Occupy The Hood: Fighting the Inner City Blues

Earlier in the year one of my favorite artists, Gil Scott-Heron, passed away.  He was a prophetic poet with a voice befitting the blues.  I particularly love his rendition of Marvin Gaye’s Inner City Blues which includes a poem called “The Siege of New Orleans”.  In it he captures the passion, the desire, indeed, the desperation of those living behind walls, to break them down and get “a slice of the American Dream”.  A Dream that has-since the founding of this country-been a nightmare for so many of our African American sisters and brothers.  As the nation mourns the loss of civil rights activist Sarah Rounds Price, I thought I would take the time to honor her memory by honoring the Occupy The Hood movement that is growing around the country.

It is appropriate to see an Occupy The Hood movement begin in the month of October.  After all, it was in this month, 45 years ago that Bobby Seale and Huey P Newton came together in Oakland, California to form the Black Panther Party in order to fight police brutality.  Like most Black Movements in America, the FBI was particularly aggressive against it.  In this case, some of their tactics of repression included murder, of which the killing of Fred Hampton was one of the more brutal examples.  It is also a cold reminder that the price tag for speaking out is much higher if your pigment is even a shade darker than white.

While there have been some changes for the black community since that time, they still come face to face on a daily basis with the ‘inner city blues’ that Gil Scott-Heron eloquently speaks of.  Unemployment for African-Americans, at 16% is double the national average and the highest it has been since 1984.  African-Americans, disproportionately targeted for sub-prime loans are also suffering from the most home foreclosures.  This small sample of how Wall Street has affected the African American community alone shows the reason for and importance of an Occupy The Hood movement.

The Occupy The Hood movement launched at a protest in Dudley Square in Roxbury, Massachusetts on October 21st.  It’s mission is to involve more people of color in the Occupy Wall Street movement.  As a white male who has visited the Occupy Boston site, I have noticed that there is a predominance of white faces present.  Given the state of affairs of not just African Americans, but immigrants and Native Americans, one would assume that these groups would make up the majority of faces in these movements.   But this has not been the case.  Why?

In an interview with The Boston Phoenix, activist and editor of Blackstonian Magazine, Jamarhl Crawford put it succinctly,  ” if anybody’s getting fucked, we’re getting fucked the worst. Our mortgage loans are higher, and we get foreclosed on at a higher rate. On top of that, we have to deal with having all these abandoned homes in our communities. Some of the foreclosed houses were the nicest homes on their street, and now they’re overgrown and disregarded.”  As to why there aren’t more people of color participating in the Occupy Wall Street Movement, he proffered, “Diversity was almost non-existent. On top of that everyone was being too polite – no one was saying what they really think. The polite conversations have gotten us nowhere – they’ve gotten us to assimilation, co-optation, and infiltration. If white people are truly sincere about wanting us to be a part of this, then they have to be willing to endorse whatever it is that we do – without judgement, and without suggestions about how the actions should take shape.”  In other words, we need to listen.

Occupy The Hood holds up a mirror to all of us, inviting people who are  privileged whether by wealth or simply by skin color to listen to their plight and join up.  I welcome such opportunities and look forward to more dialogue between our communities.  I also love the mood of this movement that cares more about action than politeness.

To Occupy The Hood, this song goes out to you: