Evanston officials said Wednesday that they are determined to go ahead with a controversial anti-gang advertising campaign designed to help stop black-on-black crime, despite strong opposition from some who charge it is racist.
”We want the gang members to wake up and think of what they`re doing to our future doctors, lawyers and policemen . . . our America,” said Owen Thomas, executive director of the city`s Human Relations Commission, which has authorized the campaign.
”We feel strongly this is the right thing to do regardless of how painful it may be,” he said.
Thomas` remarks came shortly after a dozen people disrupted a public screening of a television commercial titled ”An Interview With a Klansman”
at Evanston City Hall. They blasted the commercial and members of the City Council`s Human Services Committee as racist and callous.
The commercial opens with a Nazi skinhead saluting and an announcer saying, ”If they were giving medals for killing black people, this guy would win a bronze.”
The picture then shifts to a hooded Ku Klux Klansman, the announcer saying, ”This guy, a silver.”
Finally, the camera flips to a young black man who appears to be a gang member. ”But this guy would win the gold. If you`re in a gang, you`re not a brother. You`re a traitor.”
The commercial closes with the Klansman saying: ”Right on, black brother. Right on!”
The announcer also cites chilling statistics noting that Klansmen murdered at least 20 African Americans since 1960, while in 1991 alone, 85 African Americans in Chicago were killed by street-gang members.
Nationwide, that figure reached at least 1,300, according to the announcer in the ad.
The ad, which the city hopes to run as a public service announcement on local TV stations along with a poster campaign, has come under fire from the Consolidated Committee of Concerned Black Men for its linking of young black men with racist hate groups.
The ad, the committee said in a written statement, feeds into mainstream America`s stereotypes, that all ”black males are either gang members, criminals or at least suspects.”
In addition, ”the ad message implies that there is an equal connection with the purposes of (the Klan and gangs),” said committee spokesman Lloyd Sheppard.
”If Evanston`s Human Relations Commission were to sanction a negative, unflattering, stereotypical portrayal of other non-minority groups in any context, it would create an outcry that would shake the walls of the Civic Building,” the statement concluded.
The commercial has also come under attack from at least one elected city official, who says it sends gang members the wrong message.
”This is not going to bring anybody in to get help. We need something that will bring young males in so we can help them,” said Ald. Rochelle Washington (5th), one of the most vocal opponents of the campaign.
Others say the ad, because of its powerful message, achieves its goal.
”The question is, does it give the message and will it be effective? The answer is yes,” said Ald. Betty Paden (2nd).
”You can`t have a generic advertisement and expect it to be powerful,”
Paden said.
Thomas said he has been inundated with calls from community leaders from across Chicagoland who want the posters that are part of the anti-gang campaign.
”I`ve been talking to the national media and MTV about running this television ad. At least something has come out of all this debate,” said Thomas, referring to the publicity the ad has generated.
