6 posts tagged “violence”

A couple days ago a man who works for the Mercer County government was stabbed multiple times in the parking lot across the street from the Mercer County Administrative Building. He'll survive. He's already out of the hospital, actually. The building, unlike most city, county, state, and federal government buildings, is not located in downtown Trenton. It's located around the corner from my house. I can actually see it from my doorway. Take a look: 

Mercer County Administrative Building as Seen From my Doorway

Anywho, immediately following the stabbing county officials and law enforcement agents stepped up security in the area (the parking lot is already under surveillance from a private security firm). When I drove by yesterday on my way to get some medicine for my throat I noticed a Mercer County Sheriff's SUV parked right in front of the parking lot across from the main entrance to the county administrative building. That may deter folk. May not. People have definitely been stabbed and shot to death in front of or across the street from police headquarters, precincts, city hall, etc. in the past few years.

This article from today's Trenton Times about a hastily assembled meeting organized by county officials for county workers was bothering for me as a lifelong Trentonian (don't count college and my time in the south) and neighborhood resident. A few quotes:

                             "One employee said he'd worked for the county for more than 20 years and 

                             never heard of any problems at the lot, making the attack all the more surprising.

                             County officials said they have searched their records and not found any record 

                             of violent crime at the site, though in the past two days a few employees have 

                             reported past incidents officials had not known about."

This neighborhood of South Trenton is def not the most violent part of Trenton, in my opinion. Most Trentonians would concur. Still there was a shooting last week just outside a nightclub down the street from the Mercer County Administrative Building. Also, as you go deeper into South Trenton coming towards my house the neighborhood generally gets progressively poorer and more dangerous. I continue:

                            "I know two people who work with me who have had something said to them (by 

                            strangers in the lot), as have I," one woman told Sheriff Kevin Larkin during the 

                            information session. "After 5 p.m., it's another world."

Another world? Really? Mind you, at 5 p.m. for much of the year it's not even dark yet. Even if it was I could never categorize it as "another world." Perhaps another world from the more idyllic suburbs many government workers who work in Trenton live in. Perhaps. Also, note the fact that both the county executive (essentially the mayor of this county which includes Trenton, Princeton [yes, where the University is], and office buildings or headquarters for various major firms ranging from Merrill Lynch to Bristol Myers-Squibb to Johnson & Johnson) and the county sheriff. The big dogs. One more:

                            "One employee asked whether the county offices could be relocated outside of 

                            Trenton. Larkin said he believed they could not because Trenton is the county seat."

Very disappointing that that proposal is even part of the conversation. Very. Places with comparatively high levels of concentrated poverty and low-quality educational systems where violence is more culturally accepted as inevitable usually are...more violent. Want to fix it? Fix Trenton Public Schools. Hire more Trentonians for jobs in our biggest employment sector: government work. Respond intelligently, creatively, and effectively to crime in Trenton. Take a look at what the county government's response to this lone incident included:

                     * Placing a Mercer County sheriff vehicle in front of the parking lot.

                     * Patching up holes in a fence of the parking lot making it harder to access.

                     * Clearing brush along the back of the lot making it harder for intruders to get in or "lie in wait."

                     * Placement of NEW, DIGITAL CAMEREAS in the lot to replace older cameras that produced "grainy 

                      images."

                     * Closure of a back entrance and pedestrian walkway to discourage pedestrians (note: mostly poor and     

                      working class Trentonians of color) from walking through the lot.

                     * Potentially monitoring the use of the back entrance so people who aren't supposed to be in the lot 

                      aren't in the lot.

                     * Issuance of pamphlets on personal safety to government employees.

                     * Issuance of HIGH-PITCHED MOBILE ALARM DEVICES to government employees.

                     * Reviewing conditions around the administrative building and addressing employee needs in an 

                     adjacent building. 

                     * Cleaning up the county-owned Millyard Park behind the administrative building (apparently, currently 

                     government employees are scared to eat lunch in the tiny park because it has benches and a 

                     fountain...some locals supposedly use the area as an "OUTDOOR SHOWER AND BATHROOM.")

                     * Assigning personnel from the sheriff's department and/or park rangers to monitor the park and having 

                     more concerts in the park to encourage its "proper use."

Whew...did you get all that? Wonder what the response to the shooting down the street was? Oh right. NOTHING AT ALL.

Today, the Clarion-Ledger published this article about Jackson recording its 73rd murder of the year. The article states that the murders have happened in every corner of the city (NO: Belhaven is not an island of non-violence in the midst of Hades) and for a variety of reasons (NO: Not all murders are drug dealers who hate each other wantonly shooting at one another). It looks like Jackson is going to have one of the highest murder rates in the nation again. Eh...

Many of my male students at Humphreys County High and Humphreys County Junior High claim affiliations to large, Chicago-based gang conglomerates such as the Folk Nation or the People's Nation. Usually I laugh them off and say something like, "Ya'll don't know nothing about no gangs." Through my use of triple negatives I think that my point gets across to my students. A popular misconception at my school is that I'm from Africa/Nigeria as oppose to my parents. I try to constantly remind my students that I was born and raised in New Jersey but their cognitive dissonance is at times impenetrable. They seem to just not be able to fully register the idea that despite my name, my nominal ability to speak Igbo, and my (over?) emphasis on African history and geography in my WORLD history and WORLD geography classes that I teach I am American, by and large. I am often reminded of this by my cousins, mother, and international friends and it is something that I have to accept. In any event, I feel that the more I relate myself to my students the better and, thus, the more I speak in slang around them and make references to rap and my upbringing not long before them the better. This is also why I'm averse to wearing ties too much or talking about where I went to college in many instances. These things serve to augment the socioeconomic and experiential rift between my students and myself that I aim to bridge.

One of the biggest things that I constantly lecture my students about is the impact of their own actions and choices on their future. I wish that I could show my students the potentially deleterious impact of particular, crucial choices that they are daily faced with down the line. From doing their assignments to not doing them or acting up in school to not acting up or selling drugs/having babies to not selling drugs/having babies, life is all about choices. Despite what the students see around them daily they seem to feel, like many teenagers and young adults, that they will be the exception to the culture, rule, or statistic. I wholeheartedly support this in certain manifestations and tell my students that, despite the realities of what is seemingly ubiquitous to their surroundings, they can be different. Being different requires immense fortitude, foresight, and HARD, hard work though. If not, local trappings await you. Take for example this kid who, although from a neighboring and comparably safer town to Trenton called Hamilton, was caught in the wrong part of Trenton at the wrong time in my neighborhood. Seventeen years old. Minority. Gang member. Shot dead in the street.

I tell my students things that other adults in their lives may not because I love them. I really do. Even (or especially) the ones that give me tough times or don't do their work or have significant learning disabilities that inhibit them from getting the most out of my class. Those are the ones who are truly "at risk" in my opinion and who are only a few steps away from dropping out and entering a lifestyle that I'm sure that in their heart of hearts they do not want to lead. People often stereotype the types of students that me and other MTCers teach as thugs, welfare queens, rejects, or whatever. I don't buy it though. I know thugs. I grew up and formed strong bonds with some. I've ran from their bullets when I was only 11 years-old. I've ducked down in my house from their automatic rounds during drive-bys. I've cautioned my little brother of wearing particular gang-affiliated colors when walking through our neighborhood. I've been cautioned of doing the same when I was around his age (16) and thought I was invincible. I know my students. I know that none of them are thugs. Not the 16 year-old in my 3rd period 8th grade class who gets sent out almost daily and has a 0 average in my class thus far. Not the 18 year-old kid in my 9th grade world geography class who's on probation for selling drugs and may literally not own a pencil, pen, or notebook. They're both good kids. Kids that in another environment with a different family and in a different school setting could be just fine. I just hope that they let me be their teacher and not the much harsher, permanent teacher of experience show them the way.

Today, Iran's parliament approved a non-binding resolution to officially label the CIA and the US Army as terrorist organizations. The Iranian parliament also urged Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to treat these arms of the US government as such. Bravo. Bra...fricking...vo. The truth hurts, US citizens.

It's crazy to me that this is even a controversial issue. The crimes against humanity supported and funded by the CIA and US Army are well-documented and, to a significant degree, a matter of public record. See this book entitled The CIA's Greatest Hits (available online here) that documents dozens of cases of the CIA toppling foreign governments, assassinating popularly elected political leaders, and killing (or funding/training the killers of) millions of "regular" people in societies near and far over the past 60 years.

Monopolies of violence are dangerous as are perceived moral high grounds. The US should have neither in light of its history of violence against many peoples of the world, most often those from the poorest corners of the world--and most ravaged during colonialism--who are Black and Brown and Yellow.

the more they stay the same.

This comes the same week I defended Ole Miss from my students who felt that the Rebel mascot was racist. Go figure.

Ole Miss

This was written journal style my first night in Oxford, this past Monday (June 4). Just wanted to offer some background into what's brought me here:

As I sit in my new apartment at the University of Mississippi, I find time to reflect on what has brought me to this remote locale in Oxford, Mississippi to begin what may be the most difficult experience of my life three days before my graduation from Harvard University.

At some point in my upbringing I knew I wanted to be a teacher. I think I was first bit by the teaching bug when I was nine or ten years-old and a student at Patton Joseph Hill Elementary School in Trenton, New Jersey locally known simply as “P.J. Hill.” It was here at a school where bullet holes pierced what should have been safe windows and pre-teen students fought administrators for the lucrative bounty of one dollar that I realized that I would prefer a career in teaching to any other. This was a fleeting thought, however, and between elementary school and college I went through a broad range of careers. Like many inner-city youth, I soon wanted to be a professional basketball player. From that I went on to focusing on becoming a rapper. Through my interest in rap and the music business I developed an interest in entertainment law, largely because around the age of 16 I learned that the top entertainment lawyers in the U.S. made $800 an hour—which would come out to $40,000 a week for a fifty-hour work week. My career was set. I went to Harvard with this career focus in mind.

While at Harvard, I took a few steps towards entering the music business after graduation from college. I went through the “comp”[1] for a spot on the staff of our campus radio station, WHRB, and by the second semester of my sophomore year I was a member of the radio station’s studio engineering department as well as its Black Urban Contemporary (BUC) department spinning rap, dancehall, and R&B from 3-5 a.m. Sunday mornings. I had established contacts in the rap publication industry through my girlfriend and hoped to work during the summer after freshman year for a record company or rap publication in New York City.[2] I also joined up with the nascent student-run record label at Harvard, Veritas Records, named after our Latin motto ve ri tas meaning "truth." I thought that I was firmly on my way to doing everything I needed to do to have a successful career in the music business and I was not altogether wrong.

Due to what was then a side interest in civil rights issues and Black history, I applied for a spot on an Alternative Spring Break (ASB) trip to when I was a freshman. I had never been to the “Deep South” and was excited when I was accepted as one of eight students to go. We had two great chaperones on the trip. One was Gene Corbin, the Executive Director of the Phillips Brooks House Association, a student-run social service and social action organization at Harvard with nearly 80 programs and thousands of student volunteers. Gene used to run a non-profit in Jackson, that we volunteered at while we were in Jackson that week. The other was Claudia Highbaugh, the Chaplain of the Harvard Divinity School who had family from Jackson and a sublime understanding of civil rights history and its relationship to churches; not to mention a much-needed maternal and supportive nature. While we were in Mississippi we did everything from meet Constance Slaughter-Harvey, the first Black woman admitted to the University of Mississippi’s Law School, to visit Philadelphia, Mississippi, site of the infamous 1964 kidnappings and murders of three civil rights workers historically referred to collectively by their last name--Cheney, Goodman, and Schwerner. Our conversations with various civil rights leaders and visits to various civil rights landmarks left an indelible mark on me.

On one such occasion and trip, we met with Hollis Watkins who was an organizer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the 1960s. On the wall of Mr. Waktins’ office were two posters that showed a map of Mississippi by county. One poster showed each county in Mississippi’s racial makeup. The other poster showed how much funding for public education each county in received. The stark racial disparities were shocking. The counties that were more heavily Black invariably received less funding than the counties that were mostly White. It was not until then that I realized that public education and its problems were not only a New Jersey issue between Abbott Districts[3] and more affluent suburban ones—it was a national and even international issue that kept particular races and classes in subjugated states. This revelation’s impact on me cannot be overstated. The education bug once again sunk its teeth into me and this time it was there to stay. I came back to Harvard, changed my concentration (major) from English and American Literature and Languages to African and African American Studies and Government, changed my summer plans from gaining a job in the music industry to working with an educational and recreational PBHA summer program in inner-city Boston, and changed my career focus from entertainment law to urban public education.

Thus, this is an abbreviated breakdown of why I am here now. This is why I am avoiding the immense paychecks and signing bonuses of many of my peers and friends at Harvard. This is why I am missing the last three days of my college career including my class of 2007 photo, an award ceremony and banquet for my academic department, and a Class Day speech by former U.S. President Bill Clinton. This is why I got chills today when I walked into Holly Springs High School in Holly Springs, Mississippi—the site of the Mississippi Teacher Corps’ summer school where I will get my teaching practice before becoming a teacher in Jackson’s public school system in early August. I have come to Mississippi to address the intellectual, emotional, and—if necessary—material needs of people that I care about and love deeply though I have never met. Human beings that, due to their life’s circumstances, are growing up in social and economic situations I feel mirror my own. I am in Mississippi to bring positive and radical social change to the world. But first, I have to put up my shower curtains….