The race factor
Recent race riots in Benton Harbor stem from ongoing racism and are nothing new in American history, writes Roy Walker from Chicago
The recent civil disturbance in economically depressed Benton Harbor, Michigan, a town which is 92 per cent African-American, has once again exposed the darker side of America. Although the proximate cause of the civil disturbance was the 16 June death of 28-year-old Terrance Shurn, the deeper underlying factor was America's hallmark system of racial and economic inequity. Newspaper articles in periodicals such as The Washington Post and The Christian Science Monitor affirm that the problem in Benton Harbor is both racial and economic. This assessment is in line with studies conducted by groups such as the National Urban League consistently warning that racial tension is a nation-wide phenomenon.
The official explanation is that the death resulted when Shurn lost control of his motorcycle while fleeing the police, but residents of the community disagree. They insist that Wes Koza, a Benton Harbor Township white patrolman, committed homicide by deliberately using his squad car to force Shurn's motorcycle to crash into the side of an abandoned building.
Although it has jurisdiction over Benton Harbor, the Benton Harbor Township force is a metropolitan force, and thus not directly accountable to the city of Benton Harbor. Real power in the area is controlled at the higher metropolitan level, which in turn is dominated by St Joseph, a prosperous, 90 per cent white town situated just across the bridge from Benton Harbor. St Joseph is a popular resort for many of Chicago's elites, including its mayor, Richard Daley. This local configuration of power is a common device used to subvert black political power in a given municipality, similar to the classic coupling of white cities with black townships perfected in apartheid South Africa.
Michigan's response has been to put Benton Harbor under curfew, deploying a predominantly white force made up of Michigan State Police, and officers from surrounding areas, including the Benton Harbor Township force itself. The law enforcement now resembles an army of occupation, equipped with tanks, armored cars, helicopters and bullet-proof trucks. Newspaper articles graphically describe the brutal police deployment.
"Hundreds of police -- many of them in riot gear, armed with semi-automatic weapons and tear-gas launchers -- took to the streets... They patrolled in groups of 20 vehicles, three people per vehicle, going through city streets block-by- block... a police helicopter led the way. Floodlights from their armored vehicles illuminated the streets and shined an unwelcome spotlight on the poverty, racial tensions and long-running suspicion of the police," wrote Lucio Guerrero in the Chicago Sun-Times.
"Officers surrounded a six-to-eight-block area but held back until launching their counterattack about 2:30 A.M... 'It looks like a war zone. It's terrible,' Dorothy King, who lives near the crash site, told the South Bend (Ind.) Tribune. 'I'm scared to go to bed,'" wrote James Prichard of AP.
The death of Shurn is only the latest in a series of similar incidents. Rev Edward Pinkney, in a New York Times interview, declared, "Black people here are sick and tired of what's been going on. This is not the first incident of this kind here involving police and black people."
"This was a senseless death, as was the 12 April death of Arthur Patterson. Two police officers went to his home to serve him a warrant over something that totaled $50.
"Patterson asked that he be allowed to give them the money, and they said no. We think one of the officers choked him to death, but the newspaper said he dropped dead. How does a 26-year-old man just drop dead?" Rev Pinkey asked.
Other sources of tension are the deaths of 16- year-old Eric McGinnis and seven-year-old Trent Patterson. McGinnis's body was found in the St Joseph River. The white authorities claim that McGinnis died in a drowning accident while fleeing the police. Benton Harbor residents disagree, arguing that he was lynched because he was dating a white girl and had partied at a St Joseph nightclub. Patterson was struck and killed by a car that was being pursued by Benton Harbor Township police in yet another high-speed chase.
The Benton Harbor crisis is historically consistent with the overall experience of US citizens of African descent. Especially in the South, racist crimes against African-Americans by white police and civilians have traditionally been immune to legal prosecution. During the 1863 riots in New York City, mobs of Irish immigrants protesting conscription to feed the ranks of the Union Army turned on blacks as easy scapegoats, freely lynching and pillaging. One particularly heinous act was the torching of the Colored Orphanage, in which a 10-year-old girl was thrown out of a window, and then beaten to death by the mob.
The worst race riots in American history took place in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1921. After a trivial incident involving an African-American shoeshine boy accidentally bumping against a young white woman working as an elevator operator, the lightning spread of rumors in the racially-charged atmosphere of post-World War I America led to pitched battles in the streets. After fighting escalated, a mob of several thousand whites with machine guns, police support, and planes dropping dynamite rampaged through Greenwood, the black district of Tulsa. An estimated 300 blacks were killed, and the entire black portion of the city was razed.
In Rosewood, Florida, as has happened so often, false or exaggerated rumors of a black man interacting with a white woman led to enraged mobs of white Americans lashing out against innocent African-Americans. The pretext for the Rosewood race riots of 1923 was an alleged assault on a white woman by a black man. The truth later emerged that she had actually been beaten by her white lover, and perpetrated this lie to deceive her husband. This did little good for the blacks of Rosewood, who by official count had six dead, but in all likelihood much more, with the black quarters sacked.
Clearly the grim situation of citizens of colour in the United States and elsewhere requires radical socio-economic measures. For a growing segment of the African-American community, the American Dream of equality and opportunity for all is but a cruel hoax, and the only possible remedy is a Pan- African revival.
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 10 - 16 July 2003 (Issue No. 646)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/646/in5.htm