No genocide here
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By Published by The Editorial Board
Published: May 31, 2008
Danville is not like Darfur
To the editor:
In response to, “Darfur and our struggle with ‘urban genocide,’” (May 18, page B6), Danville is no Darfur. Nor are we in a “genocide.”
Genocide in Darfur began in 2003, and there are more than 400,000 dead, 2 million are displaced and 5,000 dying ever month.
I can assure you that the NAACP, Lott Carey Foreign Mission, The African Union and other international peace keepers are in a constant campaign to stop the African rebels. The problem has been the news media does not want to display the desperation of Darfur to the world community, so the situation worsens.
It was heart breaking to hear this writer refer to Danville as a Darfur. There is nothing going on here as in Darfur. Danville is suffering in an economic fall from the loss of Dan River Inc. and other companies. If there had been more attention from the government placed on economic development starting in the late 1970s, perhaps then something could have been done and some things prevented.
Who got caught? People went to Dan River Inc. to stay until retirement. They did not chose to upgrade. They just didn’t feel the mill would ever leave.
So what does this have to do with the black-on-black crime? Everything. We can help ourselves — and we do — but then there are the wheels of some injustices that still turn — and not in our favor.
We were told we had to learn to type, and we did. They said you had to type so many words a minute, so we did. Now you needed computer training, so we learned that, too. Now we need Excel, Word, PowerPoint. We got that.
Well, now you know what’s going on. It’s the numbers game, the ratio of black to white. Tell me, how many walls do you have to break down to get ahead?
Some people, I admit, don’t have the knowledge or skills. Going back to school after 30-40 years of working and trying to get a GED is challenging and scary. Some can, but not everyone.
If you want to compare Danville to Darfur, ask who gives the guns to the teenagers or brings the drugs to drug pushers. Where do they get the poison they bring here to sell? Who gives the guns to the African rebels? You can find a gun a lot quicker than a job. Why do so many young people get so discouraged so fast in trying to better themselves, finding that there is still racial disparity, job disparity and economic disparity handed to them with so much ease? I have the education and training, so what’s the problem?
I was sharing with a young lady this week about how her immediate supervisor gave her a good job evaluation, then added some very harsh and inaccurate statements at the end about her character.
No, dear one, Danville is no Darfur — and never will be. If you want to do something for Darfur, the NAACP Web site and other places will show you where you can make a big difference. No one is trying to keep from helping you, we are participating with other organizations that are helping our own.
DELILAH MANGUM
Danville
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Posted by ( Jayne ) on May 31, 2008 at 10:33 pm
As I said at the SCLC Police Conduct Forum and as was pointed out at the Darfur Forum, and was expressed at the recent SCLC Forum: discrimination through the magnifying glass is genocide. Things is the cosmic mirror are sometimes smaller or larger in scale, and at the last SCLC Forum, we touched a little upon why some of us contend what is going on in the U.S. is a form of “genocide,“ occurring on a micro-scale that reflects the huge atrocities on a macro scale in Darfur. Unfortunately, there is a persistent element of the Caucasian community that considers discrimination isolated cases, or “urban myth,“ and is in denial of what, if one looks at the statistics (a very short summary of which were presented at the SCLC Forum), cannot be denied. In the same manner, it is NOT the rebels waging the genocide in Darfur as you stated, nor is it specifically Arab against non-Arab violence, but a government-backed, part ethnic, but largely political and cultural systemmatic destruction of a people. Granted, part of the problems of homicide being the number one cause of death for AA young males in the U.S., the shorter life expectancy for AA’s in the U.S. compared to other groups, that out of 5 AA pregnancies, 3 end in abortion at a time when infant mortality is skyrocketing in the AA community (while declining in the U.S. overall and in places like Africa), etc., stem from lingering historial injustice and the slow process of social change, and part does stem from policies, often well-intended, that simply become racist in effect. But, part IS intentional on a scale that would horrify most in the white community if they knew…I remember watching C-Span a while back when an undercover FBI agent whose job it was to infiltrate white supremacist/neo-Nazi domestic terror cells discussed how Machiavellian shrewd, well-organized, and networked underground this dangerous element is. With the advent of the field of social psychology over the last few decades, we have seen the deliberate manipulation of population groups on a sociological scale to foster certain actions and red-herring away from certain problems/policies for the nefarious interests of a select few (and destroying much of our nation in the process). It is too bad that the paper had to edit out some of the piece I had written to demonstrate the social injustice is part of what fuels the violence in Darfur, just as social injustice fuels the violence in urban areas (like losing Dan River and other manufacturing jobs locally)...government policies intentionally or unintentionally exacerbating or causing destruction of a group…some of the historic parallels…there are so many similarities it is striking and frightening. I am sorry if the comparison to Darfur offended you, but I still contend what is going on with the crisis in the AA community is deliberately imposed in part and a form of intentional destruction of a group for racial, political, and cultural reasons, which is the very definition of genocide…and death rates bear that out, it is just on a much smaller scale than what we see in Darfur, but every bit as nefarious and morally repugnant. Just as trying to paint the situation in Darfur as Arab vs. non-Arab solely, or denying it is government-backed, or the world turning its eyes away from Rwanda, or the lead up to the Holocaust crept in covertly and began with hushed whispers of what might be taking place as Jews were scapegoated to take blame for economic problems (policy-imposed), it is time the white community stopped denying persistent discrimination and racism and start to hold an open dialogue about healing what has, in karmic fashion, destroyed communities en masse and much of the nation as a whole. We all have a stake in human and planetary survival, and I contend there are physics laws at play behind what is happening in places like Danville, now suffering across the board from crime and poverty and joblessness, etc. I know it makes people uncomfortable, but I intend to speak my mind, as I hope you will again, too, dear Delilah, by coming to the second SCLC Forum on Tuesday night at Mt. Carmel Baptist, at 6:00 p.m., where we will specifically be addressing, among other questions, what is making some people not value life: whether it is throwing children into a fire in Darfur or stabbing or shooting someone in cold blood in Danville or pushing drugs into the community. Although I know the turnout at the Darfur event was small in the context of the stature of someone like Tom Perriello as keynote, I was actually very pleased that about 40 people showed up for our first event in little Danville! We hope to build on that, from the perspective of praying globally, but also acting locally. We are all our brother’s keeper, should love our neighbor as ourselves, and can join together to stop the killing, and start the healing, on a global and a local scale—because life IS interconnected. Anybody who disagrees, please come to the forum! Let’s talk about it! Dialogue is necessary to advance social change and make progress, and we don’t all have to agree on everything. But if we can agree on just one thing, as we did in uniting those of Muslim, Jewish, Christian, and other faiths at the Darfur Forum and again at the SCLC Forum last month, we have some common ground on which to build. And it is from such small seeds that movements can grow. Don’t we all want less crime in Danville and to feel safe in our homes or when we go to the grocery store? Don’t we all want good jobs and a nice home and to be able to afford our utilities and to fill our gas tanks to get around? Don’t we all want to keep our kids safe from drugs and to offer them a good education and opportunity for a promising future? Cleaning out a wound is painful and ugly, but necessary to get rid of the infection, before stitches can be sewn to begin the mending. I appreciate your letter and your voice, and hope to hear more of your thoughts on Tuesday, along with others who may disagree—because in the areas we CAN find agreement, maybe that’s where we can also find the SOLUTIONS, for what plagues Danville, the U.S., and so many places in the world today. Peace. Jayne
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