[lbo-talk] Crime in Philly

[Jim Straub]

Actually, I do think stop and frisk will result in locking up some
people carrying handguns, and if so might drive a chunk of the casual
daily handgun play off the targeted streets.  Remember, the big factor
in the new surge of violence is respect issues and arguments which in
years past would've been settled with fists or at worst blades, now go
directly to guns, because so many males under 25 are carrying them
around in their waistband in the hood.  I mean, handgun play has
gotten so institutionalized into the fabric of these kids lives that
its even creating common mannerisms--- have you noticed kids getting
in arguments, even when not carrying, the symbol of "I'll fuck you up"
is to wordlessly pull up one's shirt to reveal your waistband even if
you're not carrying.

Of course stop and frisk can't address any of the real root causes of
the violence or make a big dent in it, but then again, we definitely
don't have any ideas we can implement or win a public campaign for or
win a city election on.
I -also- think stop and frisk will entail a ton of profiling.  But I
don't even know how to formulate an opinion or perspective on it,
because my ideological milleu is still reminiscing about the 70s.


>
> Sure I think that community residents have a more conflicted view, but I
> don't think that boiling it down to more boots on the street has a
> pro-community legacy in Philly either. Didn't we already talk about Rizzo
> with the billy club in his cummerbund?

But that's just the thing I'm saying!  You're talking about Rizzo in
2007!  But it is in fact a very different police force and urban power
structure and city demographics.  We as the left are molding how we
think about urban violence around Rizzo, around, 'gee I haven't looked
at the numbers but I bet most black youth today get killed in police
raids on black panther offices'.  Whereas in poorer urban
neighborhoods nobody has a friend who was killed by rizzo and
everybody has a friend who was killed by another kid in the
neighborhood, and as a result different segments of the hood
population are having some very different opinions about what should
happen, differing by age probably more than anything else.

I mean, before the violence started breaking headlines and nutter
started running on stop and frisk, he was not a top contender; the
most enthusaistic people in his camp were like six or seven green
party nerds downtown.  He said he was for stop and frisk, Chaka Fatah
said he was against it, and in the last week of the election a big
chunk of fatah's black base moved to nutter's camp.  I think its safe
to say nobody in the city except leftists are still making their calls
out of the 70s playbook from the rizzo era.  It's a strange new world
out there.

Speaking of all of which, has anyone been following cory booker and
newark's latest travails?