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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