Remembering Riots
About 10 years ago Cincinnati was semi-rocked by rioting. While the cause cited is a young black guy getting shot while playing hide-n-seek with the police, the inability of the police to notify his next of kin, his mother, seems to have been the real catalyst.
Why had the police failed to inform his mom? She went by a number of names & aliases and her acquaintances were reluctant to help police find her. She blamed police.
Why was the guy shot? He had accumulated a string of arrests & warrants in just 19 years that most people don't achieve in lifetimes 3 times as long. When he fled from a policeman who recognized him & asked him to talk, a chase was on and the other officers joining in did not know the extent of his crimes. With just the number of offenses they assumed they were looking at trouble. When he & an officer surprised one another in the dark maze of alleys Thomas was using for his game of cat & mouse, shots were fired. Most of Thomas' offenses were related to driving & his not facing up to his legal obligations. A tragic waste.
A big issue brought up was the number of Blacks who had been killed by police officers in Cincinnati over the years. All the casualties racked up by the police had been black. Of 15 only a couple were questionable. Frequently the police were just returning fire. This was routinely glossed over. Article
I remember my white co-workers in Over the Rhine being almost terrified to come to work. The night shift workers needed letters citing their good reason for being out and about after the curfew. One guy was almost crying about how he couldn't risk his life there because he had a wife and children. Meanwhile I went out and stood at the bus stop looking down Findlay at an armed police line a block away. When the bus arrived it had a cracked window. The black woman sitting behind it looked tense but confident. Race relations on the bus were fine. Later, at the grocery, the mood was pretty upbeat. The clientele being about half black / half white generally had the attitude of people planning for a snowstorm or a Superbowl. People were preparing for the curfew buying soda, beer, chips, pizza, junk / comfort food, etc. The lines at the check out were long and chatty. That evening I sat on the front porch and enjoyed the quiet. My middle aged ass kinda liked this curfew thing.
Images of the riots & protests were interesting. The black people under 30 including teens & preteens seemed to look like what wealthy white college students would call a spring break. Unorganized vandalism & looting... The Over the Rhine Credit Union, established to fill the void left by traditional banks and to offer financial help to the neighborhood residents, was trashed. Meanwhile the black folks over 30 tended to march in an organized way protesting fairly specific issues. People traveling to Cincinnati to participate in something they knew nothing about? Priceless.
In the aftermath, the Collaborative Agreement was hatched. Mayors and ex-mayors from Boston & San Francisco offered to give Mayor Charlie Luken advice as they had dealt with similar issues in the past. They had claimed that dealing with socio-economic issues along racial lines would be a failure & that socio-economic issues need to be addressed as socio-economic issues (!). Luken, in typical Cincinnati form, said he would deal with it himself - as a race issue. The Collaborative Agreement was so called because it dealt with a number of Black advocacy groups that debatably even represented anybody and had various agendas. Too many chiefs? yup. Within a few years, Luken tried to end the whole thing because egos & interests of the Black citizens groups had led to their disolution, lack of cohesiveness & coherence.
A police monitoring system was established to find out if police were engaged in racial profiling. The surveying method was ill-conceived and when results were analyzed by the pros at UC, they claimed they couldn't really draw any conclusions since the surveys didn't ask the right questions.
A citizens complaint panel was established that finds 99.9% of complaints against police unwarranted.
To assume that all the police reforms of the last 10 years are the direct result of the Collaborative Agreement would be naive. Police policies were already changing in 2001 and continually evolve.
The biggest impact was probably the police slowdown in Over the Rhine. This allowed criminal activity to flourish in the area and provide a base to grow throughout the entire city. When Sheriff's deputies showed up, the area immediately changed for the better. We are still cleaning up.
A number of Black advocacy groups have engaged in establishing expensive & business crushing rules & quotas on various government projects. Liberal white apologists see this as a positive thing. The advocacy groups engaging their constituents & helping them better their lot as conservatives would prefer isn't happening much, but when groups like COA T, with their anti-government agenda can count on groups like the NAACP to help them antagonize government, it's unlikely to hear them speak up.
Another result was the "Boycott of Cincinnati". Among other things, black performers, after contracting to do shows, reneged & cancelled their contracts. In the case of Whoopi Goldberg, this unprofessional conduct mainly hurt local non-profit organizations.
What's changed? The biggest change in police work since 2001 has been a policy to "work smarter", video recording of stops & the use of tasers, non-lethal when used on relatively healthy people. The "black community" seems to be a little more cooperative with police in recent years. That's seems to be about it. The riots did reinforce the stereotype of the uncontrollably violent negro in the minds of many predisposed Whites.
Most people aren't exactly "where they want to be". They can blame others for their lot in life. They can blame classes defined by race, sex, religion, region.....
It's normal.
When others enable them to believe their prejudice a snowball effect ensues. Some people say we need to chat & dwell on past slights. It won't work. I cannot hate the Italians who tormented my ancestors. I cannot hate the crimes and oppression of Africans, English, Catholics, Swedes.... - that's about as far back as I can go - on my ancestors. Sorry. At some point you have to move on.