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Ron Jackson's Perspective
The BOND Newsletter
August/September 2003
Benton Harbor…
when helpless black America loses hope |
BOND,
the Brotherhood Organization of A New Destiny, is a national,
nonprofit religious organization dedicated to “Rebuilding the Family
By Rebuilding the Man”. |
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Where did the
tradition of destroying your own community because you were upset at
the “white man” begin? Is that behavior continued from early
childhood when we would throw tantrums and trash our bedrooms to get
back at our parents? If so, why do adult whites outgrow that
behavior while some adult blacks use that as a first resort to
protest perceived racial injustice?
Benton Harbor, Michigan, the recent site of two days of
rioting by black Americans is no different than any other American
city after a black citizen was alleged to have been harmed or killed
by a white person. That’s like fireworks waiting for a holiday.
We all remember the “Rodney King” riots in Los Angeles
in the early 1990s. Some blacks destroyed their own
neighborhood to protest their claim of injustice. Other blacks
just looted because the opportunity presented itself. At the
time of the Los Angeles riots, I lived in California and I didn’t
understand why blacks would destroy their own neighborhood. In
the past two decades, we have seen blacks riot in Miami, Florida,
and Cincinnati, Ohio.
I now live in Illinois, less than two hours from Benton
Harbor. I still don’t understand what good comes from tearing
up your own community. As one older black gentleman tried to
explain to me, “We tear it up cuz we don’t own nothing anyway.
We just renting the white man’s property. We ain’t got nothing
to lose.”
A black male was killed while being chased by white
cops. The cops were accused of wrongful death. This is a
storyline we have heard too many times. Watching the riot on
television, I had no desire to join the media circus to see the mass
destruction up close. I knew in time the real cause of the
young man’s death and the justification for the riots would come
forth. I didn’t have to wait too long.
According to Berrien County, Michigan, prosecutors,
motorcyclist “Terrance Shurn’s death was caused by the recklessness
of his own flight and his failure to stop as directed.” Benton
Township police officer Wesley Koza, the pursuing officer when Shurn
died, was found to have done nothing wrong.
However, that conclusion does not sit well with black
civil rights leaders in Benton Harbor, some elected officials of the
state of Michigan, and of course the racial ambulance-chasing legend
of our time, Jesse Jackson of Chicago. U.S. Rep. John Conyers
(D-Michigan) and Jesse Jackson are calling for a Justice Department
investigation into the death and riot. Local civil rights
leaders (more often than not, black preachers) are claiming 40 years
of racial discord in Benton Harbor as the root cause of the civil
unrest. The expected overused cry by victim-hawkers that lack
of jobs, job training and educational opportunities are what lead up
to the eruption of this violent human volcano. If their
poverty claim was valid, wouldn’t the poor citizens of Appalachia be
rioting everyday?
And isn’t a lack of opportunity what black civil rights
leaders always say? But wait. How did blacks suddenly
lose opportunities 40 years ago? That is precisely when the
civil rights laws (the anabolic steroids of our society) started
handing out entitlements and benefits to non-white Americans just
for being non-white.
The same cries of racism and injustice heard in Benton
Harbor can be heard in my small community of Kankakee, Illinois,
just south of Chicago. One black elected official here has
made it his priority to create racial unrest between black residents
and the police.
And yes, Jesse Jackson has been instigating here, too.
In July, Jesse Jackson announced the Kankakee County community of
Pembroke, Illinois (the poorest town in all of America), and Benton
Harbor, Michigan, as his “Leave No Community Behind” tour stops.
Is it coincidental or opportunistic that Jackson recently found two
communities, both within 60 miles of his Operation PU$H
headquarters, both with long standing poverty and justice issues,
both having been designated by national publications “the worst
place to live in the nation” (Benton Harbor 1989; Kankakee 1999),
and both making national headlines this year, to champion? You
can bet your last lottery dollar that Jesse won’t just be stopping
by to make things right. There must first be a branch of his
Operation PU$H established before he will put forth any illusion of
effort. Spoken in the cadence of Jesse, I offer the following
quip, “You must first pay dues before you get used.”
Two organizations, The Southwest Michigan Coalition
Against Racism and Police Brutality, and the Black Autonomy Network
of Community Organizers (BANCO) organized a march on July 12 from
Benton Harbor to St. Joseph to protest police brutality.
Instead of just watching from afar and reading about Benton Harbor,
I went to see for myself how much it mirrored my community.
In front of Benton Harbor’s City Hall, a crowd of a few
hundred people from Toronto, Canada; Cleveland, Ohio; Chicago,
Illinois; and several Michigan cities gathered to display their
support for positive change in the Benton Harbor/St. Joseph area.
Whites outnumbered blacks ten to one. Out-of-towners
outnumbered locals by the same margin. Signs varied in size
from notebook paper 8" x 11" to those on canvas five feet by twenty
feet. Every sign had a distinct message for the powers that
be.
March organizers Rev. Edward Pinckney and JoNina Abron
led the boisterous group from Benton Harbor to the Berrien County
Courthouse in neighboring St. Joseph. Along the 1.5 mile trek,
repeated sounds reminiscent of the Berkley, California protests of
the 1960s could be heard. “No justice, no peace. No racist
police,” and “What do we want? Peace. When do we want
it? Now,” were shouted over and over until they reached the
end of the route.
The peaceful rally at the courthouse was monitored by
county authorities who video taped the crowd from atop the County
jail. Rev. Pinckney further admonished the crowd to boycott
the largest employer, Whirlpool, Inc., and named a few white elected
officials who “must go.” He issued a challenge to make the
next and future assemblies three times the size as this one.
Only time will tell if this march was successful. Some
folks were successful in getting interviewed by television news
crews and print media, but the local people of both Benton Harbor
and St. Joseph seemed to have gone on about their daily lives.
I didn’t see any police at all. Martin L. King Jr., would have
been proud. This group seemed to understand the fundamental
right to peaceful protest, a concept most black civil rights leaders
fail to comprehend.
It’s also quite comical that after some of the
residents of Benton Harbor spent two days in June tearing up their
community, Jesse Jackson in now calling for federal funds for
neighborhood rehabilitation.
Jesse ain’t just “somebothay,” he’s something else.
It’s time for black America to stop relying on and
buying into the antiquated ideology of hope-- that art of sitting on
one’s behind expecting the white man just to give you what you want
because you’re black. It’s time to stop depending on so-called
civil rights leaders, many who are neither civil nor right, to lead
you to a land that was not promised to you. It’s time to
achieve what you want the old-fashioned way. Earn it.
In fairness to black America, whites do riot, but only
after their city’s professional sports teams win national
championships. I don’t understand that either. |
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