BLACKS AND CRIME HOTBEDS

TONEY ATKINS COMMENTARY

It Really Is A Crime

DAYTONA BEACH, FL -- For years, I've kept my itchy typing fingers still on the subject of crime in the Black community, but if we don't tackle the problem now, when will we do it?

Blacks get upset when crime statistics show that some of the top hotbeds of crime are in the Black community. A former co-worker at the Daytona Times, who often appeared to be a bit prejudiced against whites, displayed anger on numerous occasions, claiming that Blacks who were accused of breaking the law were prominent on television news shows as opposed to the number of whites shown being arrested or standing in a courtroom.

That sometimes seemed to be true, but I recently kept a personal survey of the alleged lawbreakers pictured on television. On many occasions, whites who had been arrested for one thing or another outnumbered Blacks. Besides, if you don't commit the crime, you don't get the television time. Simply, the best way to avoid being on a local newscast as an accused criminal is not to commit a crime -- and that's true for Blacks and whites.

Let's face facts. There is a lot of crime in the Black community. Blacks sell drugs in the parking lots of convenience stores as well as elsewhere in the community. Blacks have prostituted their bodies openly in the Black community, sometimes in front of the Daytona Times building, other businesses and even churches.

The "poor me" excuse for such criminal activities doesn't carry any weight for either the law-abiding Blacks in the community -- and there are a large proportion of them -- or for me. Newspapers have many classified ads listing jobs. Some may be low-paying jobs in the accommodations industry or washing dishes in a restaurant -- but it is honest work and as respectable as anything anyone can do..

However, many minorities will claim there are no jobs available for Blacks. I have had many business people tell me the contrary, but a person of any color has to apply to get a job and then has to apply himself or herself on that job to move forward and eventually make more money. Some Blacks have admitted to me over the years that they are not going to work at a menial job for little pay, and that there is more money in distributing illegal drugs, along with being able to work on one's own schedule.

Of course, drug dealing can result in violence, including fights, gun battles, slashing with knives -- and let's be real. These things do go on, and sadly, many people in the community are too frightened to combat the problem. They lock themselves in their homes, with bars covering the windows, and won't even leave the house at night because they are scared. In nearly 15 years with the Daytona Times, I have been told this by residents time and again.

If the police try to maintain peace in the community, the lawmen are taunted and accused of brutality. A number of members in white communities also hate authority and blame the police, especially if they get caught committing a crime. Area police officers are basically outstanding and do the best they can, and they handle alleged lawbreakers equally, no matter what their color.

I'm not writing this from mere hearsay. I've witnessed the nightmare, the danger. I've ridden through predominently Black parts of town where many law-abiding Blacks would not go after the sun went down. They are afraid they'll be robbed, shot, beaten ... or worse.

Police often seem to protect at least some Black offenders, for reasons unknown. When my car was stolen by a Black man with a white woman about 15 years ago, a detective came by to see me about a month after the stripped vehicle was found. He showed me mug shots of a number of possible suspects. I pointed out the photo that most resembled the man of my description. A young resident came by the office to give me a person's name who was claiming to have taken my car, which contained all of my earthly possessions. I notified the police. To my knowledge, the individual who, by the time the detective talked with me, had been jailed on another charge. He was never arrested for taking my car, and I was urged by the detective not to write any more columns about my harrowing experience in the newspaper. You figure it out.

On several recent occasions, after working late at the Daytona Times, I would stand in front of the building, either waiting for a taxicab or a bus (when there was service through the community south of Orange Avenue after dark). Although I was never threatened, I was approached many times by Blacks selling drugs or prostituting themselves. I suppose that, in their minds, a white man in the Black community must be after something more than a ride home.

With some humor laced with sadness, I could almost understand the community's feeling of harassment when one night, a police car stopped as I was waiting in front of the newspaper building. Two officers emerged from the patrol car, wanting to know why I was there. They didn't seem to believe my story about waiting for Votran until a bus approached on Dr. Martin Luther King Boulevard and I waved it down. The officers allowed me to catch my bus.

That touches on a related fact. Votran halted its night service south of Orange after several instances in which rocks, bricks and other materials were thrown at buses as they passed. On at least one occasion, the windshield on the driver's side was broken. A spokesperson for Votran told meat the time that the company couldn't afford to endanger their driversorpassengers. That makes sense, but the policy hurts those in the community who wouldn't think of breaking the law and who need rides to their jobs or to stores or entertainment establishments after dark.

It is also true that drugs and prostitution abound on parts of Ridgewood Avenue within several blocks in either direction from its intersection with International Speedway Boulevard. The same activity occurs on S. Atlantic Avenue on the beachside, particularly in a several block area near the street's intersection with Silver Beach. A mostly-white element is involved there.

When fear and dread keep Black residents trapped in their own homes, it is criminal.

There can be no excuse for anyone robbing, threatening, wounding or sometimes even killing another person. When criminals rule the roost, the henhouse is in trouble.

Instead of accusing the white establishment, the police and the mainstream media of making an issue of pointing to parts of the Black community as hotbeds of crime, perhaps Blacks who want peace, who want to take a walk down the street or even desire to go shopping after the sun sets need to unite and do something about the problem ... something to take back the community and bring back the pride that once was here.

The reader may think: That would take a miracle. It might, but miracles begin with each of us. We can douse the hotbeds of criminal activity -- Black and white -- and live without fear. But that is not going to happen by itself.

Will the creation of a new reality in the community begin with you?

-- Toney Atkins, a veteran writer and former assistant editor of the Daytona Times, takes sole responsibility for these comments, which may not be the opinions of others involved with the Daytona Times.  

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ESCAPING THE HURRICANE: A VISION OF ARMAGEDDON?

A VISIONS COLUMN BY TONEY ATKINS

Hurricane season is here again, and the tropics are starting to churn. After suffering the wrath of three devastating hurricanes within a six-week period, some folks around Daytona Beach are watching the weather with a certain amount of fear and trembling, if only in the back of their minds.

Despite an appearance of normalcy, signs of the storms' wrath in 2004 are still visible in the Daytona Beach area. Some businesses remain closed, workers can still be seen making repairs on structures throughout the county, and a number of residents still suffer psychological effects of the impact the hurricanes had on their lives -- something many had believed they would never have experienced because such storms had been a rarity here.

Black and white businesses alike continue to struggle to recover their losses. Some residents say they still haven't received the financial assistance they believe they were promised to get their lives together again.

One Black resident died after Charley plowed through the area. As the rains and winds were diminishing, she was outside and was electrocuted when she came into contact with a live power line.

In addition to fallen trees, power lines and damage to homes, businesses and property, residents learned the harsh realities of the potency of a hurricane. With each of the three storms, people discovered what it meant to live without modern conveniences. For days and even weeks, some areas had no electricity, meaning no lights, no air conditioning, the inability to pump gasoline into their vehicles or to get money from ATM machines. Computers were useless in places without power or backup generators, and in some areas, cell phone service was disrupted.

The experiences were much like ominous glimpses into what could happen as the result of a terrorist attack. In these cases, Mother Nature was the terrorist, reminding us that we are mere mortals who have to learn to weather and conquer obstacles in order to survive.

My mind flashes back to the Labor Day hurricane -- Frances, I believe it was. Residents on beachside areas along most of the east coast of Florida were ordered to evacuate. Because there was uncertainty as to where the storm would actually hit, many did not know where to go, so they simply headed north.

As fate would have it, I had to travel to Georgia to deal with a familyemergency. My adrenaline was surging as I drove on U.S.92 underneath the Interstate 95 overpass. The interstate was like a parking lot. Vehicles were not moving much at all. The one service station that was selling gasoline near I-95 was jammed with a line of cars waiting their turns at the pumps.

I stopped at a boarded up 7-Eleven that sported a handwritten sign advising that the store was open. There were few people inside, even though the hurricane was a couple of days away. The latest edition of the Daytona Times headlined that Volusia County residents were gearing for the storm.

There was little traffic on International Speedway Boulevard all the way to the beachside, and a decision to drive through part of the Black community revealed the uncanny, unusual sight of practically no one on the streets. Atlantic Avenue on the beachside resembled a ghost town, unlike an ordinary time when the street would be busy with cars and pedestrians. Hotels and motels had already boarded up and shut down. The air was almost too still, only occasionally awakened by a gust of wind.

My pondering as to which route to take took me up S.R. A1A. I couldn't help but feel an eerie sensation as I drove north, practically the only vehicle on the highway. There was a sense of foreboding as I glanced at the angry Atlantic Ocean and almost expected a huge wave to sweep over the road and drag me out to sea. Occasional raindrops and sea spray sprinkled my car.

When I was forced to I-95, the nightmare really began as I became part of the gridlock of evacuees. Interstate 10 was faster moving, but surreal with the number of cars packing the rest areas and lined along the road. The gridlock resumed at Interstate 75 and again it was difficult to find a parking spot in a rest area, where people of all races, tired and some with wild eyes, walked around to take a break from their travels to heaven knows where. A van hauling horses passed through; some cars seemed to be loaded with all of their occupants' earthly belongings; people seemed ignorant of any differences as they talked about the impending storm, their concerns, their fears and their prayers. A woman opened her raincoat to reveal her naked body as cars moved slowly toward the exit, which made me wonder irrationally if she had left home so fast she forgot to put on her clothes.

Vehicles became constant neighbors as they snaked northward on I-75 after dawn. In South Georgia, the DJ on a radio station playing gospel music warned drivers that all hotels and motels near the interstate were already booked solid all the way to Atlanta. Churches called in, offering refuge to travelers. One caller offered a room in his home. Places to get free meals were announced. Another station revealed that the hospitality was spreading. I remember thinking that Floridians should express their gratitude to the Georgians for opening their doors during a time of crisis.

It was rare to see anything but Florida tags on the northbound vehicles. It was a though Georgians were taking alternate routes to avoid adding to the line of cars snaking through their state.

Atlanta radio stations advised that there were no acccommodations all the way to the Georgia-Tennessee state line. In Chattanooga, stations were advising that many hotels and motels were already full, and callers told of heart-wrenching encounters with the refugees in which they overheard such conversations as one between a father and daughter. The girl wanted a candy bar, and her dad told her that she couldn't have it, but only because he didn't know how they were going to afford to spend the night at a motel. Generosity bloomed again as shelters opened and people offered prayers for the people of Florida. Many Floridians didn't know what they would find when they were able to return.

A trip to my destination took more than twice as long as normal.

As it turned out, the area where I lived just outside Daytona Beach was flooded and without power for days while I was gone. My return trip was in total darkness, driving down I-75 past exits where there were no lights at the usual restaurants, service stations and other businesses.

It was like a glimpse of Armageddon.

I relate this experience because it dramatically impacted me as to the power of nature on our lives and that it could happen again. And I couldn't help but wonder how the same people who stayed and those who left would handle an even worse catastrophe, God forbid.

Are we ever really prepared? Now's the time to start thinking about it with Hurricane Season 2005 in its infancy. Now's the time to live in hope, not fear or dread. It's time to be ready, with prayers that no one anywhere will have to experience repeat performances of last year's horrors, minor in some respect to those elsewhere in the world.

-- The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect those of the staff and management of the Daytona Times. Toney Atkins is a senior writer for the newspaper.

(c) 2005, Toney Atkins / Daytona Times

AFTER MEMORIAL DAY

COMMENTARY  

Life Goes On During Wars Here And Abroad

By Toney Atkins      

   So far in my lifetime, up to the middle of the first decade of the new millennium, there have been at least six wars of which I'm aware.
    I  suppose it didn't matter a whole lot in my personal sphere of existence when I was young because the men and women fighting the battles were over there somewhere. I knew it was happening; it was depressing to a certain extent; but my everyday concerns monopolized my thinking and pushed the harsh realities of what was happening in the rest of the world to the recesses of the closet in my brain.
    My dad fought overseas in World War II, during which I entered the world. A lot of Americans were there and died, fighting the likes of Nazism and the Japanese who sought to bring the United States to its knees, starting with Pearl Harbor.
    The war affected Dad in ways that I'll probably never truly understand. Now in his 80s, he only recently opened up and talked to me about the nightmares he still has about the bombs, the bodies, the fears. He sleeps only a few hours each night, because the war comes back to haunt him when he closes his eyes. He said he nearly had to walk out of the movie theater when he saw "Rambo" because anxiety ripped at his nerves as the action of another war was flashed on the screen -- fiction based on a real conflict.
    One of my only memories of that time -- or perhaps it was only a dream -- was of Mother standing on the front porch, crying as my father walked away toward the railroad tracks to go into town to catch the train which would transport him toward conflict.
    Meanwhile, learning from members of our small community, I was afraid of Black people. They were different and to be feared, I was told, not being educated to the fact that Black airmen and other soldiers had been unpublicized heroes in the war. I recall that when I was still very young, a friend and I encountered a young Black boy on a country road near the Black section of town. We ran in terror. I was later to wonder why, realizing that the war of attitudes between the races wasbeginning to rage on our own shores.
    Some men from my small mill village hometown went off to Korea a few years after the first atomic bombs essentially ended WWII when I was only 2. I remember seeing the photographs of the Korean Conflict on the front pages of newspapers, but we didn't have television, so we weren't exposed to all that was going on over there in the war against communism. Those who came back from Korea didn't talk much about it, at least, not in my presence.
    I grew up with those infamous "under the desk" school drills of the 1950s as the fear of The Bomb potentially being in the hands of our enemies lurked in the background of our daily activities. Hearing groups of military planes flying over our schoolhouse  would cause some of us to be scared, at least  for a few moments. Were they ours, or were we about to be blown into oblivion?
    Here in the U.S., the 1950s and early 1960s were peaceful and superficially innocent, disturbed only by the growing civil rights movement.  As tensions grew as Blacks began to openly demand equal rights, much to the dismay of whites. That war was escalating.
    Somewhere in the background, our soldiers, Black and white, were being sent to a place called South Vietnam, allegedly to train the people there to fight an intrusion of communism.
Later, that would become an explosive conflict that would change the course of life as we thought we knew it. It always seemed to be referred to as a "conflict," although it certainly seemed to be a war. The nation became divided because our troops were over there fighting, being wounded or dying, and it wasn't clear what we were trying to accomplish or even how we planned to emerge as winners. There were protests. Rebellion brought changes in attitudes and even morals.
    Meanwhile, conflict raged in our cities as violence broke out and buildings burned as the battle for civil rights continued. A president was assassinated, as was a powerful civil rights leader, and we twice mourned as we recovered from our shock and horror.
    Men and women came back from Vietnam, scarred and unfairly scorned by many. They had done what their country had told them to do, but their country didn't seem to appreciate it. Many citizens who knew only what they read in the newspapers or saw on network news on television just wanted the unpleasantness of Vietnam to go away, even in memory. But like those who fought in earlier wars, the veterans could not make the war inside them disappear so easily. They had seen the horrors of conflict, and many had lost friends and comrades.
    On the home front, Blacks had achieved a great deal of equality as a result of a degree of peace came during the rights movement, although resentment still reigned, especially in many parts of the South. By that time, I had long decided that there was no good reason to discriminate because of skin color, but many folks in my part of the country didn't agree. The war for equality went underground as whites struggled to accept what supposedly had been resolved.
    Life went on, with many appearing not to have a care in the world as they smothered reality with drugs, alcohol and disco lights. Our nation had a few "minor" conflicts after         Vietnam, but all seemed relatively peaceful until the early 1990s, when Iraq burst into the news as its soldiers moved into the oil fields of Kuwait. The United States put its armed forces into action, sending the experienced and inexperienced into a land of heat and desert sand. After months of military preparation, TV viewers watched as bombs exploded over Baghdad and our troops moved in. It was all over in a matter of weeks, but the impact was felt in hometowns around the country as family and friends prayed and awaited the return of their loved ones.
    The battle ended without resolution for many soldiers, who came back feeling anger that the mission hadn't totally been accomplished. Many said they couldn't understand why Iraqi President Saddam Hussein wasn't taken down because of his apparently malicious intent and arrogance. Many soldiers returned to the U.S. with physical and mental scars after the combat, and they were treated as heroes.
    Then came the day that would change the world forever. Terrorists staged a spectacular attack on the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001, killing and injuring many citizens of all races, colors and creeds. We were horrified and an underlying fear became pervasive. Perhaps for the first time in history, Americans were briefly united in a struggle to understand the pain and agony and to move forward, striving to regain the "normalcy" of our more naive past.     U.S. troops were sent into battle in Afghanistan, which many Americans supported because the villains behind the atrocity allegedly emanated from there. A degree of victory was achieved, but the man believed to be behind the attacks on our country was elusive and, at this writing, remains at large.
    Before that war could be finished, the presidential administration of George W. Bush suddenly signaled that he believed Iraq was a center for terrorism and that its leader was a monster who had to be brought down. Giving the public reasons that later were to prove to be misleading, many more troops were sent to Iraq. A relatively quick victory prompted President Bush and others in his administration to proclaim "mission accomplished."     Several years later, the bloody violence continues and officials say more terrorists are in that country now than before the war. Our soldiers are still dying, and at least one Marine who returned safely recently told me that many like him were proud to serve but that they were never really given an honest explanation of what they were fighting for.
    Black and white veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are returning, many with mental and physical wounds from which they may never recover. Others are coming back in coffins, with families and friends praying that their deaths ultimately will prove to have been worth the cost.
    After the war at home, Blacks and whites alike now coexist although, in many ways, remain separate. That never-declared and seemingly never-ending war still seethes beneath the surface, with many bridges of understanding to be built before the hate and bigotry end.     The Bible foretold wars and rumors of wars. Here and there, too much blood has been shed for our "freedom" as life goes on and we go about pretending everything is fine.     Let's pray that no life lost in any war has been in vain. Let us support and honor those who have fought, here and there, so that we might maintain a a superficially peaceful, democratic nation.
    We've only recently celebrated Memorial Day, but one day is not enough to take a mere moment from our busy lives to comprehend and remember those who sacrificed all so that we might live in unity and freedom from the fear of our enemies.
    There is no peace in the world today. Without sincere prayers, determination and honest but firm leadership, present wars will continue and new ones will develop.
    We pray the current conflicts will end soon and our men and women can come home to heroes' welcomes and their families and that all of us can eventually enjoy life without war, one day at a time, with hope for the future.