The Sadness of Being Misled by City Bosses

The Sadness of an Inevitable Outcome.

On June 8, 2015 the Department held its third “discussion on race relations “in the AME Zion Church in Worcester Massachusetts. In many ways it was sad. I saw good people being misled by politicians, bosses, and those who are paid to pretend. Most of these people are good people, but they are trapped in a power structure of Worcester MA.  On the other hand I saw also saw brave people speaking truth to power.

Before the event, about a dozen people held signs saying “DOJ investigate WPD” and “Jobs – Yes, Racist Cops – No”. The group was from Massachusetts Human Rights Committee, Progressive Labor Party, and several said that they were not affiliated with any group, but were concerned about the issues.

More than eighteen “representatives” of break out groups from the discussions on race relations in Worcester, called “tables” gave summaries of the discussion at his respective table. It was clear that some of the representatives were self appointed facilitators and when they spoke it was not representative of the discussion at the table. For example at the table at which I was sitting I spoke of the lack of input regarding the use of deadly force policy of the police and the lack of policy regarding the neighborhood task force. These were never mentioned by the representative. There is evidence that the facilitators were instructed on how to minimize sharp criticism of the police.

Although good people the representatives spoke of old ideas that were raised decades ago and blocked by the City of Worcester, especially the Worcester Police Department. New proposals such as the Department of Justice investigating the Worcester Police were censored even though it was raised at several different tables.

Once again the bullies showed up with their seeming hatred and aggressiveness toward Black Women. One White right wing “activist” from Main South got into a heated in your face yelling match with a Black Woman organizer. Another so called activist Republican who has a TV13 show, intimidated and harassed a Black Women holding “No Racism, No Sexism, No Police Misconduct”. I can only assume that they are friends at least in spirit with the right wing blogger attacking Black women leaders in the City.

The police did not show up for the discussion on race relations. In some ways this was good for the participants as many said that they felt safer when the cops were not around.  The absence of the police also provided a pretext for the City and the Police Department not to answer questions about policy.

I doubt the next discussion on June 15. 2015 will be different, only just more of the same.