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M a y 31, 2000
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When Shakespeare wrote that “something is rotten in the state of
Denmark,” he referred to the poisoning o f Hamlet’s Daddy by his Mom and
her boyfriend.
Something similarly rotten, albeit less violent, is threatening the
state o f business here in the USA. The victims are the less-than-stinking-
rich in A m erica, and the c u lp rits are a g ro w in g horde o f
newly wealthy and powerful people. The poison is greed, and I know o f
no available antidote.
Exhibit A is that ever-widening chasm between the compensation level
o f our captains o f industry and commerce and that o f the crews in their
company forecastles. A couple o f decades ago, those in the executive suite
might have earned 40 times as much as the file clerks and schleppers below.
That multiple today could be 500 or even more, given bonuses, options,
pensions, perks and, if things go badly, golden parachutes.
It isn’t that I begrudge talented people a fair reward, but I find it
difficult to imagine that the top guns o f today’s corporate America are
w orth so m uch m ore than th e ir p re d e c e sso rs in com m and.
1 have the same reservations about the sports and entertainment
figures whose incomes have soared into stratospheric orbits at growth
rates almost immeasurably higher than the purchasing power o f their
patrons at the box office. Getting back to the business o f big business, my
problem with the high paid help at the helm is that too many o f them are
doing well for themselves and a selected few others, but not doing nearly
as much good for their customers, their firms and the laborers in their
vineyards.
For most of my life, large enterprises tended to be organizations
with either a long history or a predictably long future - or both - with
new competitors setting their sights on similar patterns o f stability and
longevity.
Today’s entrepreneurs and mover-shakers seem bent on getting in,
fattening up, either going public or getting acquired, then heading for the
lush, green fairways of retirement. Somewhere along the line, it became
fashionable for bigger fish to gobble up littler fish, reducing competition
and enhancing profits, cutting comers in customer service and putting
serious squeezes on the workforce.. .always after solemnly sweari ng to do
none o f the above. Enter, too, the corporate raiders who, knowing little or
nothing bout the businesses they acquired, gobbled up successful
enterprises, spun off the least profitable activities, dehydrated the payroll,
sucked out as much loose cash as possible, and loaded the company with
debt in the form o f so-called junk bonds. Then, like black-hatted Lone
Rangers, they rode off into the sunset in search o f similar prey. CEOs,
COOs and CFOs, besides feathering their nests and greasing their exit
slides, now seem to focus on slurping up or merging with competitors, then
wringing out every possible employee and mandating every possible
reduction in expenditures - this to enrich mostly passive investors and
favored insiders, not to mention qualifying themselves for incentive
goodies.
Wage controls? Price controls? Profit controls? Protective tariffs?
I’m told that they’re all contrary to the precepts o f a capitalist economy
and the great American system o f free enterprise. But some things are
spinning OUT OF control.
It’s an ongoing soap opera that poses this question: Can free
enterprise and fair play woo, wed and live happily ever after?
If not, we might be headed for those extremes o f wealth and poverty
that keep Third World nations those two giant levels below Plateau
America.
Grace to lead our children home
b \
M akian W hich i E delman
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The Black Church Initiative was
launched in 1997 by the Children’s
D efen se Fund and the B lack
Community Crusade for Children we
coordinated to bring a critical mass of
Black congregations together to
respond to the growing crisis facing
Black children. Religious institutions
have always played a role in the
development o f Black children and
families, and we believe today’s
churches and mosques must be the
moral locomotives for the urgently
needed m ovem ent to save our
c h ild re n from the g rip o f
hopelessness, violence, and the
juvenile justice and prison systems.
We began with a series of gatherings
in cities across the country where
religious leaders, advocates, judges,
and young people came together to
discuss the alarming statistics on the
disproportionately high numbers of
Black children who are victims of
violence or involved in the juvenile
justice system. Each gathering also
fe a tu re d
so lu tio n s— p a n e lists
describing innovative church-based
youth programs across the country
making a difference in the lives o f
their community’s children, because
sharing positive solutions is key to
change. In order to share these
examples with other congregations
w e have p rofiled ten o f these
successful programs in a new manual,
"Graceto LeadOurChildren Home".
The budgets, staff sizes, number of
ch ild ren served, and a ctiv ities
provided by the programs described
vary widely so that almost any church
can find a model they can use. For
example, St Augustine’s Church in
Washington, D.C. Freedom Temple
C h u rch in G a rn e r, N .C ., and
M etropolitan Baptist Church in
M emphis all run after-school or
evening enrichment programs that
can be sta ffe d prim arily w ith
volunteers from a congregation. The
Church ofSaint Adalbert in Cleveland
also relies on volunteers to run two
su c c e ssfu l group m entoring
programs, one for boys and one for
girls.
Mt Pleasant M issionary Baptist
Church in Kansas City, Missouri, is
one o f nearly sixty sites across the
country currently hosting one o f the
summer Freedom Schools which DCF/
BCCC sponsor and which will serve
over 5,000 children this summer.
Freedom Schools' paid staffs of
c o lle g e -a g e d
se rv a n t-le a d e rs
integrate reading, conflict resolution,
and social action into a well-developed
a c tiv ity -b a se d cu rriculum that
prom otes cultural and historical
aw areness and provides summer
options for children where there are
none. P arents attend w eekly
parenting workshops.
The Boston TenPoint Coalition,
founded by three Black ministers, is
a coalition o f churches from many
denom inations, the police, the
juvenile justice system, and many
other public and private organizations
who have come together to work on
b e h a lf o f these program s and
encourages churches across the
country to follow their positive
examples. Working together, the faith
community can make a tremendous
difference in helping to lead all o f our
young people safely home.
To order a copy call 1-202-662-3652.
For more information call I -202-628-
8787.)
Feds nail m ore dirty cops, but not violent cops
Attorney General Janet Reno publicly boasts that she will
do everything in her power to nail more dirty eops. She’s
backed up that boast. In the seven years she has run the
Justice Department, federal prosecutors have slapped
more than 600 corrupt eops behind bars, an increase of
nearly 600 percent. And she has told prosecutors
throughout the country to be even more vigilant in
cracking down on police corruption.
There are plenty o f signs that they are heeding their
bosses’ admonition. In big and small cities nationally
more police are being arrested and indicted on bribery,
racketeering, and drug peddling charges than ever before.
The Los Angeles Police Department continues to be
rocked almost daily with fresh allegations that LAPD
officers beat, shot, planted weapons and drugs on
suspects, and gave perjured testimony against them. At
last count more than 70 LAPD officers are under
investigation on corruption charges and more than 75
felony convictions have been overturned because of
tainted evidence.
Yet despite Reno’s admirable zeal to lock upcorrupt cops,
she has not shown the same zeal to bag rogue cops who
beat and kill mostly young African-Americans and Latinos.
According to a recent report on poljce misconduct by
Human Rights Watch, an international public watchdog
group, in 1998 federal prosecutors brought excessive
force charges against police officers in less than 1 percent
ofthe cases investigated by the FBI involving allegations
o f police abuse.
The group also found that there wasalmost no difference
in the skimpy number o f police misconduct cases
prosecuted by the Justice Department under moderate
Democrat Clinton than there were under conservative
Republican President George Bush.
When activists demand that the feds prosecute cops who
gun down unarmed citizens such as the four New York
City cops who riddled African Immigrant Amadou Diallo,
their ritual response to them is that the shooting is under
“review.” Meanwhile, months, sometimes years, pass
with no word from the Justice Department on what if any
action, it will take. In nearly all these cases no officers are
prosecuted and the case is quietly closed.
The reflexive see-no-evi 1 policy o f the Feds toward police
violence comes of a time when the number o f police abuse
complaints have soared nationally. The nearly 12, 000
complaints in 1996 almost matched the total number forthe
entire period from 1984 and 1990. To better aid law
enforcement agencies and federal prosecutors track
patterns o f abuse, the Violent Crim e and Control
Act of 1994 authorized the Justice Department to collect
data on the frequency and types o f police abuse complaints.
At the end o f 1998, it still had not issued any report on the
level of police misconduct in America.
Worse, the Justiee Department has long had on the books
a strong arsenal o f civil rights statutes to prosecute
abusive police officers. However, more often than not, it
has taken major press attention, large scale protests, and
even a major riot, such as the L. A. riots in 1992 following
the Rodney King verdict, before it used its legal weapons. ■
Meanwhile federal prosecutors say they can’t nail more
rogue cops because they are hamstrung by the lack of
funds and staff, victims who aren ’t perceived as criminals,
credible witnesses, and the public’s inclination to
always believe police testimony.
They also claim they are pinned in by the almost impossible
requirement that they prove an officer had the specific
intent to kill or injure a victim in order to get a conviction.
These are tough obstacles to overcome and since the
Justice Department is in the business o f winning cases
many prosecutors are more than happy to take a hands-
off attitude toward police misconduct cases.
But this is no excuse for federal prosecutors not to at least'
make the effort to prosecute more officers when there is'
substantial evidence that they used excessive force. This
is the legally and morally right thing to do. And it sends
a powerful message to law enforcement agencies that the
t
federal government will go after lawbreakers no matter, •
whether they wear a mask, or a badge.
Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark understood the >
importance o f prosecuting abusive officers even when •
there is virtually no chance o f getting a conviction against
them . He felt this acted as a “ sta b iliz in g
force” to spur police and city officials to take stronger
action to halt the useof excessive force in theirdepartments.
Clark was right.
Reno’s failure to aggressively go after cops who g u n . -
down unarmed civilians will continue to feed the dangerous
cycle o f more shootings and more racial turmoil, and •
deepen the distrust and cynicism o f minorities toward the <■
criminal justice system. Reno should worry as much about
this as she does about dirty cops.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson istheauthorof The Disappearance
ofBlack Leadership-. email:ehutchi344@aol.com
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