White New Orleans Mayor Tries to Deceive: Black on Black Crime is Caused by White Supremacy/Racism
/"Failing to comprehend the environmental context of the white supremacy system and its ultimate goal of white genetic survival, Black people also fail to grasp the deeper sense of what actually is occurring in front of our eyes. We do not realize that the massive deaths of Black males constitute the genocide of Black people (as it takes Black males to make Black babies and ensure future Black generations).
The destruction of Black males for the purpose of white genetic survival is the reason behind the ever increasing disparity between the number of Black females entering and graduating from high schools and institutions of higher education compared to the far lesser number of Black males. This becomes an additional facet of Black genocide. Furthermore, white genetic survival is the dynamic behind the high incarceration rate of Black males in the U.S., which is second only to that of South Africa. The high rate of Black male incarceration contributes in genocidal fashion to the prevention of Black births and the Black male-supported development of all Black children, particularly boys." - Cress Welsing
The dustup between Mayor Mitch Landrieu and the local NAACP, culminating in simultaneous but separate community meetings on Monday evening, came down to this: whether it's more important for New Orleans to be talking about alleged racial profiling by police officers or how to halt the violence that claims so many of the city's young black men every year.
Ultimately, the mayor and civil rights leaders agreed to disagree.
Landrieu spoke Monday at First Emmanuel Baptist Church in Central City, opening the microphone to residents for about 90 minutes and then offering a forceful defense of his efforts to improve the NOPD and prioritize cutting the city's murder rate, while the NAACP called residents to the Christian Unity Baptist Church in Treme to discuss profiling.
Danatus King, head of the NAACP's local branch, got the mayor's office last week to agree to hold a meeting, but then accused Landrieu of attempting to broaden the discussion to include crime and other issues, so both sides met at about 6 p.m. but at different venues.
"The community has one purpose and that's to address the issue of racial profiling," said King. "The mayor's meeting is going to cover a myriad of issues. The community does not want to discuss various issues tonight."
As it happened, the mayor and Police Superintendent Ronal Serpas offered brief introductory remarks and then opened the floor to comments. The mayor's office placed no time limits on speakers, touching off a wide-ranging discussion that hit on everything from youth programs to the city's blight problem and even a brief aside about the ancient Mayan calendar.
But after about a dozen speakers, Landrieu stood and defended his administration's approach to crime, conceding deep and lingering flaws at the police department, but also aiming obvious frustration at the NAACP and others for not giving him more time on reform and for shifting the focus away from the city's stubborn murder problem.
Alluding to 5-year-old Briana Allen and other recent murder victims, Landrieu pointed out that of 13,000 people murdered in the United States last year, about 7,000 were young African-American men killed by other African-American men, and that about 88 percent of them knew each other.
"Not everybody wakes up or gets upset or yells for community meetings about that, and that bothers me," Landrieu said. "That's not that all the other issues raised here tonight are not important, but if there is one issue that will save the city of New Orleans, it is saving our children, saving our sons."
He added: "If we turn in on ourselves, if we fight each other, if we blame rather than find the answer, we are never going to find a way out."
Landrieu agreed "there is no place for racial profiling in this city" and that police officers should "be able to deal with somebody respectfully."
And he conceded the police department's failings. "It should not come as a surprise to anybody here that this is not a perfect police department," he said. "This department hasn't been perfect for a long time. This department hasn't been well hired, well trained, well supervised, well commanded for a very long time."
But reform "can't happen overnight," and the "time we spend yelling at each other, the time we spend screaming at each other, the time we spend not being constructive and moving to a positive place ... is time we don't spend doing everything we need to do," he said.
Still, across town, some residents who turned out for the NAACP's meeting said they felt slighted, calling for a unified voice against racial profiling. Longtime community activist Dyan "Mama D" French Cole said, "If I had a ride, I'd go uptown and tell Mitch Landrieu that the Bible tells you how to treat your neighbor."
Norris Henderson, who leads a group called V.O.T.E. that advocates on behalf of the formerly incarcerated, compared the community's relationship with Landrieu to a marriage. "We're kind of like wedded to this mayor, whether we voted for him or not," he said. "So our demand is like, 'Hey, buddy, you work for us.'"
Landrieu has made police reform and the city's crime rate the focus of his first term as mayor, drawing up a detailed plan for police improvements and negotiating with the U.S. Justice Department on bringing the NOPD up to constitutional standards. But a pair of reports earlier this month brought attention back to the issue of racial profiling as it relates to the department's "stop and frisk" policies, with the city's independent inspector general saying that police keep too little information to draw firm conclusions about whether profiling goes on, and the independent police monitor calling for additional training to prevent discrimination.
The NOPD generates "field interview cards" when officers stop and question suspicious individuals, recording names and personal information for a central database of potential criminals, but groups like the NAACP question whether police too often single out African-American men as "suspicious."
Stephen Parker, former chief of the U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Unit, told the audience at Christian Unity Baptist that the federal consent decree meant to reform the NOPD focuses on racial profiling.
And Susan Huston, the independent police monitor, called for a rally at the City Council's Criminal Justice Committee meeting Wednesday at 2 p.m. in council chambers.
The discussion at First Emmanuel Baptist, where Landrieu and Serpas sat on folding chairs in front of the pulpit, a group of white-shirted police captains behind them in the choir section, underscored a range of concerns, both about racial attitudes among police officers and the city's crime problem.
Michael W. Dummett scolded the mayor for staying silent after a surveillance camera captured a group of white plain-clothes State Police officers wrestling two black teenagers to the ground in the French Quarter during Mardi Gras.
"I was looking for your leadership," Dummett said. "We didn't hear anything."
Others defended the mayor and his police chief, arguing that whatever racial biases exist, violent crime is the real problem confronting the black community in New Orleans.
"In this city right now, criminals are running rampant," said Rev. A. Wallace, who gestured toward Landrieu and said, "You come in here and vilify this man, vilify these officers," but "they're trying to prevent crime."
On the other hand, Sharon Alexis, a social worker, said racial profiling can't be "swept under the rug just because there is crime."
But she suggested that the best way to resolve the issue may be to put more resources into improving the lives of young black men in New Orleans before they encounter the police.
"Where are the resources that are going to change the profiles of the young men that you have to face every day?" Alexis asked. "We must break this cycle of poverty. God has plans for us, and it's not to be in a wheelchair."
