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Baltimore City’s Dirty Secret: How Politicians And Industry Created Thousands Of Developmentally Disadvantaged Citizens Like Freddie Gray

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According to Blogger Jared Taylor the slum communities, poverty, and other social deprivations which permeates the African American community are of our own making. Taylor is a writer for a Blog entittled: “American Renaissance” and recently wrote a piece highlighting a New York Times article supposedly detailing the true cause for the riots that erupted in Baltimore after the death of Freddie Gray. Taylor’s entire article centers around a young black man name Robert Smith who went to school in Baltimore. Mr. Smith asked a rhetorical question pertaining to the hardships that exist in poor neighborhoods like the one Freddie Gray grew up in.

” We’re just angry at the surroundings–like this is all that is given to us?–and we’re tired of this, like nobody wants to wake up and see broken-down buildings. They take away the community centers, they take away our fathers, and now we have traffic lights that don’t work, we have houses that are crumbling, falling down. “

I’m not sure whether Mr. Taylor was simply not astute enough to grasp the broader perspective that Robert Smith was attempting to convey about poverty in Baltimore, or if his attack hinges on a subtle but more direct viewpoint that caused him to arrive at such a broad generalization pertaining to the recent unrest that resulted in rioting throughout the streets of Baltimore. According to his own article, Taylor believes that Mr. Smith’s perspective epitomizes the mentality of black people as a whole. He claims that the dilapidated neighborhoods that blacks live in were wrecked by our community, and we now cry out, “This is all that is given to us?”

He went on to make other generalizations about blacks as an ethnic group, and claim to have knowledge pertaining to the economic and social class structure of black communities like Baltimore, Detroit, Philadelphia, Chicago, New York, Washington, St. Louis, Memphis, Atlanta, Birmingham, Jacksonville, and countless other cities that suffered from “white flight” (a large migration of whites from a particular community) as a result of the 1968 riots. Taylor seems to have been living in seclusion for the last 50 years without contact from the outside world of any kind, especially when he makes the complete absurd claim that some of the best city housing “in the world” was handed over to blacks who wrecked it.

Taylor further believes white people saved and worked hard to build those neighborhoods. They maintained them, repaired them, and loved them. He even sarcastically miffed at Smiths comments to the New York Times by remarking, “Does he (Robert Smith) imagine that white authorities “giving” nice neighborhoods to whites and cruelly handing out slums to blacks? They didn’t start out as slums.” I hate to be the bearer of bad news to Mr. Taylor, but that’s essentially what happened. I commented as much in the discussion section of Taylor’s article, and for some unknown reason my comment has yet to be posted.

Most people who run across articles such as this one which was published on April 29, 2015, simply label it as bigotry and just move on. I refuse to do that because I am from Baltimore and personally believe that Mr. Taylor is either purposefully spewing untruths to satisfy the thirst for prejudicial reading material of a racist readership base, or he is simply discussing such a topic with his own non practical, and personal opinion being invoked. Either way, his entire argument is misleading and bares tenuous merit at best. I went through the painstaking task of researching exactly how the so called “ghetto” or “slums” as Mr. Taylor refers to it, actually derived. What I discovered also satisfied my curiosity as to why my comment related to Mr. Taylor’s article was never published in the discussion section (I believe Taylor knows the truth about what I discovered).

While I must concur with Taylor related to “white flight” from inner city communities, I differ with him related to the cause. He seems to think that white people were afraid of a black insurrection, and they all fled as a result of fear from uprising black people in the wake of the 1968 riots after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and sold their homes in desperation. I won’t generalize in the fashion that my fellow blogger Jared Taylor did, but his mindset depicting the entire “white fear” claim, isn’t unfamiliar territory. White people did leave inner city America in droves, but it was predicated on racism and occurred sporadically over a period of several decades. The introduction of new federal laws such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, gave way to new found liberties for people of color within the American social class structure that had previously been prohibited.

The entire nonsense that Taylor rants on about in his article doesn’t make since, when even the most bigoted person would be able to ascertain that a volume of struggles people of color endured, have in fact derived directly from legalized racism, such as “Jim Crow” laws, segregation, and other discriminatory practices against black people that was once a firm indoctrination of America’s social order. To say that black people created their own misery within the confines of many poor communities around the nation is simply a disingenuous perspective that can’t be taken seriously. White people have had it good for a very long time in this country, and our own government officials were some of the main contributors to black oppression, and the architects who cultivated the complete solidification of “white privilege” in the United States. (Read Jared Taylor’s article in the American Renaissance below).

New York Times Stumbles onto the Truth About Baltimore

The Foundation of America’s Social Order

Mr. Taylor is completely off base when he infers that authority figures wouldn’t purposefully grant decent housing to white people and relegate blacks to slums. The fact that he seemingly heckled Robert Smith’s comments about “that’s all black people get,” in my opinion reveals that Taylor knows more about this topic than what he is letting his readers on to. Between 1934 – 1962 the U.S. government granted nearly $120,000,000,000 billion dollars in low interest home loans exclusively to white people only. Blacks were never granted loans to purchase a home, whether they lived near decent white communities or not, and just about anything else for that matter. The practice is more commonly referred to today as “red lining.” Such practices brought about more federal law such as The Fair Housing Act, and sent relief to millions of black families whom had been relegate to slum areas in major American cities, and many which were also located in very undesirable parts of town (i.e. refuge dumps, toxic plants, near noisey railways, and buildings that were nearly crumbling down).

To drive home the point of exactly how deep Mr. Taylor’s ignorance on the topic actually is, the assumption that white families just up and left homes they saved up to purchase, worked hard for, loved, and maintained is just ludacris. One of the advantages of having a home in good neighborhoods is the property value. This is one of the most vital assets within the American society even today. White people didn’t sell their homes at “desperation prices” as Mr. Taylor claims. The vast majority of these homes which were acquired through low interest federal home loans, were past down from generations to the next descendants of white people. This afforded white families the ability to acquire continued, and sustained wealth in this country while blacks were unable to acquire such wealth and have the luxury of obtaining a home throw an inheritance.

Additionally, homes in white communities were deemed as valuable assets that also incurred a higher tax. Tax dollars are typically utilized by municipalities to run it’s government, it’s school districts, parks, and recreation. Property considered valuable generates revenue that afforded school systems in white communities to higher better teachers, provide necessary supplies, and an overall better learning environment for white kids within the jurisdiction of these communities. The economic, educational, and social plight of black people in this country has always been strained, and Mr. Taylor’s bold attempt at completely ignoring many of the factors which caused the black community to arrive at it’s current station, coupled with the unfair labeling or characterization of these systemic issues within the black community as nothing more than character flaws. is probably indicative of the inability for many white people to have an open and honest discussion related to this topic. The lack of honesty, truth, and integrity related to the black struggle in America has always been seen as a major stumbling block by leaders within the Afro American community. (Dilapidated housing in Baltimore City below).

 

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Creating an uneven playing field which largely benefits the white community isn’t just the foundational fabric of the American society, but its simply racism, and a fact that white people either refuse or simply don’t care to acknowledge. Whether white people are readily prepared to accept many of these truths or not, the banking system’s “red lining” tactics separated this country to this day. It afforded white people to live under the illusion that black people were negative, and further allowed for the white community to adopt a superior mentality. After civil rights laws were passed, white people ran to the suburbs because they had no, nor did they desire to have any experience interacting with the black community. The long decades that prohibited blacks from obtaining wealth through home ownership, also deterred investment within the black community, which further promoted stereotypes of communities where blacks were forced to live as a result of tactics implemented by racist laws, banks, and federal lending institutions.

Shameful Government and Industrial Tactics

Another misleading element of Mr. Taylor’s argument related to blacks destroying their own communities, that supposedly derived from pristine homes that were sold by white home owners in desperation after the civil rights movement, is the intriguing question as to exactly who were these well kept homes sold to during the “white flight” era. If you follow Mr. Taylor’s theory which suggest that the homes were sold after the 1968 riots, then certainly you would have to conclude that these subject homes were sold to white investors, in a similar fashion in which southern home owners sold property to northern investors (carpetbaggers) at the conclusion of the Civil War. Black families during this period of American history were still not being afforded opportunities to obtain property through bank loans (due to federal loan “red lining” tactics), and primarily were renters of properties that were once owned and occupied by white families who fled to the suburbs.

While the realities of new federal laws that rendered the old discriminatory practices (“Jim Crow”) as being illegal in the United states, much of the flight of white families to the suburb were not solely predicated on fear of having to live in desegregated communities as Mr. Taylor’s article infers. Many of these same properties he claim were some of the best housing in America, were hazardous cesspools that the United States government was clearly aware posed a serious environmental hazard (lead poisoning) that emerged as one of the most devastating neurotoxins on the planet, and one that’s especially common in Baltimore because of its poverty and the age of its housing stock. In 1949, the Maryland legislature was the first to ban the use of lead paint in children’s toys, but the law was overturned after pressure from the lead industry. As continued concern arose regarding the dangers of lead poisoning, a vast portion of those white families whom Mr. Taylor claims sold their homes in desperation, actually fled because of their knowledge related to the subject environmental hazard that many of these homes posed to their families.

White families were very much aware of the hazardous ramifications that persisted with their valuable properties, which Taylor says were well maintained, loved, and cherished by hard working white Americans. However, there is sufficient data available regarding the very storied, and troubled history of housing in cities like Baltimore in particular. While Mr. Taylor wants his readers to digest his obvious ignorance related to his theory that blacks destroyed their own communities, the truth was never hidden, and many of these same properties were owed by slum lords who collected rent from poor black families without making needed repairs. Slum lords were secretly granted a pass for decades by local, state, and federal environmental protection agencies due to the enormous amount of cost that lead paint removal would incur many white property owners. Coupled with the government “looking the other way” while knowingly allowing property owners to rent these hazardous homes to black families, a battle between the lead industry and medical professionals played out in court.

In the book “Lead Wars,” David Rosner, a professor at Columbia University, and Gerard Markowitz, a professor at the City University of New York, cite internal documents from the lead industry and other sources to write a compelling history of industry manipulation of data to both lay the blame on parents and families for the crisis of lead poisoning, and to keep it in products through the 1970s. In reality, the authors argue, the federal government was aware of the many dangers posed by lead, and in bowing to pressure from industry, allowed millions of children to be poisoned in Baltimore and other U.S. cities where black families were heavily concentrated. Federal legislation finally banned the use of lead paint in 1978, but by then it was in homes all over cities with large populations of black people, and Baltimore had begun what would be a steep economic decline, leaving an increasing number of children at risk for lead poisoning as the old housing stock deteriorated.

The circumstances surrounding lead poisoning is widely known, and has subsequently been dubbed “The Ignored Scandal” by journalist, educators, and medical professionals alike. Educators in conjunction with medical researchers have been conducting studies related to the effects of lead poisoning on the brain, and have produced sufficient evidence that suggest lead poisoning may directly have a negative impact on the development of children. Studies link brown fields, polluted land, and buildings containing hazardous substances like lead with urban areas populated with black children who coincidentally are historically poor academic achievers. Some experts warn that not all black children perform badly in the classroom, rendering such research as being unreliable, but statistics outlining the effects of this hazardous material shows a link between lead poisoning and low IQ that are based on the findings of epidemiological studies of large groups of children. Such studies also produce other data which highlight the harmful impact on the brain of children living in lead homes that are sufficient to make a clinical argument, and supports the theory that lead poisoning may be a dominant factor that causes development issues during early childhood learning of children (black kids in particular).

The basic facts surrounding the lack of economic, educational, and social development within many black urban areas across the country point to a dark, chilling, and out right evil covert conspiracy to adversely impact the advances of black people in America. Despite Mr. Taylor’s attempt to purposefully omit established data on the topic, the extent of such a deplorable public policy towards an ethnic group is in principle, exacerbated by the careless nature of how such tactics were implemented to target the core of the black family, it’s children, and all while profiting from rental properties containing lead poisoning. The architects of such a vicious program actually cemented the establishment of “white privilege” in America for decades. More importantly, Mr. Taylor couldn’t possibly have conducted even the slightest bit of research on poverty, dilapidated housing, and crime within cities like Baltimore. It also wouldn’t be wise to associate all of the ills within the black community with “white privilege,” but by design or otherwise, secret scandals like purposefully exposing millions of black children to lead poisoning in homes throughout America certainly has had a tremendous bearing on the development of poor black children in this country.

The Johns Hopkins Toddler Study

Johns Hopkins University, located in Baltimore, was the epicenter of knowledge on the effects of lead poisoning in the 1950s, years before it allegedly approved a notorious study (“Toddler Study”) that is believed to have knowingly exposed children to paint and dust in an effort to find cheap abatement techniques, and ended in a class-action lawsuit. In December 1993, a slum landlord in Baltimore named Lawrence Polakoff rented an apartment to two single mothers with children. A few days after they moved in, the mothers were invited to participate in a research study comparing how well different home renovation methods protected children from lead poisoning, which is still a major problem endangering the health of millions of American children, many of them poor.

The research study in which the mothers and their children participated were run by two scientists affiliated with Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins University with support from the US Environmental Protection Agency utilizing federal research funding. Regular testing was conducted by Hopkins to determine the lead level in the children, while the results for one child showed an increase by three times as much lead that didn’t exist prior to participating in the study, while the other child results revealed a shocking increase of lead in the blood by four times as much, that like the other child, wasn’t present in the blood before joining the study. The two mothers later filed negligence lawsuits against the Kennedy Krieger Institute, an affiliate of Johns Hopkins, saying that the research institute had failed to warn them about the risks of the study and the danger that their children could be poisoned by lead in the houses.

The Maryland Court of Appeals eventually overturned a lower court’s decisions dismissing those cases and sharply criticized the researchers and their institutions as failing to see the basic impermissibility of a study that enlisted healthy children to live in potentially dangerous housing. One of the judges ruling on the cases, Judge Dale R. Cathell said, “It can be argued that the researchers intended that the children be the canaries in the mines but never clearly told the parents,” in a scathing decision that compared the Baltimore study to Nazi medical experiments that were conducted on Jews during the holocaust, and the study in Tuskegee, Ala., that withheld treatment from black men that had intentionally been given syphilis. Neither researchers nor parents, Judge Cathell said, have the legal right to put healthy children into a study that offers them no benefit and carries real hazards. Children who ingest lead can suffer brain damage.

Cathell’s comments zeroed in on aspects of the study that should have set off alarms from the very start. For example, through Kennedy Krieger, Johns Hopkins helped landlords get public financing for the purpose of eliminating lead and encouraged them to rent the premises to black families with young children. Children already living in the houses were encouraged to remain, so that their blood could be analyzed. These facts supports an earlier argument presented in this commentary which suggested a partnership with white American slum lords who benefited from federal dollars, while watch dog agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) turned it’s back to lead homes being rented to poor black families who were involved in studies like Hopkins’ “Toddler Study.”

Additionally, a national survey conducted in 1998-1999 found that an equal percentage of black and white families lived in homes with federally recognized risk for lead exposure. A follow-up study in 2006, the most recent national survey on housing hazards, found that, while there had been a significant drop in the percentage of white families who lived in homes with a serious lead-based paint hazard, the percentage of black families had actually increased from the previous survey. These findings in the above cited study, dismisses Mr. Taylor’s claim that the “white flight” era permeated the late sixties after the civil rights movement, and proves that many white families remained in the subject homes that he claim had been sold out of desperation. Yet, we see a tremendous reduction in the number of white families who lived in lead homes less then a decade later, while the number of black families increased from the above listed, and previous survey.

Documented evidence illustrates how the lead industry, medical institutions, and the government were married to a program that put millions of children (mostly poor kids, and black children) at risk to the harmful effects of lead poisoning. Why was such an unethical experiment ever allowed to proceed? In “Lead Wars”, CUNY’s Gerald Markowitz and Columbia University’s David Rosner convincingly show that the Baltimore toddler study emerged from a century of policy making in which the US government, were faced at various times with a choice between protecting children from lead poisoning and protecting the businesses that produced and marketed lead paint, and almost invariably chose the latter. In the process, some of the scientific research on lead poisoning became corrupted to allegedly satisfy profits for officials, both in the government, and within corporations who manufactured products that contained lead.

But from the history these men relate in their book “Lead Wars,” it’s possible to imagine how they could not effectively resist the momentum of government indifference to the poor, pervasive racial prejudice, and careless decision-making that influenced government policy making throughout the lead-poisoning crisis. Those of us who lived in dilapidated housing in cities like Baltimore across the nation, know all to well the long lasting effects of lead poisoning, but if you listened to uninformed Bloggers like Jared Taylor, you would be convinced that black people are simply the dregs of society who have created “misery of their own making.” So, to admonish many of the struggles within the black community as a deficiency or character flaws that are only indigenous to a specific ethnic group, and all while a volume of available data exist which contradicts such an assertion, on it’s face is simply blatant bigotry as depicted in Mr. Taylor’s article.

Freddie Gray And The Baltimore Riot

Mr. Taylor’s article utilized a single comment from a new York Times article to summarize what can only be described as his own personal opinion at best, but the premise for the Times article was centered around riots in Baltimore city that erupted after the death of a 25-year-old young black man name Freddie Gray, who sustained a sever spinal injury while in Baltimore police custody, and subsequently died days later. Media and others, mostly from within the white community who no longer lives in Baltimore, immediately assumed that what happened to Freddie Gray was some how justified, without out even having all of the facts surrounding what actually happened in the case. (read my personal but thorough analysis of the Freddie Gray case here: Baltimore Police want State Prosecutor To Turn A Blind Eye: Freddie Gray Was Intentionally Killed By Heartless Cops).

Gray’s tragic case is vital to understanding the very systemic issues that have plagued black communities and the scenario Mr. Taylor outlines in his article, depicting how black’s like “Robert Smith doesn’t know any better but to persistently ask for handouts in today’s world of welfare, food stamps, government housing, and white guilt.” As if blacks are the primary recipients of such federally funded welfare programs. The community in which Gray was arrested just happens to be one of the most historical black communities in all of Baltimore. Just blocks away stands the original structure that was the first school of any kind for black people in the entire state of Maryland (Frederick Douglass High School at Calhoun and Baker streets). At the same time, the very same community had one of the highest violent crime rates per capita in the entire U.S. for nearly four decades. Pundits who love to point to such statistics as a means to justify stereotypes about poor black communities, fail to look at many of the grass root issues that cause many communities like Penn-North to arrive at such a juncture. Interestingly though, some of the same lead studies conducted by Johns Hopkins reveal how individuals with high levels of lead in their blood are more prone to violence. Also, the same studies show that there is a direct link between violent crime and neighborhoods where lead poisoning in homes is very prevalent.

Freddie Gray and his sisters both were raised in the Gilmore Homes housing project and were both subjected to lead poisoning. In fact, the Gray siblings had recently settled a long standing civil suit against the city for their exposure to lead paint in public housing. Like Johns Hopkins, officials responsible for the maintenance and development of city property during the lead-poisoning crisis, made the decision to house poor black families in housing that were known (by the government) to be hazardous dwellings that contained lead poisoning. Given the volume of supporting data on the studies of lead poisoning and it’s effects on the human brain, it’s safe to say that the Gray siblings suffered from early childhood developmental issues. Freddie Gray had an extended “rap sheet” of mostly petty crimes and was known to many of the police who patrolled his neighborhood.

Freddie Gray like many other black males who grew up in poor black families in urban America, who also subsequently became developmentally challenged in his youth as a result of exposure to lead paint, is a benefactor of policing that began to target black communities as a retaliatory measure, after the civil rights laws were implemented. Before racist laws became illegal the America prison population was around 200,000 thousand, and in what seems like direct retaliation from white America, a mass incarceration of black people began, and exploded into a bolstering 2.4 million prison population in which more that two thirds were black people. That’s more people incarcerated than any other country in the world. There are now more black people incarcerated in the United States than there were enslaved in 1850, a hundred years before the civil rights movement even began (six times the rate of incarcerated white people).

Contaminated housing, poor education or an inability to progress educationally, coupled with low paying manual labor jobs, is a textbook analysis on how the capitalistic society of this country has been able to purposefully and successfully keep black people oppressed in this country for over 400 years. Unfortunately, there are white people like Taylor who spew untruths without conducting research, and perpetuates stereotypes, ignorance, and creates social/racial divide in this country. Wait a minute though, I should becarefull before someone goes running off at the mouth, that like Jesse Jackson, Robert Smith, and countless other black people, I am crying out about issues within the black community that were “self created” by my own community. Yes, even my perspective has supporting information that I discovered by simply using Google Search, but perhaps such a task is too tedious for the likes of Mr.Taylor and his readership base.

 
” The need for police officers to address the basic rights of the people they were policing in Baltimore was minimized. It was done almost as a plan by the local government, by police commissioners and mayors, and it not only made everybody in these poor communities vulnerable to the most arbitrary behavior on the part of the police officers, it taught police officers how not to distinguish in ways that they once did. “

— David Simon

Crime Writer

In an interview this year with “The Marshall Report”, Simon revealed to writer Bill Keller how “probable cause” (what police once needed to lawfully stop a citizen) was completely destroyed by the so called war on drugs. A drug war that wasn’t indigenous to the black community, but somehow landed illegal narcotics from foreign lands such as South America, Mexico, and Afghanistan onto the streets of black communities establishing a crisis of epidemic proportions.

” If I had to guess and put a name on it, I’d say that at some point, the drug war was as much a function of class and social control as it was of racism. “

— David Simon

Simon actually validates what many have been saying about policing in black communities across the country all along. He describes how probable cause is a tenuous thing in any high crime area, but was exacerbated in Baltimore when crack cocaine hit the streets, and violence plagued many poor urban areas. The politicians panicked as a result, and even passed city ordinances that relegated nearly a third of a major inner city like Baltimore as being off limits to it’s citizens, and declared that people who were caught loitering in those areas would be subject to search and arrest. Essentially, it was a permission for the police to become random and arbitrary, and to clear streets in any fashion they desired. Does any of this sound familiar? This appears to be exactly what happened to Freddie Gray. Cops began to chase him for being in an area that had been deemed by the city off limits to it’s residents.

Where Taylor cites in his article that basically infers how white people should not be blamed for systemic issues within poor black communities, now that the Mayor, Police and Fire chiefs are all black, is completely destroyed when Simon demonstrates how people living in Baltimore who have been arrested, know that while your in police custody you could get beat really bad, and almost all the time it would be a black police officer who “kicks your ass.” He even admits that he was perplexed at what to do with such a dynamic, that he just simply reported it. Simon also does a good job during the interview shedding light on how police brutality, though implemented primarily by black cops, was utilized as a function of social control (sound familiar?). He says that it was simply to keep poor people down, and created a firm footing and excuse for everybody to operate outside the realm of procedure and law.

Simon also talks about how Baltimore cops have used questionable tactics to arrest people for over frivolous charges resulting in a citizen having to spend a couple of nights in jail until they see a court commissioner, which are policing tactics that date back to the 60’s. Baltimore has historically been a city with a policing policy that targets black communities aggressively and incarcerates a high volume of black males, while on it’s surface paints a very negative image of black people, and their community in general. In turn, the media utilizes such data to further negatively impact the image of black people in Baltimore and other cities in this country, which has always been a tactic of white society to promote white superiority. Fortunately, David Simon is a white man who saw for himself first had, many of the problems associated with being poor, black, and living in struggling communities that were heavily patrolled by police looking for any excuse to beat the crap out of, and arrest black people.

Simon’s insight into police tactics confirms how modern technology (mobile devices with video recording functionality) is now capturing live footage of systemic police misconduct that previously hasn’t been exposed. Taylor’s posture about black people is obliterated by a crime reporter who has seen it first hand, and establishes why cops more than likely didn’t have probable cause to even stop Freddie Gray. The systemic culture of policing in Baltimore and other major cities around the country who operate on the idea that their fighting a drug war, has been condoned by public officials who campaign for lower crime statistical data at any cost. The hidden agenda of City officials in Baltimore couldn’t be more clear, that it supports a heavy dose of physical force, and that its a tactic that isn’t an exemption from the policing strategies of Baltimore as a public policy. It all leads to a systemic practice of excessive force as a matter of public policy, and city governments like Baltimore have clearly established that they are even inclined to pay as a result of their police departments operating in such a fashion. (Baltimore Sun Investigates Undue Force)

 

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Baltimore citizens who successfully sued Baltimore for police brutality included in monetary settlements totaling $5.7 million dollars since 2011.

 

David Simon went on a clinic describing how police departments, backed by municipal governments have long targeted black communities with tactics that have raised serious concerns in Baltimore at least, and resulting in having to settle a lawsuit with the ACLU. Simon gave up the goods on so many levels related to policing in Baltimore that it’s too much to cover in this forum, without having the appearance of a written dissertation on a Blog site. So to the young man Mr. Robert Smith credit, his rhetorical question in the comments he made with the New York Times is resounding to those of us who aren’t complete stuff shorts, without a clue as to exactly what’s going on in the real world. I would be completely embarrassed about writing an article of any kind with such blatant bias in the face of such substantial data available that chronologically narrates the plight of black people on these western shores.

Many of the decent law abiding citizens of the city of Baltimore probably concur with Mr. Taylor’s perspective on the destruction of private property during the riots that broke out, but at the same time, most aren’t exactly bleeding hearts over the lost of property, when they have been handed the short stick for so long in what many deem as an unjust American society. What will it take for most white Americans to get the big picture? Wait, that’s a rhetorical question, and perhaps I should be waiting for the fallout of making such a statement from readers who think like Mr. Taylor. Maybe I’ll actually engage an unsuspecting white person on race relations, and discrimination against black people in America, and gain some meaningful ground (as long as it’s not a bigot).

The People’s Champion
I’m Crim{e Blogger David Adams

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David Adams

David B. Adams grew up in the Highlandtown section of Baltimore's southeast district and is his parent's youngest child. He experienced pervasive poverty, which taught him humility and compassion for the plight of others. His exposure to violence and gritty urban life were some of his early lessons of life's many hardships. Adams credits the upheavals he endured during his conformity with helping to shape the foundation of his outlook and perspectives on society. With a steadfast commitment to giving voice to the voiceless, Adams is a journalist, crime writer, and blogger renowned for tireless investigative journalism and advocacy on behalf of vulnerable populations. As founder and administrator of The People's Champion, Adams sheds light on critical social issues, championing the rights of: - Homeless individuals - Victims of violent crime and their families - Wrongfully convicted individuals - Missing and exploited children; Additionally, he is a seasoned investigative reporter, Adams has earned recognition for relentless pursuit of truth and justice. With a strong national and global focus, on inspiring meaningful change and crucial conversations impacting all of humanity.

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According to Blogger Jared Taylor the slum communities, poverty, and other social deprivations which permeates the African American community are of our own making. Taylor is a writer for a Blog entittled: “American Renaissance” and recently wrote a piece highlighting a New York Times article supposedly detailing the true cause for the riots that erupted in Baltimore after the death of Freddie Gray. Taylor’s entire article centers around a young black man name Robert Smith who went to school in Baltimore. Mr. Smith asked a rhetorical question pertaining to the hardships that exist in poor neighborhoods like the one Freddie Gray grew up in.

” We’re just angry at the surroundings–like this is all that is given to us?–and we’re tired of this, like nobody wants to wake up and see broken-down buildings. They take away the community centers, they take away our fathers, and now we have traffic lights that don’t work, we have houses that are crumbling, falling down. “

I’m not sure whether Mr. Taylor was simply not astute enough to grasp the broader perspective that Robert Smith was attempting to convey about poverty in Baltimore, or if his attack hinges on a subtle but more direct viewpoint that caused him to arrive at such a broad generalization pertaining to the recent unrest that resulted in rioting throughout the streets of Baltimore. According to his own article, Taylor believes that Mr. Smith’s perspective epitomizes the mentality of black people as a whole. He claims that the dilapidated neighborhoods that blacks live in were wrecked by our community, and we now cry out, “This is all that is given to us?”

He went on to make other generalizations about blacks as an ethnic group, and claim to have knowledge pertaining to the economic and social class structure of black communities like Baltimore, Detroit, Philadelphia, Chicago, New York, Washington, St. Louis, Memphis, Atlanta, Birmingham, Jacksonville, and countless other cities that suffered from “white flight” (a large migration of whites from a particular community) as a result of the 1968 riots. Taylor seems to have been living in seclusion for the last 50 years without contact from the outside world of any kind, especially when he makes the complete absurd claim that some of the best city housing “in the world” was handed over to blacks who wrecked it.

Taylor further believes white people saved and worked hard to build those neighborhoods. They maintained them, repaired them, and loved them. He even sarcastically miffed at Smiths comments to the New York Times by remarking, “Does he (Robert Smith) imagine that white authorities “giving” nice neighborhoods to whites and cruelly handing out slums to blacks? They didn’t start out as slums.” I hate to be the bearer of bad news to Mr. Taylor, but that’s essentially what happened. I commented as much in the discussion section of Taylor’s article, and for some unknown reason my comment has yet to be posted.

Most people who run across articles such as this one which was published on April 29, 2015, simply label it as bigotry and just move on. I refuse to do that because I am from Baltimore and personally believe that Mr. Taylor is either purposefully spewing untruths to satisfy the thirst for prejudicial reading material of a racist readership base, or he is simply discussing such a topic with his own non practical, and personal opinion being invoked. Either way, his entire argument is misleading and bares tenuous merit at best. I went through the painstaking task of researching exactly how the so called “ghetto” or “slums” as Mr. Taylor refers to it, actually derived. What I discovered also satisfied my curiosity as to why my comment related to Mr. Taylor’s article was never published in the discussion section (I believe Taylor knows the truth about what I discovered).

While I must concur with Taylor related to “white flight” from inner city communities, I differ with him related to the cause. He seems to think that white people were afraid of a black insurrection, and they all fled as a result of fear from uprising black people in the wake of the 1968 riots after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and sold their homes in desperation. I won’t generalize in the fashion that my fellow blogger Jared Taylor did, but his mindset depicting the entire “white fear” claim, isn’t unfamiliar territory. White people did leave inner city America in droves, but it was predicated on racism and occurred sporadically over a period of several decades. The introduction of new federal laws such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, gave way to new found liberties for people of color within the American social class structure that had previously been prohibited.

The entire nonsense that Taylor rants on about in his article doesn’t make since, when even the most bigoted person would be able to ascertain that a volume of struggles people of color endured, have in fact derived directly from legalized racism, such as “Jim Crow” laws, segregation, and other discriminatory practices against black people that was once a firm indoctrination of America’s social order. To say that black people created their own misery within the confines of many poor communities around the nation is simply a disingenuous perspective that can’t be taken seriously. White people have had it good for a very long time in this country, and our own government officials were some of the main contributors to black oppression, and the architects who cultivated the complete solidification of “white privilege” in the United States. (Read Jared Taylor’s article in the American Renaissance below).

New York Times Stumbles onto the Truth About Baltimore

The Foundation of America’s Social Order

Mr. Taylor is completely off base when he infers that authority figures wouldn’t purposefully grant decent housing to white people and relegate blacks to slums. The fact that he seemingly heckled Robert Smith’s comments about “that’s all black people get,” in my opinion reveals that Taylor knows more about this topic than what he is letting his readers on to. Between 1934 – 1962 the U.S. government granted nearly $120,000,000,000 billion dollars in low interest home loans exclusively to white people only. Blacks were never granted loans to purchase a home, whether they lived near decent white communities or not, and just about anything else for that matter. The practice is more commonly referred to today as “red lining.” Such practices brought about more federal law such as The Fair Housing Act, and sent relief to millions of black families whom had been relegate to slum areas in major American cities, and many which were also located in very undesirable parts of town (i.e. refuge dumps, toxic plants, near noisey railways, and buildings that were nearly crumbling down).

To drive home the point of exactly how deep Mr. Taylor’s ignorance on the topic actually is, the assumption that white families just up and left homes they saved up to purchase, worked hard for, loved, and maintained is just ludacris. One of the advantages of having a home in good neighborhoods is the property value. This is one of the most vital assets within the American society even today. White people didn’t sell their homes at “desperation prices” as Mr. Taylor claims. The vast majority of these homes which were acquired through low interest federal home loans, were past down from generations to the next descendants of white people. This afforded white families the ability to acquire continued, and sustained wealth in this country while blacks were unable to acquire such wealth and have the luxury of obtaining a home throw an inheritance.

Additionally, homes in white communities were deemed as valuable assets that also incurred a higher tax. Tax dollars are typically utilized by municipalities to run it’s government, it’s school districts, parks, and recreation. Property considered valuable generates revenue that afforded school systems in white communities to higher better teachers, provide necessary supplies, and an overall better learning environment for white kids within the jurisdiction of these communities. The economic, educational, and social plight of black people in this country has always been strained, and Mr. Taylor’s bold attempt at completely ignoring many of the factors which caused the black community to arrive at it’s current station, coupled with the unfair labeling or characterization of these systemic issues within the black community as nothing more than character flaws. is probably indicative of the inability for many white people to have an open and honest discussion related to this topic. The lack of honesty, truth, and integrity related to the black struggle in America has always been seen as a major stumbling block by leaders within the Afro American community. (Dilapidated housing in Baltimore City below).

 

east-baltimore

slum2

slumhouse

 

Creating an uneven playing field which largely benefits the white community isn’t just the foundational fabric of the American society, but its simply racism, and a fact that white people either refuse or simply don’t care to acknowledge. Whether white people are readily prepared to accept many of these truths or not, the banking system’s “red lining” tactics separated this country to this day. It afforded white people to live under the illusion that black people were negative, and further allowed for the white community to adopt a superior mentality. After civil rights laws were passed, white people ran to the suburbs because they had no, nor did they desire to have any experience interacting with the black community. The long decades that prohibited blacks from obtaining wealth through home ownership, also deterred investment within the black community, which further promoted stereotypes of communities where blacks were forced to live as a result of tactics implemented by racist laws, banks, and federal lending institutions.

Shameful Government and Industrial Tactics

Another misleading element of Mr. Taylor’s argument related to blacks destroying their own communities, that supposedly derived from pristine homes that were sold by white home owners in desperation after the civil rights movement, is the intriguing question as to exactly who were these well kept homes sold to during the “white flight” era. If you follow Mr. Taylor’s theory which suggest that the homes were sold after the 1968 riots, then certainly you would have to conclude that these subject homes were sold to white investors, in a similar fashion in which southern home owners sold property to northern investors (carpetbaggers) at the conclusion of the Civil War. Black families during this period of American history were still not being afforded opportunities to obtain property through bank loans (due to federal loan “red lining” tactics), and primarily were renters of properties that were once owned and occupied by white families who fled to the suburbs.

While the realities of new federal laws that rendered the old discriminatory practices (“Jim Crow”) as being illegal in the United states, much of the flight of white families to the suburb were not solely predicated on fear of having to live in desegregated communities as Mr. Taylor’s article infers. Many of these same properties he claim were some of the best housing in America, were hazardous cesspools that the United States government was clearly aware posed a serious environmental hazard (lead poisoning) that emerged as one of the most devastating neurotoxins on the planet, and one that’s especially common in Baltimore because of its poverty and the age of its housing stock. In 1949, the Maryland legislature was the first to ban the use of lead paint in children’s toys, but the law was overturned after pressure from the lead industry. As continued concern arose regarding the dangers of lead poisoning, a vast portion of those white families whom Mr. Taylor claims sold their homes in desperation, actually fled because of their knowledge related to the subject environmental hazard that many of these homes posed to their families.

White families were very much aware of the hazardous ramifications that persisted with their valuable properties, which Taylor says were well maintained, loved, and cherished by hard working white Americans. However, there is sufficient data available regarding the very storied, and troubled history of housing in cities like Baltimore in particular. While Mr. Taylor wants his readers to digest his obvious ignorance related to his theory that blacks destroyed their own communities, the truth was never hidden, and many of these same properties were owed by slum lords who collected rent from poor black families without making needed repairs. Slum lords were secretly granted a pass for decades by local, state, and federal environmental protection agencies due to the enormous amount of cost that lead paint removal would incur many white property owners. Coupled with the government “looking the other way” while knowingly allowing property owners to rent these hazardous homes to black families, a battle between the lead industry and medical professionals played out in court.

In the book “Lead Wars,” David Rosner, a professor at Columbia University, and Gerard Markowitz, a professor at the City University of New York, cite internal documents from the lead industry and other sources to write a compelling history of industry manipulation of data to both lay the blame on parents and families for the crisis of lead poisoning, and to keep it in products through the 1970s. In reality, the authors argue, the federal government was aware of the many dangers posed by lead, and in bowing to pressure from industry, allowed millions of children to be poisoned in Baltimore and other U.S. cities where black families were heavily concentrated. Federal legislation finally banned the use of lead paint in 1978, but by then it was in homes all over cities with large populations of black people, and Baltimore had begun what would be a steep economic decline, leaving an increasing number of children at risk for lead poisoning as the old housing stock deteriorated.

The circumstances surrounding lead poisoning is widely known, and has subsequently been dubbed “The Ignored Scandal” by journalist, educators, and medical professionals alike. Educators in conjunction with medical researchers have been conducting studies related to the effects of lead poisoning on the brain, and have produced sufficient evidence that suggest lead poisoning may directly have a negative impact on the development of children. Studies link brown fields, polluted land, and buildings containing hazardous substances like lead with urban areas populated with black children who coincidentally are historically poor academic achievers. Some experts warn that not all black children perform badly in the classroom, rendering such research as being unreliable, but statistics outlining the effects of this hazardous material shows a link between lead poisoning and low IQ that are based on the findings of epidemiological studies of large groups of children. Such studies also produce other data which highlight the harmful impact on the brain of children living in lead homes that are sufficient to make a clinical argument, and supports the theory that lead poisoning may be a dominant factor that causes development issues during early childhood learning of children (black kids in particular).

The basic facts surrounding the lack of economic, educational, and social development within many black urban areas across the country point to a dark, chilling, and out right evil covert conspiracy to adversely impact the advances of black people in America. Despite Mr. Taylor’s attempt to purposefully omit established data on the topic, the extent of such a deplorable public policy towards an ethnic group is in principle, exacerbated by the careless nature of how such tactics were implemented to target the core of the black family, it’s children, and all while profiting from rental properties containing lead poisoning. The architects of such a vicious program actually cemented the establishment of “white privilege” in America for decades. More importantly, Mr. Taylor couldn’t possibly have conducted even the slightest bit of research on poverty, dilapidated housing, and crime within cities like Baltimore. It also wouldn’t be wise to associate all of the ills within the black community with “white privilege,” but by design or otherwise, secret scandals like purposefully exposing millions of black children to lead poisoning in homes throughout America certainly has had a tremendous bearing on the development of poor black children in this country.

The Johns Hopkins Toddler Study

Johns Hopkins University, located in Baltimore, was the epicenter of knowledge on the effects of lead poisoning in the 1950s, years before it allegedly approved a notorious study (“Toddler Study”) that is believed to have knowingly exposed children to paint and dust in an effort to find cheap abatement techniques, and ended in a class-action lawsuit. In December 1993, a slum landlord in Baltimore named Lawrence Polakoff rented an apartment to two single mothers with children. A few days after they moved in, the mothers were invited to participate in a research study comparing how well different home renovation methods protected children from lead poisoning, which is still a major problem endangering the health of millions of American children, many of them poor.

The research study in which the mothers and their children participated were run by two scientists affiliated with Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins University with support from the US Environmental Protection Agency utilizing federal research funding. Regular testing was conducted by Hopkins to determine the lead level in the children, while the results for one child showed an increase by three times as much lead that didn’t exist prior to participating in the study, while the other child results revealed a shocking increase of lead in the blood by four times as much, that like the other child, wasn’t present in the blood before joining the study. The two mothers later filed negligence lawsuits against the Kennedy Krieger Institute, an affiliate of Johns Hopkins, saying that the research institute had failed to warn them about the risks of the study and the danger that their children could be poisoned by lead in the houses.

The Maryland Court of Appeals eventually overturned a lower court’s decisions dismissing those cases and sharply criticized the researchers and their institutions as failing to see the basic impermissibility of a study that enlisted healthy children to live in potentially dangerous housing. One of the judges ruling on the cases, Judge Dale R. Cathell said, “It can be argued that the researchers intended that the children be the canaries in the mines but never clearly told the parents,” in a scathing decision that compared the Baltimore study to Nazi medical experiments that were conducted on Jews during the holocaust, and the study in Tuskegee, Ala., that withheld treatment from black men that had intentionally been given syphilis. Neither researchers nor parents, Judge Cathell said, have the legal right to put healthy children into a study that offers them no benefit and carries real hazards. Children who ingest lead can suffer brain damage.

Cathell’s comments zeroed in on aspects of the study that should have set off alarms from the very start. For example, through Kennedy Krieger, Johns Hopkins helped landlords get public financing for the purpose of eliminating lead and encouraged them to rent the premises to black families with young children. Children already living in the houses were encouraged to remain, so that their blood could be analyzed. These facts supports an earlier argument presented in this commentary which suggested a partnership with white American slum lords who benefited from federal dollars, while watch dog agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) turned it’s back to lead homes being rented to poor black families who were involved in studies like Hopkins’ “Toddler Study.”

Additionally, a national survey conducted in 1998-1999 found that an equal percentage of black and white families lived in homes with federally recognized risk for lead exposure. A follow-up study in 2006, the most recent national survey on housing hazards, found that, while there had been a significant drop in the percentage of white families who lived in homes with a serious lead-based paint hazard, the percentage of black families had actually increased from the previous survey. These findings in the above cited study, dismisses Mr. Taylor’s claim that the “white flight” era permeated the late sixties after the civil rights movement, and proves that many white families remained in the subject homes that he claim had been sold out of desperation. Yet, we see a tremendous reduction in the number of white families who lived in lead homes less then a decade later, while the number of black families increased from the above listed, and previous survey.

Documented evidence illustrates how the lead industry, medical institutions, and the government were married to a program that put millions of children (mostly poor kids, and black children) at risk to the harmful effects of lead poisoning. Why was such an unethical experiment ever allowed to proceed? In “Lead Wars”, CUNY’s Gerald Markowitz and Columbia University’s David Rosner convincingly show that the Baltimore toddler study emerged from a century of policy making in which the US government, were faced at various times with a choice between protecting children from lead poisoning and protecting the businesses that produced and marketed lead paint, and almost invariably chose the latter. In the process, some of the scientific research on lead poisoning became corrupted to allegedly satisfy profits for officials, both in the government, and within corporations who manufactured products that contained lead.

But from the history these men relate in their book “Lead Wars,” it’s possible to imagine how they could not effectively resist the momentum of government indifference to the poor, pervasive racial prejudice, and careless decision-making that influenced government policy making throughout the lead-poisoning crisis. Those of us who lived in dilapidated housing in cities like Baltimore across the nation, know all to well the long lasting effects of lead poisoning, but if you listened to uninformed Bloggers like Jared Taylor, you would be convinced that black people are simply the dregs of society who have created “misery of their own making.” So, to admonish many of the struggles within the black community as a deficiency or character flaws that are only indigenous to a specific ethnic group, and all while a volume of available data exist which contradicts such an assertion, on it’s face is simply blatant bigotry as depicted in Mr. Taylor’s article.

Freddie Gray And The Baltimore Riot

Mr. Taylor’s article utilized a single comment from a new York Times article to summarize what can only be described as his own personal opinion at best, but the premise for the Times article was centered around riots in Baltimore city that erupted after the death of a 25-year-old young black man name Freddie Gray, who sustained a sever spinal injury while in Baltimore police custody, and subsequently died days later. Media and others, mostly from within the white community who no longer lives in Baltimore, immediately assumed that what happened to Freddie Gray was some how justified, without out even having all of the facts surrounding what actually happened in the case. (read my personal but thorough analysis of the Freddie Gray case here: Baltimore Police want State Prosecutor To Turn A Blind Eye: Freddie Gray Was Intentionally Killed By Heartless Cops).

Gray’s tragic case is vital to understanding the very systemic issues that have plagued black communities and the scenario Mr. Taylor outlines in his article, depicting how black’s like “Robert Smith doesn’t know any better but to persistently ask for handouts in today’s world of welfare, food stamps, government housing, and white guilt.” As if blacks are the primary recipients of such federally funded welfare programs. The community in which Gray was arrested just happens to be one of the most historical black communities in all of Baltimore. Just blocks away stands the original structure that was the first school of any kind for black people in the entire state of Maryland (Frederick Douglass High School at Calhoun and Baker streets). At the same time, the very same community had one of the highest violent crime rates per capita in the entire U.S. for nearly four decades. Pundits who love to point to such statistics as a means to justify stereotypes about poor black communities, fail to look at many of the grass root issues that cause many communities like Penn-North to arrive at such a juncture. Interestingly though, some of the same lead studies conducted by Johns Hopkins reveal how individuals with high levels of lead in their blood are more prone to violence. Also, the same studies show that there is a direct link between violent crime and neighborhoods where lead poisoning in homes is very prevalent.

Freddie Gray and his sisters both were raised in the Gilmore Homes housing project and were both subjected to lead poisoning. In fact, the Gray siblings had recently settled a long standing civil suit against the city for their exposure to lead paint in public housing. Like Johns Hopkins, officials responsible for the maintenance and development of city property during the lead-poisoning crisis, made the decision to house poor black families in housing that were known (by the government) to be hazardous dwellings that contained lead poisoning. Given the volume of supporting data on the studies of lead poisoning and it’s effects on the human brain, it’s safe to say that the Gray siblings suffered from early childhood developmental issues. Freddie Gray had an extended “rap sheet” of mostly petty crimes and was known to many of the police who patrolled his neighborhood.

Freddie Gray like many other black males who grew up in poor black families in urban America, who also subsequently became developmentally challenged in his youth as a result of exposure to lead paint, is a benefactor of policing that began to target black communities as a retaliatory measure, after the civil rights laws were implemented. Before racist laws became illegal the America prison population was around 200,000 thousand, and in what seems like direct retaliation from white America, a mass incarceration of black people began, and exploded into a bolstering 2.4 million prison population in which more that two thirds were black people. That’s more people incarcerated than any other country in the world. There are now more black people incarcerated in the United States than there were enslaved in 1850, a hundred years before the civil rights movement even began (six times the rate of incarcerated white people).

Contaminated housing, poor education or an inability to progress educationally, coupled with low paying manual labor jobs, is a textbook analysis on how the capitalistic society of this country has been able to purposefully and successfully keep black people oppressed in this country for over 400 years. Unfortunately, there are white people like Taylor who spew untruths without conducting research, and perpetuates stereotypes, ignorance, and creates social/racial divide in this country. Wait a minute though, I should becarefull before someone goes running off at the mouth, that like Jesse Jackson, Robert Smith, and countless other black people, I am crying out about issues within the black community that were “self created” by my own community. Yes, even my perspective has supporting information that I discovered by simply using Google Search, but perhaps such a task is too tedious for the likes of Mr.Taylor and his readership base.

 
” The need for police officers to address the basic rights of the people they were policing in Baltimore was minimized. It was done almost as a plan by the local government, by police commissioners and mayors, and it not only made everybody in these poor communities vulnerable to the most arbitrary behavior on the part of the police officers, it taught police officers how not to distinguish in ways that they once did. “

— David Simon

Crime Writer

In an interview this year with “The Marshall Report”, Simon revealed to writer Bill Keller how “probable cause” (what police once needed to lawfully stop a citizen) was completely destroyed by the so called war on drugs. A drug war that wasn’t indigenous to the black community, but somehow landed illegal narcotics from foreign lands such as South America, Mexico, and Afghanistan onto the streets of black communities establishing a crisis of epidemic proportions.

” If I had to guess and put a name on it, I’d say that at some point, the drug war was as much a function of class and social control as it was of racism. “

— David Simon

Simon actually validates what many have been saying about policing in black communities across the country all along. He describes how probable cause is a tenuous thing in any high crime area, but was exacerbated in Baltimore when crack cocaine hit the streets, and violence plagued many poor urban areas. The politicians panicked as a result, and even passed city ordinances that relegated nearly a third of a major inner city like Baltimore as being off limits to it’s citizens, and declared that people who were caught loitering in those areas would be subject to search and arrest. Essentially, it was a permission for the police to become random and arbitrary, and to clear streets in any fashion they desired. Does any of this sound familiar? This appears to be exactly what happened to Freddie Gray. Cops began to chase him for being in an area that had been deemed by the city off limits to it’s residents.

Where Taylor cites in his article that basically infers how white people should not be blamed for systemic issues within poor black communities, now that the Mayor, Police and Fire chiefs are all black, is completely destroyed when Simon demonstrates how people living in Baltimore who have been arrested, know that while your in police custody you could get beat really bad, and almost all the time it would be a black police officer who “kicks your ass.” He even admits that he was perplexed at what to do with such a dynamic, that he just simply reported it. Simon also does a good job during the interview shedding light on how police brutality, though implemented primarily by black cops, was utilized as a function of social control (sound familiar?). He says that it was simply to keep poor people down, and created a firm footing and excuse for everybody to operate outside the realm of procedure and law.

Simon also talks about how Baltimore cops have used questionable tactics to arrest people for over frivolous charges resulting in a citizen having to spend a couple of nights in jail until they see a court commissioner, which are policing tactics that date back to the 60’s. Baltimore has historically been a city with a policing policy that targets black communities aggressively and incarcerates a high volume of black males, while on it’s surface paints a very negative image of black people, and their community in general. In turn, the media utilizes such data to further negatively impact the image of black people in Baltimore and other cities in this country, which has always been a tactic of white society to promote white superiority. Fortunately, David Simon is a white man who saw for himself first had, many of the problems associated with being poor, black, and living in struggling communities that were heavily patrolled by police looking for any excuse to beat the crap out of, and arrest black people.

Simon’s insight into police tactics confirms how modern technology (mobile devices with video recording functionality) is now capturing live footage of systemic police misconduct that previously hasn’t been exposed. Taylor’s posture about black people is obliterated by a crime reporter who has seen it first hand, and establishes why cops more than likely didn’t have probable cause to even stop Freddie Gray. The systemic culture of policing in Baltimore and other major cities around the country who operate on the idea that their fighting a drug war, has been condoned by public officials who campaign for lower crime statistical data at any cost. The hidden agenda of City officials in Baltimore couldn’t be more clear, that it supports a heavy dose of physical force, and that its a tactic that isn’t an exemption from the policing strategies of Baltimore as a public policy. It all leads to a systemic practice of excessive force as a matter of public policy, and city governments like Baltimore have clearly established that they are even inclined to pay as a result of their police departments operating in such a fashion. (Baltimore Sun Investigates Undue Force)

 

Project1

Baltimore citizens who successfully sued Baltimore for police brutality included in monetary settlements totaling $5.7 million dollars since 2011.

 

David Simon went on a clinic describing how police departments, backed by municipal governments have long targeted black communities with tactics that have raised serious concerns in Baltimore at least, and resulting in having to settle a lawsuit with the ACLU. Simon gave up the goods on so many levels related to policing in Baltimore that it’s too much to cover in this forum, without having the appearance of a written dissertation on a Blog site. So to the young man Mr. Robert Smith credit, his rhetorical question in the comments he made with the New York Times is resounding to those of us who aren’t complete stuff shorts, without a clue as to exactly what’s going on in the real world. I would be completely embarrassed about writing an article of any kind with such blatant bias in the face of such substantial data available that chronologically narrates the plight of black people on these western shores.

Many of the decent law abiding citizens of the city of Baltimore probably concur with Mr. Taylor’s perspective on the destruction of private property during the riots that broke out, but at the same time, most aren’t exactly bleeding hearts over the lost of property, when they have been handed the short stick for so long in what many deem as an unjust American society. What will it take for most white Americans to get the big picture? Wait, that’s a rhetorical question, and perhaps I should be waiting for the fallout of making such a statement from readers who think like Mr. Taylor. Maybe I’ll actually engage an unsuspecting white person on race relations, and discrimination against black people in America, and gain some meaningful ground (as long as it’s not a bigot).

The People’s Champion
I’m Crim{e Blogger David Adams

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David Adams

David B. Adams grew up in the Highlandtown section of Baltimore's southeast district and is his parent's youngest child. He experienced pervasive poverty, which taught him humility and compassion for the plight of others. His exposure to violence and gritty urban life were some of his early lessons of life's many hardships. Adams credits the upheavals he endured during his conformity with helping to shape the foundation of his outlook and perspectives on society. With a steadfast commitment to giving voice to the voiceless, Adams is a journalist, crime writer, and blogger renowned for tireless investigative journalism and advocacy on behalf of vulnerable populations. As founder and administrator of The People's Champion, Adams sheds light on critical social issues, championing the rights of: - Homeless individuals - Victims of violent crime and their families - Wrongfully convicted individuals - Missing and exploited children; Additionally, he is a seasoned investigative reporter, Adams has earned recognition for relentless pursuit of truth and justice. With a strong national and global focus, on inspiring meaningful change and crucial conversations impacting all of humanity.

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