Frustration bubbled across the room as they talked about crime becoming a local economy and how guns breed both fear and fratricide.
When “gangsta rap” was mentioned, those lyrics that routinely brutalize women by calling them whores and bitches, the anger was thick enough to taste.
Once the enemy was overt racism, but African-American political and social leaders who ended a three-day gathering Saturday turned inward, shaking off concerns about stereotyping and asking each other what to do about black-on-black violence.
From actor-entrepreneur Bill Cosby to Jack the Rapper; from flimmaker Spike Lee to federal drug czar Lee Brown; from New York’s Rev. Al Sharpton to Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer, who took office only a week ago, they talked about how crime has become the premier civil rights issue.
“Enough is enough,” said C. Delores Tucker, an activist both in the civil rights movement and a former Pennsylvania state official. “Our great fear is not from hurricanes or earthquakes, not from disease or war, but from violence against one another.”
“What’s going on?” asked Jesse Jackson, the man who drew the cultural icons, politicians and social activists together. “Why are we so quick to kill each other?”
Words bristled between panelists and audience and between generations at the conference that may one day be seen as a landmark in the public discussions of the black community.
The conference marked a change in discussions within the black community about crime and elicited specific suggestions, from extending school hours to involving hundreds of churches to each help 10 young offenders and joining with local judges in monitoring their progress.
Jackson said he also wanted to enlist college presidents in developing a curriculum for prisoners, while others encouraged people to break the code of silence that keeps criminals on the street.
Part pop culture, part ratification of Jackson’s own thoughts and proposals, the conference heard ideas including Rep. Maxine Waters’ (D-Calif.) plan to provide $50 a month stipends to young men and women in job training, and Tucker’s move to boycott producers of rap music that degrades women.
Parents were asked to meet their children’s teachers, to exchange home phone numbers, to personally pick up report cards and turn off the television for three hours each night.
Individual and community responsiblity seemed more popular than waiting for governments to solve problems. “A lot of us don’t want to face reality,” said Betty Shabazz, the widow of Malcolm X. “We cannot go through life just dreaming.”
The talk of black violence will undoubtedly be a topic of national conversation during the upcoming Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. national holiday. But it is also an uncomfortable departure for many black citizens.
The renewed talk of addressing community problems prompted some rhetorical throwbacks, old-time activists seeking government programs and money to promote themeselves and their own causes. Those days of government largesse are unlikely to return and most suggestions were more immediate and modest.
Veterans of the civil rights movement, including Jackson, were given respect but, at the same time, some young men and women said they lacked relevance to the truly poor and to those on city streets today.
Nevertheless, the real tension was over whom or what to blame: the history of slavery and the white majority, or the social pathology of the ghetto and its black victims.
Convened in a hotel meeting room, there was a family atmosphere to much of the discussion, laughter and more than a touch of tolerance like the testimony section of a church service.
People listened patiently to the ungrammatical eloquence of ex-convicts such as Wallace “Gator” Bradley, a Chicago gang truce advocate, and to the histrionics and political correctness of a South Carolina lawyer. The lawyer referred to the law as only a traditional means to “protect the commercial interests of white male property owners.”
But the lack of young rappers and even young criminals at the conference was noted. And one man wondered if this was really a conference or just a rally to support Jackson’s new enthusiasm and the celebrities who attended.
On Friday, Cosby, the comedian, educator and a man who has supported black arts community for decades, joked that “all day long people have found the solution to their problems, and that is my bank account.”
Earl King and his No Dope Express group that claims to have stopped the gang killings in Chicago’s Cabrini-Green project talked about costs, but he also said, “We don’t need a whole lot of money to keep us from killing each other.”
Clinton administration officials such as Atty. Gen. Janet Reno and Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros defended President Clinton’s crime bill and welfare reform proposals. But there remains enormous division within the black community on those measures, especially the mandatory sentencing provisions that affect disproportionately more black defendants.
But theories don’t amount to much compared to individual concern for crime.
“All I know is I need help and I’m afraid,” said Tyrene Wilson, a 20-year-old woman from Washington, where crimes involving juveniles are up 61 percent.
