most devastating massacres in the history of U.S. race relations, destroying the once thriving Greenwood community.
Lost forever were over 600 successful businesses, including 21 churches, 21 restaurants, 30 grocery stores, two movie theaters, a hospital, a bank, a post office, libraries, schools, law offices, a half dozen private airplanes and a bus system. Local historians estimate 1,500 to 3,000 people were killed, and we know that a lot of them were buried in mass graves all around the city. Some were thrown into the river. As a matter of fact, at 21st Street and Yale Avenue, where there now stands a Sears parking lot, that corner used to be a coal mine. Many of the dead bodies were thrown into the shafts by the conquering heroes.
Gentrification
Within five years after the massacre, surviving residents who chose to remain in Tulsa rebuilt much of the district. They accomplished this despite the opposition of many white Tulsa political and business leaders as well as punitive rezoning laws enacted to prevent reconstruction. It resumed being a vital black community until segregation was overturned by the Federal Government during the 1950s and 1960s. Desegregation encouraged Blacks to live and shop elsewhere in Oklahoma, causing Greenwood to lose much of its original vitality. Since then, city leaders have attempted to encourage other economic development activity in town. And by other, we mean "white."
The Struggle Continues
One Step Forward Three Steps Backwards
How can anyone begin to talk about the plight of our inner city youth, or gang violence, or the war on drugs, or any of these issues if they are always couched as a "black problem?" How can we begin to talk about respect, mediation, deescalation, and unity when candidates like Donald Trump step into the divide and hold the chasm apart with their wide stance on the issues?
What does Donald see as the problems that these communities face? Well, we looked into his pronouncements on the issue in our piece: Donald's Reach Around. In the meantime, let's take a second to look at the values he's taught his children. See recent retweet by Donald Jr. below.
Donald son's Donald Jr. recently showed off the family resemblance in this tweet
featuring the Neo-Nazi White Supremacist Mascot Pepe
