The Sable Verity

Originally posted July 12 2008:   It is an uncomfortable sense of déjà vu; seven years ago I sat down in the middle of the night at my aging PC, to write about a police shooting I had witnessed in my neighborhood, Rainier Beach.  At the time I was just weeks away from delivering my youngest child, and the violence I had seen that day forever changed me.  I wrote the first words that came to mind:

It is a rare thing to know you are seeing a man living out his last moments.

The man shot and killed by police, a youngish looking Black man, had just minutes before, brutally attacked a group of people while high on drugs; including children.  I still remember vividly the image of a police officer carrying a child from the duplex, her dark brown legs dangling limply over his arms.  It was heart breaking.

I also wrote about the reaction of by-standers at the time.  I happened to be walking home from the library, but many others, who were passing by in their cars, pulled over and got out, watching the events unfold.  I said then:

Things became quiet as the calm arrived before the storm. I stood and watched my people, my brothers and sisters who were responding to the crowd as a time for bonding. I was shocked to see those who were watching the same thing we were, take time to talk about hair, babies, upcoming events and social gatherings, recent deaths and births, divorces and marriages. My husband and I stood in a sea of faces, none of whom we knew, but all felt like family — the aunt who knows everyone’s business, the cousin you never see, and too many of our beautiful babies, all standing around, connecting.

I felt the need to point this out at the time because I was struck and disturbed by how un-effected people seemed to be by what was happening just a few hundred feet away, and how some had claimed the police shot the man “in cold blood”, even after he ran out, shooting at police for all to see.

Fast forward, and here I sit.  I still do all my grocery shopping in Rainier Beach…still use the cleaners too.  But I no longer live in Rainier Beach.  I’ve graduated to a handy lap-top, and my youngest child has since passed away.  Many things have changed in seven years.

But some things have stayed the same.  Senseless violence and death in Rainer Beach seems to be one of them.

I was shocked and sickened yesterday when, in one of my many trips to both daily papers online, I heard about the senseless assault of James Paroline, an RB resident who was attacked while tending to the garden in the traffic circle by his home.  Paroline had set up traffic cones to prevent drivers from running over his hose; this act led to a few altercations, and culminated in him being punched in the face by a twenty-something Black male; Paroline hit the concrete so hard, his scull was crushed- an image that the Seattle PI displayed for all, and which led me back to my computer with these words again in my head:

It is a rare thing to know you are seeing a man living out his last moments.

 

This photo has been purposely altered to dim the image, out of respect for the memory of the victim

That image of Mr. Paroline, lying helpless in the middle of the street, assaulted my senses, nearly making me ill.  The blood.  The caved-in skull.  The limpness of his body.  There was a man living his last moments.  Taking his last free breaths, and for what?  A few traffic cones in the street?  I have seen a lot in my life.  But this…

I am aware that there are some reports that Paroline was a difficult neighbor, while others say the man simply cared about where he lived, and tried to do his part in many ways, one of which was the traffic garden.  Difficult neighbor or not, he didn’t deserve to be punched in the face by a complete stranger.  He didn’t deserve to die just hours later at Harborview Hospital.

I find myself focused on the same issue that I was seven years ago; we as a people, and as a community have a problem.  Seven years ago, a few accused me of portraying Black people as uncaring and flippant, even indignant at what they saw that day.

I suppose I may be accused of those same things today, but a man has lost his life, and another, when caught, will spend most of the rest of his in prison, and for what?  For what?  We should all demand to know the answer to that.  It had nothing to do with traffic cones in the street.

Rainier Beach is a beautiful place.  There are families that have lived there for generations who embody the true essence of community. There are plenty of young adults who live there, that care about it, that are neighborly, that don’t get into trouble.

But then of course, there are many who do not.  They have no respect for themselves or anyone else, and not enough is provided to keep them on track; there can be no solutions to a problem if the problem is left undefined.  If we don’t like it, then what are we prepared to do about it, and when are we going to do it?  I can’t keep track of the number of homicides involving Black youth over the past nine months in the south end and in south east Seattle.  How many more makeshift memorials are we going to have to lay flowers at?

My perception of RB can’t be pawned off on the media’s often disproportionate reporting; I lived in Rainer Beach.  I spent years listening to gun fire all night, waking in the morning to hear accounts from neighbors, watched the fights in the street between young Black men and young Black women, endured the teen-agers and twenty-something’s pushing everyone else out from under the metro bus shelter in order to carry out a quick drug deal, or smoke some marijuana with friends, the police on the other side of the block, or not around at all.  I remember all to well my seven year old coming in crying, because another seven year old threatened to shoot her, because she wouldn’t give him her toy; he told her he was going to get the gun in his house and ran off.  She remained petrified after that.  I passed by the funeral home on Rainier and Henderson, in the heart of “the Beach” every day on my way to work and saw the Black mothers crying for their dead children, while in a jai cell, another young Black man sat awaiting his fate.

The decision to leave Rainier Beach was made solely because of the visible dominating culture; I wanted to get out before it began having a negative impact on my children.  For all of those children you see in RB “hanging out”, there are dozens more whose parents are keeping them in the house, and this is exactly why.  Because someone can walk up to you, who feels they have the right to assault you, or take your life, and do just that.  Rainier Beach has its bullies; anyone who has ever lived there knows that.

The sidewalks have been improved.  A new school is being built.  Spiffy new housing units have gone up, a stone’s throw from light rail, but some things have remained the same.

Another person is dead, and another, will likely be on his way to prison for killing him, unless of course he is justifiably shot by the police first. 

****

I want everyone to know that the photo used in this article, was not used lightly.  When I first happened upon it while checking the local news, it had a profoundly painful impact on me.  I sent an email to the newspaper, asking them to post a warning to readers, so that they could make an informed decision about whether or not they wanted to see it, and I received a gracious reply.  When I first saw the photo, one of my many instincts, was to make a copy, because I knew that it wouldn’t be up for long, because of how graphic it is.  I know that if I saw the need to send a note to the paper, thousands of others did as well; not long after it first went up, it was gone, replaced by a blood stained sidewalk in stead.

I took time to think about whether or not I was going to use it or not, but as you can see, ultimately I decided it’s inclusion was important, vital even. 

Peace,

Sable Verity

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/370578_rainierbeach12.html

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/jamieson/370576_robert12xx.html

Originally posted April 27, 2008

Emotional students described a culture of racial intolerance and misunderstanding at Sonoma State University in a town hall meeting Monday that followed a campus election marred by racist graffiti.
“It’s intimidating,” said Christina Albert, a black student. “You’re singled out when you’re the only one in the class. The teacher looks at you when you’re learning about slavery or crime rates.”

Read more »

Originally posted April 14, 2008

By TIM WISE

For most white folks, indignation just doesn’t wear well. Once affected or conjured up, it reminds one of a pudgy man, wearing a tie that may well have fit him when he was fifty pounds lighter, but which now cuts off somewhere above his navel and makes him look like an idiot. Read more »

April 22, 2008

A hundred years ago, in communities across the U.S., white residents forced thousands of black families to flee their homes. Even a century later, these towns remain almost entirely white. BANISHED tells the story of three of these communities and their black descendants, who return to learn their shocking histories. Read more »

Originally posted April 6, 2008

Check out this video from J. Fletcher out of Florida for some insight.

This from CNN:

State and federal investigators said Tuesday that they spent the past two days gathering evidence in the last documented mass lynching in the United States: a grisly slaying of four people that has remained unsolved for more than six decades.

In a written statement, the FBI and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said they collected several items on a property in rural Walton County, Georgia, that were taken in for further investigation.

On July 25, 1946, two black sharecropper couples were shot hundreds of times and the unborn baby of one of the women cut out with a knife at the Moore’s Ford Bridge. One of the men had been accused of stabbing a white man 11 days earlier and was bailed out of jail by a former Ku Klux Klan member and known bootlegger who drove him, his wife, her brother and his wife to the bridge.

The FBI statement said investigators were following up on information recently received in the case, one of several the agency has revived in an effort to close decades-old cases from the civil rights era and before.

“The FBI and GBI had gotten some information that we couldn’t ignore with respect to this case,” GBI spokesman John Bankhead said.

Georgia state Rep. Tyrone Brooks, a longtime advocate for prosecution in the Moore’s Ford case, called news of the search encouraging.

“We just hope and pray they can bring some of these suspects to the bar of justice before they die, because they’re all getting up in age,” said Brooks, the president of the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials.

Investigations like the one into the Georgia slayings may have gotten another boost in the past week. A U.S. senator agreed to unlock a bill that would create a “cold case unit” at the U.S. Justice Department.

The legislation is sponsored by Democratic U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Georgia and passed 422-2 in the House. But Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma, used an obscure Senate rule to freeze the bill, just as he routinely does on efforts that require government spending.

The plan would authorize $10 million a year for the next 10 years for the Justice Department to create a unit prosecuting pre-1970 civil rights cases. Another $3.5 million would go annually toward the department’s cooperative efforts with local law enforcement.

But last week, a spokesman said Coburn would lift the hold in exchange for a vote on cutting Justice Department spending in other areas.

Law enforcement officials say they face a daunting task prosecuting the deaths of Roger and Dorothy Malcom and George and May Murray-Dorsey.

Many of the dozen or so men who opened fire on the couples with shotguns, rifles and a machine gun are now dead, they say. And in the days following the massacre, residents of the community about 40 miles east of Atlanta, Georgia, were tight-lipped with federal agents sent by President Truman to investigate.

But advocates like Brooks say they think there was enough evidence in FBI files at the time to bring a case against the suspects. He said his group has identified five suspects in the slayings who are still alive.

Morgan County chief sheriff’s Deputy Bruce Wright said the 12-acre area searched Monday and Tuesday may have once been a working farm. The written statement said the current residents of the area are not suspects.

Bankhead and Wright said a bomb squad was called in to detonate some old military-style ordnance found on the property, but those explosives were not thought to be relevant to the Moore’s Ford case.

The lynchings were officially re-opened for investigation by former Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes nearly eight years ago and were on a list of revived cold cases cited by former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales early last year.

Brooks said he and other advocates have noticed renewed activity by investigators in the area since then.

“We can feel their presence when we’re there,” he said. “Every time we do something, people show up that we’ve never seen before, and we know they’re not regular folks who live in Walton County. We don’t get in their way, and we don’t ask many questions.”

Historians say there has never again been a documented case of as many people being lynched — killed by mob without due process — in one attack in the United States since Moore’s Ford.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/07/01/lynching.investigation/index.html