The Social Justice Crisis in Cincinnati National Hearings on the Crisis in Cincinnati
BY DAN LA BOTZ
. . . Cincinnati, Rogue city
Cincinnati is know nationally as a corporate city, the headquarters of Procter and Gamble, Kroger, Chiquita Banana and Cintas and as the home of the sports corporations, the Bengals and the Reds. These are the corporations that rule Cincinnati and dominate politics here, and they do not do so in the interest of working class or poor people. Sometimes it seems as if they are not even capable of running the city anymore in the interests of the rich and powerful, for they have made a mess of it. They have won Cincinnati the international reputation of a rogue city where human rights of all sorts are disrespected.
Cincinnati has become an icon around the country, a symbol of the systematic disregard for human rights. Cincinnati is known nationally not only as a conservative city, but also as a reactionary and racist city. When I travel to other parts of the country and introduce myself as a resident of Cincinnati, people almost invariably shake their heads or give me a sympathetic pat on the shoulder, or say something like "Wow, Cincinnati, that must be some place to live, huh?" Everyone has heard of the murder of Timothy Thomas, and of the civil unrest, many have heard or Article 12 and the anti-gay and lesbian legislation in the city. Some have heard of the city's recent attack on labor unions through contracting out jobs. We are known for being Cincinnati, the city where civil rights stood still, and slipped backward.
Cincinnati has become notorious:
* We are known as a national center of the Right to Life movement here, a misnamed movement that, supposedly in the name of God, would deny women the right to choose, and force our wives and daughters back to the era of illegal, self-induced and dirty back room abortions.
* We are known as a homophobic city, for Article 12 in our city charter, which would deny gay and lesbian citizens the full civil rights protection granted other citizens.
* We are becoming known as an anti-union town where the Democratic Party majority on city council moves to privatize union jobs, in effect denying workers the right to labor union representation, collective bargaining agreements and decent wages. At the same time, of course, the city passes a weak "living wage" law, a law improving wages for a handful of workers, in an attempt to cover up its attack on unions representing thousands of workers.
* We have some notoriety nationally for the lead levels in the streets of Over-the-Rhine and schools of our neighborhoods and for the toxic chemicals in neighborhoods like St. Bernard.
* We are known as a city that denies dissent and the right to protest. When almost three years ago about a couple hundred religious, labor and students activists organized to Trans-Atlantic Business Dialogue (TABD), a private club of rich corporations, the police used massive police power to deny those protesters their rights, and arrested 50 people, some for simply fitting the profile of a protester by wearing black clothing.
* Most of all, of course, we have become known as a city where the police department shoots and kills black men. The long series of police killings has made us notorious around the country, while the failure of the local government to respond to those killings has made us known as a rogue.
I don't think I can add a great deal to the testimony presented here in terms of the presentation of fact or in terms of first-hand experience. Many other speakers have explained the Cincinnati Police Department's racist and violent treatment of our citizens, particularly of African-American men. Some of the speakers have been the victims of it and can speak to that far better than me. The people of Cincinnati, and all of Ohio and the United States, have followed the series of police killings of unarmed black men and men held in custody with horror and revulsion.
Nor do I think I can add much to the presentations dealing with racial segregation and economic apartheid. Dr. Stanley Broadnax and others have detailed the city's patterns of financial favoritism toward wealthy white communities, while short-changing African-American, Appalachian and what are becoming our new Latino communities. One need only drive through Cincinnati to see the striking differences in the city's maintenance of white and black communities, and to see the differences in wealth between the white and black communities, in large part the result of long-standing patterns of discrimination in employment and other economic opportunities.
I agree with many of the others who have testified that the Cincinnati Police force behaves like an occupying army and that our black citizens are often treated like a conquered people, denied the economic opportunities of the conquerors. I think this is a metaphor that probably has more significance today, after the U.S. conquest and occupation of Iraq.
What happens in Cincinnati, while egregious, is not so different from what happens in other cities, such as Chicago, New York or Los Angeles. Throughout the country we have a pattern of police racism and violence, of police shooting and killing black men who are unarmed, in custody or in prison. The difference is in the way the city and the Cincinnati Business Committee, made up of the most powerful corporations, respond to this situation.
In other cities, when the police chief is exposed as racist, violent, or corrupt or ineffective, the city fires him or forces him to resign. Firing the police chief does not always solve the problem, but it is a concession to the critics, it is a form of recognition of the issue, it may be a first step toward resolving the problem. Clearly, the man who heads the police force has to take responsibility for his officers' actions, and if his department is corrupt, racist and violent, then he is fired -- everywhere but in Cincinnati. Here Mayor Charlie Luken says the police have done nothing wrong, and praises the police chief, promising that he will not fire him and says he can stay as long as he wants.
That is the difference between the rest of the country and Cincinnati. Here the powers-that-be will not even recognize the problem, will not make one concession, will not admit wrong. We see the same pattern in the breakdown of the Cincinnati Collaborative Agreement reached between the Black United Front, the ACLU and the city police department and Fraternal Order of Police. The collaborative has broken down because of the failure of the Cincinnati business community, the city of Cincinnati and the Cincinnati Police Department to make real changes here.
At a Fork in the Road -- A Need for Vision
The city of Cincinnati, Hamilton County and the region stand at a fork in the road. If the Cincinnati Business Committee and the city continue to resist reform, the city could become another Midwestern rustbelt ruin where political intransigence, racism and white flight, followed by corporate down-sizing or abandonment, strip the city of its tax base and reduce it to a state of devastation. On the other hand, if we take the opportunity, we could make Cincinnati a kind of Midwestern model city based on attention to education, employment and the environment. The corporations and the city government seem headed for rustbelt ruin, so we have to be the advocates of and the fighters for a model city, based on civil rights and social justice for all.
What should be our vision for the city? What are the most important elements of that vision?
* Criminal Justice: The first point has to be a complete overhaul of the criminal justice system. The city must fire Police Chief Tom Streicher and overhaul the police department to change the policies and procedures. Had there been the political goodwill in the city, the Collaborative Agreement might have done this. But however it is done, by court order, by the Justice Department or by a change in city government in the coming elections, there has to be a change in the police department brining about many of the measures sought through the collaborative: community policing, a more powerful police review board, changes in policies and procedures governing the use of force. At the same time, there should be an investigation into the county prosecutor's office which so obviously operates in a racist fashion, and we should do everything possible to see Mike Allen removed from office as well. The Republican Party must be forced to renounce and abandon Mike Allen and other such reactionary and racist figures.
* Economic Justice: We need the city to prioritize the neighborhoods over downtown, and to make available to local communities the funds given to the city for that purpose by the Federal government. We need to see that minority contractors get their fare share of public sector and private sector contracts, and we need affirmative action in that area. But most important, we need to create an environment that encourages the organization of labor unions and collective bargaining agreements. Where workers have labor unions, they have more job security, higher wages, benefits such as health insurance and better working conditions. We need a real living wage in this community, and most people recognize that a living wage begins some place around $15 an hour, and that living wage should be enforced on all city and county workers, contractors and subcontractors, leasers and others with any business relationship to the city or county. Other pressures should be brought to extend it to most of our city's workers in all businesses and industries. The economy thrives when workers have purchasing power. Most African Americans and most whites are wage earners, and in the fight for labor unions and contracts there is common ground to build a united movement of working class people in this community.
* Gay and Lesbian Rights: Give our gay and lesbian citizens full civil rights protection. Some of my African-American friends and allies here may say, "Why bring that up? Why can't you forget that? The gay and lesbian issue remains unpopular in our community, where many believe that being gay or lesbian is a sin. Gays and lesbians don't make up that large a part of the population. Or, perhaps, we can take up that question some other time, but the African American criminal justice and economic issues are more important right now."
I disagree. The gay and lesbian issue -- what is called homophobia or fear of homosexuals -- is important to all of us, and perhaps especially to the African-American community and important now, because it is about intolerance. It is about discrimination. It is about hatred. It is about hatred that excuses violence.
We are all aware of the murder on Dec. 31, 2002 of Gregory A. Beauchamp, a young black man killed in Over-the-Rhine, because he was a homosexual. It was that crime that led to the city of Cincinnati, to its credit, passing the new hate crimes law. Perhaps you also saw the story in the newspaper the other day about the 15-year-old African-American girl, Sakia Gunn, who was murdered in Newark, New Jersey by two men. She was apparently murdered because they thought she was gay, that she was a lesbian. Gregory A. Beauchamp and Saskia Gunn are the Emmett Tills of our times, and we should join together to end the climate of sexism and homophobia that led to her murder. I would like to appeal to the African-American community here today to join in the fight to repeal Article 12 and end homophobia in Cincinnati, for all of our children who we love, however they may choose to live.
Environmental Justice: In Cincinnati, as everywhere in the country, corporations and governments make poor people, people of color and low-income workers the victims of environmental policies that serve big mining and manufacturing corporations and real estate and construction companies. Whose children suffer lead poisoning in the inner cities? Which communities find themselves surrounded by dangerous manufacturing plants spewing toxic chemicals? What communities are chosen for garbage dumps, toxic dumpsites, and others dangers to our health and well-being? In too many cases, corporations and governments dump on the poor, the African American, the Appalachian, and the Latino. I think of the Lower Price Hill community, a community of just such peoples and just such races, where Cincinnati Barrel employs the poorest workers in the cleaning of barrels full of toxic chemicals. We don't find Cincinnati Barrel in Indian Hill, and we don't find any white people working there. We need county-wide development plan, a light rail system, a plan to prevent urban sprawl, to get workers union jobs and a way to revitalize our city while making sure that our current neighborhood residents participate in that revitalization. . . .
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