The Legacy of Charles E. Scott

The Legacy of Charles E. Scott.

Charles E. Scott was a Black Worcester City Councillor in the early 20^th Century.  For a Black man to become a Worcester City Councilor was an accomplishment at a time when the Kluxers were strong in the United States and in Central New England. It is even more remarkable as he was not born in Worcester, but he came from Sterling Massachusetts. At that time according to the Dr. Thomas Doughton, the Methodist Church in Sterling was encouraging Black people from the South to join their church.

No Black man has become a Worcester City Councillor since the death of Charles E. Scott. Stacey Deboise Luster had become a Worcester City Councillor in 1990s, a first for a Black woman, but Charles Scott was the last Black male City Councillor.

Even today there is something of a barrier for those not native to Worcester to gaining elected office.  Charles Scott married Agnes Gimby a Nipmuc who was native to Worcester and had some influence. Perhaps that saying of a strong woman being behind a strong man is true. Charles Scott and his family especially his grandsons Ron and Keith deserve all of the honor and praise this City can give them. Moe Bergman the City Councillor deserves credit for expediting the plaque of Charles Scott.

Sometimes I have thoughts that the honoring of Charles Scott has been influenced by the Black Lives Matter new civil rights movement. During the old civil rights movement there were always tokens improvements given in hopes of forestalling greater social justice. 

The real legacy of Charles Scott might be the City Council elections of 2015 which hopefully will be more integrated than most City elections. William Coleman says he might run again, but he is apprehensive of the crowded field. Krystian King has already declared; he ran for State Representative a couple of years ago and lost by a narrow margin. Juan Gomez a former City Councillor and Executive Director of Centro Las Americas told me that he is running. A new coming Linda Parham, known for her work with the NAACP, is according to a source running for City Council. I have not been able to reach Ms. Parham to confirm.

There was a rumor that Sarai Rivera would run for an at large Councillor seat and for Mayor. She told me that this is not true and she would run in her district. She said that Mayor Joe Petty was doing a good job and she was backing him. When I asked Mayor Petty about the Mayoral race he said he was running and that Councillor Gaffney has a right to run against him. Mayor Petty did seem unduly concerned about Councillor Gaffney.

Mayor Petty is sometimes hard to read. I rode a commuter van to Boston with the Councillor Petty for a couple of years and he was always under control and pleasant. However one day I mentioned to him that I was going to bring an anti war petition to City Council. He said in a moment of candor that he wished I would stop harassing the Council. Later he said that I had the right to bring the petition. I can only guess that Councillor Gaffney’s run for Mayor is at least an annoyance to Mayor Petty.

Councillor Gaffney is well disliked by many in the Black community for his “I went to school and work at the same time speech” during the Black Lives Matter discussions. Councillor Lukes who because of her “I support the cops” resolution is more disliked by the same people, came to the Charles E. Scott event, although I did not see any Black person speak with her.

This issue of race in America is the leading political issue even when masked as something else. Thank you Councillor Scott for another opportunity to bring it forward.

Harsh Winter Means Homeless Emergency

Harsh Winter Means Homeless Emergency

There is a human rights emergency in the City of Worcester.  The so-called homeless are suffering in the more than 600 hours of continuous temperatures below freezing. The City Council’s Committee on Public Health, chaired by Councillor Sarai Rivera, held hearings on the matter on February 23, 2015.

The Triage Center, located on Queen St., has exceeded its capacity daily because of the extreme cold and snow. It is licensed for 25 beds but some nights over one hundred people spend the night. This number is not representative of the number of people who need shelter as many people do not meet the criteria of the Triage Center or choose to remain outdoors.  One person who attended the meeting, Paul, said that the staff of the Triage Center was sometimes confused about the requirements.

The number of people sheltering in the Triage Center has brought complaints from the Shepherd/ King St. Neighborhood Association which was represented by former City Councillor Barbara Haller. Ms. Haller and I have locked horns before on numerous issues, but in this case I think she is right despite her motives.  She said that the Triage Center was never intended to shelter over one hundred people on a daily basis. Forty people were acceptable, albeit a number exceeding the Center’s license for 25 beds.  The old PIP Shelter had 37 residents when it closed its doors and was replaced by the Triage Center.

South Middlesex Opportunity Council (SMOC) runs the Triage Center on the campus of Community Healthlink, a part of UMass Hospital. The SMOC representative, Charles Gagnon, detailed the efforts it was making to reduce the “overflow” of people to the Triage Center. He said that the goal was to develop a single point of entry for the people needing shelter; this is the vision developed by the Federal agency, Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Through HUD SMOC has 50 units of housing, 100 vouchers for housing and 15 housing slots. SMOC said it was looking at a long term solution of moving homeless people into housing.

Mr. Gagnon also said that the harsh winter, the closure of the Long Island Center in Boston, and the periodic mercy patrols by the Worcester Police have a part to play in the overcrowding. Although he admitted he should have included the City and the neighbors sooner in the discussion of the overcrowding he felt at the time the extreme weather and demand on the Triage Center would subside.

 Councillor Rivera said that the system is broken. Mary Keefe, the District’s State Representative said that she was just learning of the issue.  Hopefully Representative Keefe will come up with a strategy that the City can take to the State.

Councillor Rivera is right in that the system is broken. There does not seem to be the political will to resolve the underlying causes that make people “homeless”:  an economic system in which we live from check to check, a devastated safety net, the health issues of the homelessness, and the prejudice against even the sight of homeless and “panhandlers”.  

Although not a surprise it is a disappointment that more people, politicians, and candidates did come to the hearing. I suppose a human rights crisis does not matter when the people cannot vote or contribute to a campaign.

Residents, Citizens, and the Franchise

Residents, Citizens, and the Franchise 

Until relatively recently, residency was the only requirement for people to vote in state and local elections in some states. There has always been a requirement of citizenship for people to vote in Federal elections. At the turn of last century 40 states had laws allowing non citizen residents to vote.  By the early 1920s no state allowed non citizen residents to vote. The disenfranchisement of non citizens is thought by some to be a reaction to immigrant workers coming to the USA. To a certain extent it was also a reaction to the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia as seen in the so called Palmer Raids and deportations of radicals such as Emma Goldman.

It is time to take another look at the franchise for non citizen residents of Massachusetts. There are at least three cities that have sent home rule petition to the Massachusetts legislature that would have allowed non citizen residents to vote in city council and School Committee elections, Newton, Cambridge, and Amherst. The legislature failed to act on these home rule petitions.  These Massachusetts cities did not have a majority “minority” population or school enrollment.

Cities such as Worcester, Lowell, and Southbridge could likely benefit from the allowance of non citizen residents voting as they have an increasingly rising percentage of immigrant population. This implies that their city governments do not reflect in a true manner the population of their respective city. Worcester for example has a large relatively old population that has fewer children in the school system. For them the Worcester Public School might seem to be a drain on their taxes instead of an essential fabric of our society. Many parents of children in the Worcester Public Schools are immigrant permanent residents who can’t vote the aspirations of their children. Although the school committee has not shown any overt biases on this matter, sometimes it seems to me that it struggles understanding the issues facing the immigrant population.

Besides the moral fiber of our city being positively enhanced by non citizen residents voting in local election there are other persuasive arguments in its favor. The first is that the non citizen resident is being taxed without being able to have the same voice as other tax payers. There should be not taxation without representation. The second reason is that the franchise encourages non citizen residents to participate more fully in the community.

It has been made clear by many to me that they don’t want non citizen to vote in local elections. Some of these anti resident franchise people are part of a movement to remove the franchise from citizens by means of voter ID laws, voter suppression, and voter intimidation. This is especially adversely impactful in the some of the "minority" communities in which people with a CORI have been permanently disenfranchised even though they are citizens.

If a home rule petition to allow non citizen residents to vote in local elections to have a chance of passage in the Massachusetts legislature there will have to be collaboration by people in the Massachusetts cities with a relatively high immigrant population Worcester, Chelsea, and more.  Ironically the collaborators would have to resort to extra franchise tactics such as rallies , marches, sit-in, similar to that used by women suffragettes. This battle will more than likely be won in the streets instead of the State House.

Even if the respective home rule petition fails the collaboration will likely have a positive effect and improve Massachusetts image world wide as a global place not restricted by what seems at times the unreasonable restrictions of nationalism and reaction.

Sex, Justice Thomas, and Love

Sex, Justice Thomas, and Love

Clarence Thomas and I were classmates at the College of the Holy Cross. We used to be friends, but now I feel betrayed.  The feeling of betrayal was reinforced on February 9, 2015 when he dissented from the denial of the stay that would have halted the enforcement of the Appeals Court’s ruling that Alabama state laws were in violation of the United States Constitution in the matter of same sex marriage.

We called him Cooze, after Bob Cousy.  Cooze was a political leftist during our time at Holy Cross and he modeled himself in many ways after the Black Panthers. He wore the army boots, leather jacket, and beret. During his first year of Yale Law School Cooze was mistaken for a street youth. When came back to visit we told him to buy a suit.

I knew him to be a gentleman with women, especially Black women. It came as a surprise, when during his nomination to the Supreme Court, I learned that he had divorced his first wife and remarried. I was also surprised when he rejected his sisters who had been at one time on welfare. I was hurt when he attacked affirmative action and started to blame Black people for poverty and racism.

Homosexuality during our college years was looked down upon. It might have even been a crime. Whether you were homosexual or not,  there was a fear of being called a homosexual. I am happy that the meaness and bullying that once was targeted against people who loved or were perceived to love other people of the same sex has decreased. Discrimination against homosexuals is now illegal in most areas of society.

Even today I have an irrational fear of being known as a homosexual. Today I thought  I was mature enough to not care what people thought of me, but I still have an irrational aversion to being known as a homosexual. I guess some of the damage that we suffer as children never goes away.

The logic of the equal protection of the Constitution found in the Fourteenth Amendment is a compelling argument for same sex marriage. When Justice Thomas wrote his dissent I was not too upset about it. I thought it was just Clarence being Clarence.  

That feeling changed when at the Political Artist fundraiser for the legal defense of Black Lives Matters protesters one of the poets talk of his personal life. His father is Native Indian and his mother is White.  He told us that when he was a boy he said to his father that he did not want to marry a White woman. His father told him to shut up; his mother is White. His father then said “You will marry the person that you love”.

That story cut through the pretext of Justice Thomas’ Dissent. The feelings of anger toward Justice Thomas had its scab removed. It motivated me to read his Dissent and write this column. People should be able to marry anyone they love when consent is given.

Justice Thomas’ Dissent stated that Alabama should be allowed to discriminate against homosexuals based only on the fact that it was past practice. There was no logic, theory, nor socially redeeming value found in the Dissent. It also contained a conundrum for Justice Thomas. He said that he was defending the people of Alabama; somehow he forgot that the Plaintiffs are people too. 

Police, Tenants Union, and Diversity Recruitment

Police, Tenants Union, and Diversity Recruitment

Each NAACP meeting I go to seems to have a ton of information and some surprises. The meeting on February 5, 2015 was no different.

There was a report by the NAACP housing committee coordinator of a tenant union called the Fruit Sever Tenant Union which is in a legal battle with a landlord operating under HUD rules.  Some of the Tenant Union’s members have been threatened with arrest by the Worcester Police, should they enter the building and meet with the tenants who are also members. Reportedly this is against HUD rules for HUD associated buildings. The issue is now being worked on by Congressman Jim McGovern who is reported to be clarifying the rules with the Worcester Police. At least one member of the NAACP expressed criticism of the threats of arrest made by the Worcester Police.

Officers Spencer Tatum and Miguel Lope, both in the gang unit, gave a presentation of the City’s efforts to diversify the Worcester Police Department. Office Lopez is also the Affirmative Action Officer for the Worcester Police. Although that position has no job description, he does outreach to the different communities about the Civil Service Examination that applicants for the Police Department must pass. The Civil Service Exam is given every two and it is used by all of the cities and town’s police 

departments to choose candidates. An exam taker must be between 21 and 32 years of age in order for the Worcester Police to consider the exam taker for a police officer position. The City’s thinking is that it wants about 32 years of service from each police officer. There is a form of forced retirement at age sixty-five. It is not clear to me that this practice does not violate anti age discrimination statutes.  People under forty years old are not protected by the anti age discrimination statutes.

The City of Worcester Police Department is under a consent decree agreed to in 1980’s that require a police force of 19.9 percent Black and Latino. The Asian population is not included in the consent decree nor are women. Presently there are no Asian women in the Worcester Police Department. During the last Civil Service exam seven Asian women passed the exam, but they were quickly hired by police department in other Massachusetts political divisions. There are today two Black women police officers; both of whom are near retirement.

Veterans passing the Civil Service Exam are by law chosen before other candidates. The military police who served in Guantanamo and who have taken the Civil Service exam will likely be hired first. It is not known how many military veteran exam takers will be White, Black, or Latino. Almost all Worcester Police officer applicants have BA degrees, although this is not a requirement.

The fee for taking the exam is one hundred dollars. One member of the NAACP said that he was interested in taking the exam, but he was unemployed. He asked if someone could give him the money for the exam. Officer Lopez said that there was a community group that paid for “minorities” who showed need to get money for the fee.

The City Fire Department was also under a similar consent decree. When, surprisingly, it reached its goal of 19.9 percent Black and Latino firefighters, it petitioned the court to be relieved of the consent decree. Subsequent the percentage of so called minorities in the City Fire Department has steadily fallen. It was suggested that the “minority “communities again sue the City to have a new consent decree for the Worcester Fire Department.

City Manager Can Not Keep His Story Straight

He Could Not Keep His Story Straight

The City Manager, Ed Augustus,  and the Deputy Chief of the Worcester Police, Sargent  met at least one of the protesters from the MLK Day Black Lives Matter protest at Kelly Square that delayed traffic for four and one-half minutes. The Manager and the Deputy Chief proffered the deal that if there were no more of the same protests, then the City of Worcester would not seek criminal charges against the 40 to 50 people who participated in that protest. The Black lives Matter people turned down the deal telling the City Officials that the civil rights movement would not be intimidated by threats of arrests. At that point the City officials said that they would seek charges, although they did not say what charges they would seek.

In the meeting there was no discussion of the reform of the accountability of the Worcester Police to claims of Black Lives Matter protesters of racial profiling and police misconduct.  Over a 12 month period starting in October 2013 to October 2014 there were at least one hundred and thirty four complaints made against the Worcester police by “civilians”.  Most of these complaints were adjudicated as unsubstantiated by the City Police’s Standards Department.   What is interesting is that the number of complaints seems to be increasing.  This might be a sign that the Black Lives protests are mitigating the fear of the so called communities of color to speak of our grievances. Although not racist on its face, the threats of arrest will likely have a disparately racist impact on the community.

The outcome of the meeting was predictable.  The strange public announcements by the City Manager and the Police Chief, Gary Gemme, which preceded the meeting, were not predictable. The Police Chief stated in an article in the Worcester Telegram that he was compelled to seek charges because of a video he saw on Youtube.  A day later the City Manager said that Chief Gemme did not act on his own when he said that he was going to charge the protesters. The City Manager said in his interview that he ordered Chief Gemme to look for something to charge the protesters, because of “public safety” concerns.  The City Manager then said that he had not seen the video because it was locked at Youtube. This raises the question of the accuracy of Mr. Augustus and Chief Gemme statements. How is it possible for Police Chief Gemme to look for something to charge protesters based on a video when the City Manager said that he ordered Chief Gemme to do so before the City Manager ever saw the video? Sometimes it is hard to get the story straight, especially when City Council asks for the “protocols” of protests.

Reviewing the video it is my inexpert opinion there is nothing with which to charge the protesters. I think that the City Council will have to come up with a new oppressive ordinance to charge the protesters, such as “spending too much time in a cross walk”. As with the panhandling issue the City Council will use the pretext of “public safety”.   The poor, the homeless, and racism are issues that the City officials would prefer to keep out of sight.

Worcester Cops Retaliate Against Protesters

Retaliation and Harassment

At the January 13, 2015 Worcester City Council meeting Councillor Lukes said that the Worcester Police were reduced to the tactics of harassment to drive out the people she did not like near her rental property in the Canal District.  The same seems to be taking place again with the Black Lives Matter protesters.

On January 20, 2015 Worcester Police Chief Gemme said that he was looking for something to charge the Black Lives Matter protesters who blocked Kelly Square on MLK Day. About 50 protesters, some holding signs on the sidewalk and others standing in the crosswalk, held up traffic for four and one half minutes to bring attention to the four and one-half hours Michael Brown lay dead in the street after being shot by Ferguson Mo. Police.

Like Councillor Lukes said, the Worcester Police has been again reduced to the personal, of some government officials, tool of retaliation and harassment.  The evidence that Chief Gemme is retaliating and harassing is the fact that he could not articulate any charges that could be brought against the protesters. His comments that he was looking into a “variety “charges is evidence of the pretext.

The protesters who blocked I 93 near Boston two weeks ago were charged with trespassing, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and willfully blocking an ambulance. None of these charges apply to any of the protesters in Worcester. The sidewalks and crosswalks are public spaces and there was not a trespassing violation.  The police did not witness any disorderly conduct. There were no arrests and therefore there could not have been any resistance of arrest. The protesters allowed the ambulance to pass without the ambulance stopping.

The City Council will have to create another oppressive ordinance to charge the Black Lives Matter protesters like it did when it banned poor and homeless people from asking for help by the means of panhandling.  Once again it will hide behind the straw man of “public safety”.

At the City Council meeting of January 20, 2015 Councillor Lukes and others compelled the City Manager to explain the “protocols” for demonstrations. Although the Black Lives Matter demonstrations have gone on for months, the City Manager Ed Augustus had not said much about them. Now he is speaking against them, aiding the police in its retaliation and harassment.  The City Manager is supposed to be the “civilian” review board for the City. It is clear that he is not capable of making any necessary reforms to the Worcester Police Department, even though he is the titular boss.

I can’t remember any time that the City Council deliberated any policy for the Worcester Police Department. As a rule it allows the Police Chief to do as he see fit and the City Managers just rubber stamps the Police activities. It is ironic that police policy was deliberated at the January 20, 2015 City Council meeting when the issue of how to handle the Black Lives Matter protests was discussed.

I was told that the City Council has requested about forty reports from the City Manager about the activities of the Worcester Police and none have been given to the Worcester City Council. The Chief of Police uses as an excuse for non compliance the lack of personnel to do the research. No one really knows what is going on in the Worcester Police Department.

The following are a list of issues that the City Council should be setting policy, but is not: prostitution in Main South, increased shootings in the City, increased overdoses in the City, the need or lack of need for stationary license plate readers, and the use of body cameras. What are the City Council’s respective policies that it wants to the City Manager to instruct the Police to effectuate? Do not expect anything controversial on these issues this election cycle.

The harassment of the Black Lives Matter protesters by the Worcester Police and by some in City Council is unethical and possibly illegal. The City government is wasting people’s money and time by looking for new laws to harass the protesters. Instead it should be having open discussions about real policing policies, including police misconduct.