[Marxism] Black cities ranked 'most dangerous'; leaders challenge labels

["Charles Brown" <cbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Black cities ranked 'most dangerous'; leaders challenge labels


Date: Monday, November 29, 2004
By: C. JEMAL HORTON, BlackAmericaWeb.com

For the ninth consecutive year, a city with a majority black population has
been ranked as the nation's most dangerous city.

This year, Camden, N.J., took the dubious honor, as determined by Morgan
Quitno Press, a Lawrence, Kan.-based publishing and research company, which
conducted the study for a book titled "City Crime Rankings."

Five other predominantly black cities followed Camden, where about 45,000,
or 56 percent, of the city's 80,000 residents are black: Detroit, Atlanta,
St. Louis, Gary, Ind., and Washington, D.C.

According to the company, the rankings were determined by an individual
city's rate in six basic crime categories: murder, rape, robbery, aggravated
assault, burglary and motor vehicle theft. All cities with populations of
75,000 or higher that reported crime data to the FBI for the six crime
categories were included in the rankings. In this year's survey, 354 cities
were examined. Final 2003 statistics, released by the FBI on Oct. 25, were
used to determine the rankings.

Camden is considered an economically depressed area. It has an unemployment
rate of 36 percent, and one in three of its residents are poor. However,
community leaders there do not agree with the company labeling it the
nation's most dangerous city.
<http://www.blackamericaweb.com/resource.aspx?id=14590>

Black community leaders told BlackAmericaWeb.com that, while they cannot
deny that many cities with large black populations do have problems with
crime and drugs, they seem to get an unfair amount of attention.

"You have to believe that race has something to do with these rankings - the
black people have been stereotyped," said Camden City Councilwoman C. Louise
Dobbs, who lives in Whitman Park, one of Camden's most notorious sections.
"We've been known to have a bad reputation. Granted, the younger generation
has a lot of anger, and they're the ones committing a lot of the crimes. But
kids are acting out everywhere. But people focus all the negativity toward
[blacks]. So, yeah, I think [black cities being considered most dangerous]
is because we have the high population of African-Americans and Hispanics.
We're considered the worst."



Newton, Mass., whose population is 88 percent white - and 1.9 percent black
- was named America's Safest City by Morgan Quitno.

 "I think it's pretty unjust," said the Rev. Floyd L. White III, pastor of
Camden's Woodland Avenue Presbyterian Church, who is one of the leaders in
trying to reverse the city's crime statistics - and reputation. "I really
don't think it's the clearest testament of what's going on here.

"There are a lot of good things happening here in Camden, but people do not
seem to want to report those things nationally. Right now, there are a lot
of us trying to work with the schools to improve things for kids, so that
they have constructive things to do. We're trying to create safe havens
through our churches."

White said that his church has an after-school program designed for children
from economically challenged families. He said his church also is trying to
provide quality employment for the parents of those children.
In Gary, Ind., Tammi A. Davis, president-elect of that city's NAACP chapter,
said it doesn't do any good to act as though largely black cities, including
hers, don't have serious problems with crime and safety.

"There definitely are certain areas of Gary that are not that appealing,"
Davis said. But Davis, a former flight attendant, said she has grown tired
of dealing with Gary's villainous image so frequently. The city is 86
percent black.

"I grew up in an area on the west side of Gary, where it's considered to be
pretty bad. I'd be on trips and people would say, 'Oh, you're from Gary? Oh,
you're so articulate! You're so smart!'" she said. "I'm sitting there
thinking, 'What, an articulate person can't be from Gary?' So, it was kind
of like a compliment to me individually, but it was an insult to probably,
one, my race, and, two, my community. So there was that perception. It's
always been there, but we're working on changing it."

Davis said the Gary NAACP is working individually with youth to create
future black community leaders.

"We recently had a new police station built, too," Davis said. "It has more
state-of-the-art resources. I believe that there is more funding that is
being put in place so that we may become a more competitive city. We have a
lot of great characteristics. We're close to Chicago. We have Lake Michigan
available as an excellent resource. There's money being put into certain
areas to draw businesses in. The police force is working more closely with
schools."

Detroit had been ranked the most dangerous city for three consecutive years
- 1999, 2000 and 2001 - before St. Louis took the dubious honor in 2002.
Detroit, which is about 86 percent black, then regained the most dangerous
mantle in 2003.

Detroit City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson said the city's crime problems boil
down to economics and frustration.

"Of the $11 billion generated by Detroit, 95 percent of it travels outside
of the city," Watson explained. "And 3 percent of the remaining 5 percent is
spent with enterprises owned by non-Detroiters. So that leaves 2 percent of
the $11 billion earned by Detroiters which is left be spent by enterprises
owned by Detroiters and which hire Detroiters. So there's a trading
imbalance.

"I urge anybody who decides to report on the criminal problems to also
report on pathology, like violence and crime and the prison industry, etc,"
said Watson. "You can't take any look at a city like Detroit without linking
things to the economic empowerment that all cities and all regions and all
nations should be able to take for granted."

Despite the problems in predominantly black cities, Davis said, it still is
wrong to paint them as bastions of criminal behavior.

"Unfortunately, race does play a role," Davis said. "And I think part of it
is economics. In the inner city, you will not see your larger firms. You
will not see a Coca-Cola setting up their base in a predominantly
African-American community. You may not see your Targets. But what you see
is either some sort of subsidiary thereof, which doesn't quite have the high
quality.

"That's a stigma that holds on to the African-American people -
unfortunately that black is bad. And that's not right."



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