Indianapolis Recorder, Indianapolis, Marion County, 1 November 2002 — Page 10

PAGE A10

THE INDIANAPOLIS RECORDER

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2002

EDITORIAL

life is so short; so live each moment to the fullest Everyone dreads that call. You know that one call that can change life as you know it forever. Well 1 got my call at 2:32 a.m. on October 14, when the hospital called and informed me that my mother had just passed away. My mother. The one person that I could always count on, who was always there for me, who loved and advised me un-conditionally-gone?! I couldn’t register that idea. Now, nearly three weeks later, I still can’t and doubt that I ever will. Little can be said to someone who loses a parent that will make By muumon wiuums Editor the situation easier or the pain stop, especially if the person is as close to their mom as I was to mine. Was. It’s hard for me to even refer to my mom in past tense. I think about my mother all the time. It feels like a part of me is gone forever, but I guess things will get better, (at least that’s what everybody says). Fortunately I have a brother and sister who feel exactly the way I do, they hurt like I hurt, so at least we can lean on each other for support as well as other family members and close friends. One thing that I am sure of is that I have no regrets as far as the relationship with my mom. Some people say things like, “I should have told her this,” or “I wonder if he knows how much I loved him,” well, 1 don’t. I always let my mom know how much I loved, respected and admired her. Anything that I felt I wanted to discuss with her, I did. So for me there were no unanswered questions, no “I wonder ifs,” because it was all said and done while she was alive. It’s funny how, when you lose someone as important as a parent, the things that used to seem so important or big are really so very obsolete. They don’t really matter at all, as a matter of fact you find yourself wondering, “how could I have ever thought this was so significant.” The death of a parent, or any loved one for that matter, really helps you put things into proper perspective. Right now. I’m in the process of trying to resume somewhat of a normal existence. Obviously. I’m back at work, which has really helped me to keep my mind busy. I’m spending a lot of time with my family, which I did anyway. And I’m just living day-by-day. I never felt that I was the kind of person that took things or people for granted before my mom passed away, and I still don’t. I try to look at everything and every person I come into contact with, in a positive manner. But, while I used to be “super busy,” I’ve made myself slow down and enjoy more of the little things. I would like to advise anyone who may be holding something back that they’d really like to share with a loved one to let it go. Tell that person whatever is on your mind. If you love them immensely let them know. If someone has been especially kind to you, take the time to say “thank you.” Don’t hold grudges, it takes a lot of energy to be mean and mad, but very little to be nice and happy. Life is so short; so live each moment to the fullest because you never know when you may get that call that everyone dreads.

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Blacks will never respect Republicans until OOP's Neanderthals are purged

On the eve of Tuesday’s elections, Democratic officials fear the diminishing, yet influential Neanderthals in the Marion County Republican Party, especially those in the Schneider/Cottey/Dowden wing of the party, are planning a massive campaign to harass, intimidate and bully African-Ameri-can voters. It seems these unreconstructed Republicans are going old school trying to return to the days when Republicans openly terrorized and demonized Indianapolis AfricanAmerican voters. Republican intimidation of Black voters was in vogue when I moved here 28 years ago. I thought the Republican efforts were because Indy’s elections were crooked like those in my hometown of Chicago. But, I learned that Indianapolis elections have never, ever reached Chicago’s notoriousness. During the 1960s and 1970s, Republicans, under the leadership of then County Chairman Keith Bulen, used aggressive, borderlineracist, harassment tactics to suppress Blacks’ right to vote. Bulen’s efforts were so successful, that Republicans copied them elsewhere. This year Democrats hear that the Neanderthals have drawn up a list of Black precincts where they plan to violate state and federal voting rights laws by turning away voters who fail to cough up a “voter identification number” when they vote. Indiana now requires voters to provide a voter identification number. It’s an effort to purge the voter rolls of the thousands of duplicate names that currently exist. But the law and state election regulations clearly state that voters must be allowed to vote, even if they don’t provide a voter ID number.

Just Tellin'lt By AMOS BROWN

Many Black precincts in the heart of the hood are staffed by white Republican officials who live miles away. Many of these carpetbagging Republicans belong to the Neanderthal wing of the party and are convinced that Black voters are crooked. These outlaw poll workers will stop at nothing to harass and demean African-American voters, especially seniors. Democratic officials plan a massive response to the Neanderthals’ efforts to steal away Black votes. Our African-American community should regard every Black voter harassed and intimidated at the polls this Tuesday in the same way we regarded the outrageous police conduct during Indiana Black Expo, with anger and demands for action. When you vote Tuesday, stand your ground like Rosa Parks and Dr. King. Don’t leave your polling place until you have cast your vote; voter ID number be damned. Meanwhile, Republican Neanderthals on the City-County Council and their advisors are responsible for the looming constitutional crisis surrounding the redistricting of City-County Council districts. In creating their bizarrely shaped, gerrymandered district plan. Republicans have openly showed their contempt and derision for our growing African-American community. For the first time since UniGov’s creation, Republicans punished an African-American councilman by gerrymandering him out of his Black-majority district. Councilman Monroe Gray represented the

6th District for eight years, but in the new GOP plan, Gray was thrown out of his district, into a new one that’s just 25.8 percent Black and marginally Republican. The Neanderthals’ plan will cause massive confusion among Black voters as four of the council’s six Black district members must run in virtually new districts. Again something has never been done before in-.UniGov history. The disenfranchisement of Monroe Gray and the dismembering of the districts of councilors Maggie Brents, Williams Douglas, Jackie Nytes and Steve Talley is a blatant slap in the face to the council members representing African Americans. If the leadership of Indiana’s and Indianapolis’ Republican Party, including State Party Chair Jim Kittle, Secretary of State Sue Anne Gilroy and other responsible GOP leaders and those Black Republicans in that new MBARI group, want African Americans to take Republicans seriously, then responsible Republicans must repudiate the racist, vicious political acts and despicable conduct of the Republican Neanderthals - once and for all. What I’m hearing in the streets Two years ago this week, former President Bill Clinton spoke at the Fairgrounds saying “Eight years ago the country was in the ditch economically. Eight years later, we’ve got the longest economic expansion in history, the lowest unemployment and lowest poverty rate.” If Republicans get in, Mr. Clinton warned, they’ll have “a tax cut three times bigger than ours, a trillion-dollar promise in Social Security to pay for the privatization, hundreds of billions of dollars in other promises. Their numbers

don’t add up. You’re back in deficit.” Last week, the Bush administration admitted the federal budget was now $159 billion in deficit; a $440 billion swing from a $280 billion surplus two years ago. The major nations of the world are increasingly skeptical of America’s plan to bum rush Iraq alone. The issues facing our community are great and grave. The stakes are too high to sit at home! Indianapolis, Come Alive November Five and Vote! ***** Work came to a halt in the Indianapolis Star’s newsroom last Friday afternoon as reporters and editors watched (most for the first time) the city’s Black-owned WDNI/Channel 65 as Star President and Publisher Barbara Henry appeared on our daytime Amos Brown Show. It was the first time the publisher of Indiana’s largest newspaper ever gave an extensive interview with another local media organization. In the unprecedented live interview Henry said, “I want our reporters and editors to get out into the community, meet the community and learn what’s going on.” During the wide ranging hourlong conversation, Henry defended her newspaper’s performance, but admitted the paper could do more in covering our community. Regarding the hiring of minorities, Henry cited African Americans who hold top positions printing the newspaper and Leisa Richardson, who recruits reporters and editors. Henry, though, admitted that the newspaper has difficulty recruiting African-American reporters and editors to move to Indianapolis. And said the paper hasn’t done a good job promoting women and minorities to top management. Saying that the Star’s readership has increased an unprecedented 24 percent, Henry feels that the paper’s effort at shorter, more “relevant” stories is paying off. But she insists the Star is still a newspaper of record for the community. “Peopfe should feel free to call me, or Editor Terry Eberle, or our reporters if they have stories or concerns,” Henry said in our live interview. Our African-American community should challenge Star editors and reporters to live up to their publisher’s words. See ‘ya next week. Amos Brown s opinions are not necessarily those ofThe Indianapolis Recorder. He can be reached at (317) 221-0915 or e-mail him at [email protected].

Serial killing no longer a white folks thing

Many a Black comedian has perversely cracked that Blacks may kill each other, but they don ’ t shootup, blow-up, or hack-up crowds of people. This bit of gallows humor always gets an uproarious laugh from Black audiences. For decades Blacks took morbid pride and comfort in the notion that despite the long, tortured experience of slavery, segregation, racially motivated violence and poverty, mass killing supposedly was a white folks thing. The assumption was that all serial killers were young, whacked out white males. It is easy to believe that. In the rash of Hollywood slasher, horror, and maniacal thrill kill films, serial killers are routinely depicted as deranged white males. The obsessive media attention on serial killers such as Son of Sam, David Berkowitz,Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, and the Unabomber, also reinforce the notion that serial killers are loopy

white males.

The horde of police, profiling experts, and psychologists that paraded endlessly across the TV screen during the serial sniper ordeal speculating about who the killer was and why he killed bought into this stereotype. If, as it appears, John Allen Muhammad, cold-bloodedly gunned down a dozen persons, and terrorized the Washington area, they were all embarrassingly, and wildly wrong in their assumptions. And all the old profiles, and theo-

must be scrapped. But then again those profiles should be scrapped. Muhammad is not a total aberration. Two studies on serial killers that specifically looked at the race of the killers found that Blacks make up about 15 percent of America’s rogue’s gallery of mass murderers. Their ghastly killings still strike fear, dread and disgust in the communities they pillaged. During the 1980s, Wayne Williams was convicted of killing five children in Atlanta and authorities think he may have killed even more. Coral Watts claimed that he killed 13 women in several states. In the early 1990s, Cleophus Prince Jr. stabbed six women in San Diego, and authorities in East St. Louis strongly suspect a Black man is responsible for a string of still unsolved killings of prostitutes in the

area.

The victims of Black serial murderers almost always are other Blacks, who most often live in the poorest inner city neighborhoods

where the murder rates are far

ties about who mass killers are| higher than in middle-class sub-

urbs. Because Black on Black crime and violence is so entrenched, and pervasive, it is far too often considered routine, and police are often more lax in their attitudes toward the violence than if the victims were white. This makes it much easier for Black serial murders to go undetected for far longer times. The implicit message then is that Black lives are expendable. This perceived devaluation of Black lives through the horrid mix of racism, ignorance, and indifference has encouraged disrespect for the law and has forced many Blacks to internalize anger and displace aggression onto other Blacks. And that’s important to understand, because those young Blacks that commit random self-destruc-tive acts, no matter how far beyond the pale of society’s accepted code of behavior, still are savvy enough to target victims who pose no real physical or personal threat to them. The serial sniper’s victims fit that profile. They were racially diverse, posed no danger to the sniper, and were apparently chosen at random. In the immediate weeks before Muhammad’s alleged terror spree, there are disturbing signs that more Blacks driven by rage, bitterness, and frustration, are more willing than ever to wreak random and grotesque violence on themselves and others. In September, a pack of young, one as young as 10 years old, and not so young Black males, mauled a hapless man in Milwaukee. In June, another mob of young

Blacks grabbed national headlines when they stomped to death two men in Chicago. The mob’s victims in Milwaukee, and Chicago were low-income, middleaged men, or had alcohol and drug problems. They were easy pickings, just as the serial sniper’s victims were. Though it’s not yet known exactly what drove Muhammad to his alleged killing binge, it is known that he was a man consumed by personal rage and frustration over failed marriages, tangled personal relationships, sour business dealings, and a rocky military career. These personal demons - and not terrorist ties which authorities have yet found no evidence of — may well have been enough to push him to commit his monstrous destructive acts. But equally ominous, his killing rampage showed that it is a perilously short step from the random violence that claims innocent lives, causes monumental personal suffering, and paralyzes many poor, inner city Black neighborhoods to random violence that causes personal suffering, and paralyzes whole cities, and even a nation. That’s a terrible price to pay for ignoring walking time bombs such as Muhammad. And as we discovered with him, they can come in all colors. Ofari Hutchinson can be reached by: thehutchinsonreport.com.