Middle-Aged, Angry and White

Our community leaders are just embarrassing sometimes. No one more, to me, than County Executive Joe Parisi, he’s unfit for office. After a blog post this week, Chief Koval is coming in a close second for me, but I cut him a little slack as he’s still green. I posted on facebook that there was just too much to be outraged about these days . . . and it will take me weeks to catch up on the outrages and do them justice. My top candidates for unfit for public service may change as I go through my list, sad there is so much competition.

First of all, I recommend that our County Executive Joe Parisi and Chief Koval read A Letter from A Birmingham Jail. While the letter was written in a different time about different issues, it continues to be applicable today. And, the Young Gifted and Black group members may or may not subscribe to the King methods of change, and may prefer other methods, the letter makes some points I want to make as I reflect on the day. I suspect the Chief and Parisi will not be sitting around today reading the letter and thinking about the same things I am thinking about today, instead showing up and attending public gatherings that make them look like they are concerned, while simultaneously completely missing the point. Here are a few passages I wish they were reading and reflecting on:

1. You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes. It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city’s white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative.

After years of talking about the racial disparities and incarceration rates in Dane County (and Wisconsin), some of the worst in the nation, damning reports about disparities in so many areas, passage of equity reports (city and county) and plans to address equity issues, not much has changed. Initiatives are being carried out by staff, with little public participation or input.

In Joe Parisi’s case, he not only doesn’t express concern over the problems our community is facing when it comes to disparities in the jail, raised by the Young, Gifted and Black group. he attempts to discredit them and make them look bad.  While disingenuously saying there will be no new jail (but simultaneously continuing to spend money on it), he attacks the groups for asking that capital funds (building things) be spent on operating expenses (services) and at least in one coverage he said it was “illegal”. That’s not quite right. They could build community centers, libraries, housing, shelters, and other buildings that help with those services. Also, the less money they borrow for things like the jail means that there are less funds needed in the operating budget for paying back principal and interest for 20 years on money borrowed to build things, freeing up money for services, instead of paying principal and interest.  Additionally, the Human Services Department has had surpluses in the millions for years, and ofter this money gets used for the sheriff’s budget gaps.   This dismissal of the group, the disingenuous statement about the jail and failure to be truthful about the budget realities are even worse that failing to express concern for the issues being raised, it actively is working against them, while attempting to appear as if here is nothing he can do.

Meanwhile, Chief Koval just outright denies his department is part of the problem in his blog and essentially doesn’t seem willing to look at any issues that might be a result of his department policies and procedures.  He not only fails to express concerns about the issues raised, he esssentially denies them.

I will not buy into the naive supposition that our community’s disparity issues are largely owing to a pervasive pattern of systemic racism by MPD. In fact, I’m fed up with my Department being blamed for everything from male pattern baldness to global warming. It is time for Young, Gifted, and Black to look a lot deeper at the issues besetting our people of color and stop pandering to the “blame game” of throwing my Department to the wolves. I’m done with allowing this kind of rhetoric to go unchallenged. Perhaps others in Madison are afraid to violate the rules of political correctness and say what I am saying (including the media). I cannot control the public debate, but I will not stay silent. I am 56 years old, this is my last job, and I am calling you out as a group (I guess it’s a good thing that I don’t run for public office and can say what I mean and mean what I say).

Who’s being naive? Which department in Dane County do you think makes the most arrests and fills the jails the most? Apparently he is content with the disparities in our jails.  He’d rather whine about how his poor department is being maligned than look a real issues in our community.

A few other passages the two of them might want to read include.

2. Then, last September, came the opportunity to talk with leaders of Birmingham’s economic community. In the course of the negotiations, certain promises were made by the merchants–for example, to remove the stores’ humiliating racial signs. On the basis of these promises, the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and the leaders of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights agreed to a moratorium on all demonstrations. As the weeks and months went by, we realized that we were the victims of a broken promise. A few signs, briefly removed, returned; the others remained. As in so many past experiences, our hopes had been blasted, and the shadow of deep disappointment settled upon us. We had no alternative except to prepare for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and the national community.

See above with the reports the city and county passed, giving lip service to the issues, but not providing real solutions to the biggest issues facing us as a community when it comes to equity. Feels like promises made and little actually being done that will result in real, immediate change.  It’s hard to look at all the attention paid to equity and the fanfare in which statements have been made, and then to watch the daily actions of our elected leaders.  Spending $10,000 on a program here or there while spending millions on the jail is not equity, no matter how you have to budget it.

3. I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.

Disappointment with the moderates . . . I’ll let King’s words speak to that. Reminds me of another quote “The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality. – Dante Alighieri” That of course, isn’t quite right, because both the Chief and Parisi are trying to appear neutral and reasonable, but seem to be actively discrediting the group raising the issues they have failed to acknowledge or express concern about. They don’t raise to the level of the KKK, but might be preventing change in a much more damaging kind of way.

On Chief Koval’s part, he starts off his blog with this odd anedote.

At the outset of my remarks, I would like to thank you for acknowledging the efforts of my Department in attempting to facilitate your demonstrations over the past few months. We have repeatedly reached out to you in an attempt to discern how we can best achieve outcomes that defend First Amendment rights of assembly and free speech. Sometimes you have worked with us, other times our calls are not returned. As I believe in the value of civic engagement, I have personally directed our command staff to ensure the exercise of the “Madison Method” like never before—fostering an environment of professional decorum characterized by pro-active dialogue, avoiding formal enforcement strategies where possible, and displaying the utmost respect and dignity in all of our contacts. We have more than lived up to my expectations.

Playing a seminal role in facilitating your demonstrations has not been easy. Officers have been mustered from off-hours, traffic and contingency plans assembled, beats back-filled, significant overtime incurred and members of the general public have been patient—thus far. This is the role of police in a free society and the MPD has performed in stellar fashion. But please take note: I evaluate our response on a case-by-case basis and there are limits to what is considered reasonable behavior(s). For example, going into a privately-held venue (e.g. a mall) and using a bull horn to drop “f-bombs” or other profanity in the course of bringing attention to a cause is NOT protected speech and will subject the speaker to sanctions. This has been explained to your group in private; now is it being noticed in a public forum.

Oh, those naughty kids, dropping the f-bombs. Seriously? Again, attempting to discredit and distract from the real issues at hand. And, I’d agree, they are applying the “Madison Method” like never before, but I don’t think that is exactly what he meant. Which leads to the last quote where King points out that if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.

4. It is true that the police have exercised a degree of discipline in handling the demonstrators. In this sense they have conducted themselves rather “nonviolently” in public. But for what purpose? To preserve the evil system of segregation. Over the past few years I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. I have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends. Perhaps Mr. Connor and his policemen have been rather nonviolent in public, as was Chief Pritchett in Albany, Georgia, but they have used the moral means of nonviolence to maintain the immoral end of racial injustice. As T. S. Eliot has said: “The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason.”

I wish you had commended the Negro sit inners and demonstrators of Birmingham for their sublime courage, their willingness to suffer and their amazing discipline in the midst of great provocation. One day the South will recognize its real heroes. They will be the James Merediths, with the noble sense of purpose that enables them to face jeering and hostile mobs, and with the agonizing loneliness that characterizes the life of the pioneer. They will be old, oppressed, battered Negro women, symbolized in a seventy two year old woman in Montgomery, Alabama, who rose up with a sense of dignity and with her people decided not to ride segregated buses, and who responded with ungrammatical profundity to one who inquired about her weariness: “My feets is tired, but my soul is at rest.” They will be the young high school and college students, the young ministers of the gospel and a host of their elders, courageously and nonviolently sitting in at lunch counters and willingly going to jail for conscience’ sake. One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters, they were in reality standing up for what is best in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our Judaeo Christian heritage, thereby bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in their formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

And that brings us back to the beginning, why are our community leaders working to nicely discredit the group raising the issues instead of acknowledging the issues they raise and praising them for their efforts to bring attention to these serious issues. Is it because they don’t want to accept the roles hey played in helping to get us here? Is it because they just want to wear them out and make them go away? Do they think if they work to discredit the group the public will get mad at them and not support them? Do they think if they distract with talk of “f-bombs” and talk of “illegal” budgeting they can avoid talking about the real issues at hand? I hope this group continues it works, continues to demand solutions and continues to fight back against the moderates standing in the way of making progress.

King’s analysis is much deeper than mine, and there is much to consider, I just scratched the surface and in some cases my examples aren’t exactly lined up with what he writes, but I hope it gives you something to think about today and I hope more people continue to put pressure on our elected and non-elected leaders in our community and fight to make sure that we address the embarrassing disparities in our community in meaningful ways, not just give it lip service as we have been doing.