J1- Update on Cincy

Cincy Background  story by Alias Salem Date: 6/1/01

Story: Many may not know how deep the racial problems are in Ohio. Under the guise of a industrial economy lingers the germinal seeds of racism in the working class towns of the Ohio Valley. As one raised in this environment I can tell you that many small towns here have the animosities built up from years of competing for dwindling jobs and the lack of integration in communities. The other has always been far removed. They lived accross the tracks. They aren't like us. So it is in this environment that in the Ohio Valley and the Allegheny Valley that racial misunderstanding has occurred. Recenlty one musician noted this racial tension in a visit to a State Prison as all the guards were poor whites displaced from the lacking industrial infrastructure in an era of globalization where factories have left the rust belt. Yet the inmates where these white guards worked were predominantly black. In Cincy you have other poor whites annually dressed in white robes to raise the KKK cross as a "Christmas Ornament" in the town square. A news reporter noted of this recent KKK Cross erection that the Cincy police voluntarily provided a 24 hour guard to the cross in case those offended by what the KKK stood for would tear it down. I wonder just at what level do the heavily predominant white "westside Catholics" involve themselves with the Klan. During the N16 protests a african-american activists enraged by the sight of the FPO Cincy president, Keith Fangman, declared Officer Fangman a member of the KKK. Yet here we have the CPD protecting the Klans Cross quite voluntarily. Coincidence that all of a sudden the CPD is conerned about civil rights after pepper spraying and bean bag shooting N16 protestors the month before. So then is the sad case of Timothy Thomas an young African American living in Over-the-Rhine the poor Black neighborhood of CIncy. Struck down by an officers bullet as he ran for his life. Is it a coincidence that African Americans would not trust the CPD. After the asphyxiation death Roger Owensby as CPD officers strangled this African American, again he was unarmed. And there have been some 15 questionable deaths of African Americans here in CIncy in recent years. So when we question does the CPD have a race problem, we are led to believe that this question may very well have a positive answer that indeed it does. But who will stand up and demand that the CPD be changed? WIll it be me, you, a liberal, a conservative, an anarchist, an anti-authoritarian? It will have to be all of us. Choose your tactics and stand in solidarity. Tonight there will be a teach-in for mainstream activists and a spokes council for militant anti-authoritarians. Updates to follow.