No “Color” on the Color Guard

Four years ago as I sat watching the newly elected members of City Council being lead into the City Council Chamber by a retinue of Cleveland police officers to be sworn into office I noticed something: All of the police officers on the Color Guard detail were white — and this in a city that was more than half minority at the time.

I posed a question about this lack of inclusion to a couple of high-ranking members of the Cleveland Police Department afterward, and was informed that this was just an unintentional oversight, an unfortunate aberration, and steps would be taken to insure that it doesn’t happen again. I took the officers at their word and didn’t write anything about it at the time.

Well, it’s now four years later, and at the recent swearing in ceremony, once again the members of the Color Guard were again all white … and this in a city that has nine black City Council members and a black mayor — not to mention that now it’s 65 percent minorities. It’s obvious to me that I was snookered … hoodwinked … bamboozled … flat-out lied to. I was played like a six-string guitar.

To be fair, a high-ranking member of Mayor Jackson’s administration has assured me that he has indeed been to events where the Color Guard has included minority members, and I’ll take him at his word. Nonetheless, this little faux pas —which, by the way, is not so little to members of the Cleveland community that was overlooked — is indicative of a broader systemic problem that continues to plague Cleveland: The failure to insure that all of the city’s diverse demographic groups are fairly represented in all instances.

A long-retired black Cleveland police officer (who served over 35 years on the force and wishes to remain unnamed) just laughed and shook his head when I questioned him about the practice of excluding minorities and women from the Color Guard. “We raised hell about that issue years ago and thought that we gotten it solved … maybe we didn’t. Back then it was part of the white guys sense of entitlement, of white privilege … they honestly felt they were the only ones who should be assigned to that kind of duty, and I guarantee you that four years from now it could be exactly the same thing — all-white, all-male — unless someone has to courage to step up and do something about it.”

Zack Reed seems to be the only member of City Council to “get” it. “This kind of failure to insure inclusiveness is just the part you can sometimes see … it’s the tip of an ugly iceberg and is indicative of how all sort of business is routinely conducted in this city. I attend a lot of functions all around town, and the continued lack of diversity at these meetings is startling in this day and age. Where is the major media on this? They will never touch on the issue of racism by exclusion, which is right in everyone’s face on a day-in, day-out basis.”

Sonja Wilkerson was a lifelong Clevelander, but she advised both her son and daughter to relocate elsewhere after college, and after they settled down in Charlotte, NC she followed them. “Cleveland is still far too backwards when it comes to inclusion, and no one there seems to give a damn about it. How do you expect to keep bright young people, and attract more talent if you refuse to address this issue? Perhaps the mayor should make it a part of someone’s job to insure this kind of omission doesn’t happen again, at least at official city functions. It certainly wouldn’t happen here in Charlotte — people would be raising holy hell if it did. Cleveland residents would rather just stick their collective head into the sand about and pretend that this doesn’t exist or is not important, but it is. It’s not going to fix itself … inclusion has to be worked at on a daily basis, it doesn’t just happen in America without someone focusing on it.”

Former Ward 6 City Councilman Ken Lumpkin said, “When you see this kind of failure to insure that inclusion is on everyone’s radar, you have to wonder about how well minorities will fare in a larger, regionalized political construct. If no one is paying any attention to issues of fairness and inclusion in a majority black city, what are the chances that fairness and inclusion will prevail once city residents are subsumed into a larger, countywide government?”


East High

What’s that old saying: “You don’t miss your water till the well runs dry.” Now that East High is threatened with being closed hordes of people showed up to castigate Cleveland Schools CEO Eugene Sanders for putting the school on the list of schools to be shuttered. He’s in a damned-if-you-do/damned-if-you-don’t position. If he acquiesces and shifts his sights to another high school he’ll face another group of angry residents. The simple fact is, no one wants “their” school closed.

However, faced with shrinking enrollments due to a drop in population (and students transferring to charter schools) it’s evident that some under-performing schools are going to face closure. It Sanders fails to institute a restructuring plan that meets with the Obama Administration’s approval, he runs the risk of losing some much-needed federal funding.

However, all need not be lost. Neighborhood residents could come together and turn East High into a charter high school — one the community could run. But, given the fact that most of the people who were raising hell at the meeting prefer to do just that — raise hell (rather than do the hard work of assuring their progeny are prepared for success in their academic careers) — it’s doubtful they will come together and make a charter school happen.

In too many cases these hell raisers will simply go back to watching TV in the evening rather than helping their kids with homework and doing all of the other nuts and bolts things responsible parents should be doing. If they want a quality charter school they have to get up off their asses and make it happen. It’s far too easy for parents to point an accusatory finger at the schools and teachers — and anyone else for that matter — for failing their offspring (which is certainly true in some cases … some schools are horribly run) while ignoring the fact that the prime responsibility for insuring their children get a proper education rests chiefly with them. These folks need to quit shifting the blame to someone else … they’re the one’s who brought the child into the world.

Animals 1 — Humans 0

It didn’t take long for the ongoing battle between man and beast to heat up this year. Some folks simply refuse to accept the fact God did not intend for humans to keep His magnificent feral creatures locked away in cages. They deserve to be free.

On Sunday, Jan. 9, according to news report, “the Canadian owner of a tiger, after winning a lengthy legal battle for the right to keep exotic pets, was mauled to death by the 650-pound animal.”

Now, I’m unalterably opposed to the death penalty and don’t like to see any living thing get hurt, but, in this case, as heartless as it might sound — I say “hooray for the tiger!”

The article stated, “Norman Buwalda, 66, was found dead in the tiger's pen on his property in rural Ontario.” But here’s the real kicker, "We don't know what may have provoked or caused the attack," a police official said.

How about this for an explanation: Tigers see people as lunch, no more than a tasty snack. And just because some jerk manages to keep feral animals pent up in cages for years doesn’t mean the nature of the beasts has changed … they are still, and always will remain, what God intended for them to be: feral creatures, and they should not be kept in cages under any circumstances other than for necessary and specific medical research.

Buwalda had two tigers, as well as two lions and a cougar at one time, but one of the tigers died last year, police said. “In 2004, a tiger attack on a 10-year-old boy visiting the property sparked a two-year legal battle between Buwalda and the nearby Southwold Township over the council's subsequent ban on keeping wild animals as pets."

“The boy was hospitalized after reportedly slipping and falling near one of Budwalda's tigers, which had been brought out of its cage on a heavy chain to be photographed for the boy's school report on Buwalda's exotic pets. Buwalda challenged the ban in court, and won. An Ontario Superior Court judge ruled the bylaw was flawed and too broad.”

It took a while, but justice eventually won out in this case, and, as cruel as it might sound, I’m eagerly awaiting the next victory by one of our feral friends somewhere in the world as they attempt to regain their freedom … or at least have one of their “handlers” over for dinner.

Perhaps only those humans who have been locked up understand. I broke the law and once deserved to be incarcerated; but feral animals commit no crimes, and therefore should not be punished by man.

From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier's From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://www.frombehindthewall.com.