Our Time PressThe Local Paper with the Global View

Inspector Timothy Pearson stood in front of the barber shop and looked over the crime scene for any evidence that may have been overlooked by the detectives. It was only hours earlier that a career criminal=s body lay dead on the same side walk from a single shot to the chest from a police officer’s gun.
Reports indicated that the deceased had just performed a gun point robbery of a patron in the barber shop. He then left the establishment and was confronted by two uniformed police officers. After a reported confrontation, the armed career criminal was shot and killed.
It was only days earlier that Inspector Pearson sat in one of the barber chairs and received his weekly hair cut. His mind allowed him to go back to the incident involving an off-duty police officer who found herself involved in a shoot out with armed robbers while she was in her hair salon. As he observed the curious onlookers, he saw many familiar faces and it reinforced why he spent so much time in the Fort Greene-Clinton Hill community where the 88th Precinct is located. The assignment is more than a nine to fiver. It is an obsession to bring a level of normality to a community that has known its share of crime and violence.
Many of the onlookers knew him by first name and was happy to see an African-American man in such a prestigious rank in the New York City Police Department. He understood that with the title of Inspector (and Black man), came an awesome responsibility to ensure fairness and justiceBBsomething that has often alluded residents of minority communities. This task is even more difficult when you have a full understanding of the financial and ethnic demographics of the community he is responsible for. Fort Greene and Clinton Hill have homeowners with million dollar properties standing side by side with families that are on pubic assistance. This mixture of have and have nots often bring about a violences and conflict.
Inspector Pearson=s 12 hour days have paid off and the result is that he has prevented those conflicts from taking place. He would be the first to tell you that much of his success has little to do with crime fighting and more to do with caring. He cared enough to self fund and run several youth summer programs in his precinct while the city was cutting these much needed services. A significant number of children participated in his summer time daily organized events. These deeds were similar to what he did in East New York Brooklyn, when he was the commanding officer of Housing Public Service Area 2.
Even critics of the community policing concept will have to agree that Inspector Pearson=s proactive style of approaching public safety paid off during the investigation into the case involving the armed gun man who was shot by the police in front of the barber shop. This was due to the fact that when backup police officers responded, no one was able to locate the gun that the assailant was supposed to have been carrying.
The absence of a gun in any other precinct would have been cause for many in the community to call for an investigation into possible police brutality. This was not the case here. The detectives in charge of investigating the case stated that they could not get enough help from community residents, who volunteered first-hand accounts of the case and gave information relating to what happened to the missing gun. Many of the witnesses clearly indicated their willingness to come forward which had a lot to do with their deep trust and respect for Inspector Pearson.
That respect has turned into respectable decreases in the seven major crime categories. These are national indicators that are used to determine the safety of a given area. Inspector Pearson style of policing has also helped to bridge the gap between the police department and the community that they are sworn to serve and protect. It is clear that because of this a possible frontpage controversial police shooting became a back page success story of the police and public working together to solve a crime.
Let us hope one day our city will reach the point where these forms of cooperation for public safety will also be worthy of breaking news headlines.

The injustices of the Jim Crow era of separate economic and social circles for whites and blacks, have been well-documented.  Signs such as ANo Negroes allowed@ and AWhites Only@ are familiar symbols of a time when Black people were forced to trade among themselves, patronizing Black-owned stores and businesses.   Under such constraints, we made economic advances in the decades after slavery that are striking today.
One of the most important speeches in American history was made by Booker T. Washington, founder of Tuskeegee Institute, at the opening of the Cotton States and International Exposition, in Atlanta, Ga., on September 18, 1895.  Dubbed the AAtlanta Compromise@, Mr. Washington seemed to acquiesce to the injustices but his speech must be seen in the context of its time, when terrorists, who at the most visible, lynched an average of more than one hundred Black people per year from 1882-1901.  One hundred and thirty-four are known to have been lynched only a year before Mr. Washington spoke.
In that context, we can see that Mr. Washington had his work cut out for him as he spoke in the Negro Building at the Exposition.    He had his personal safety and that of his institution to think about.   He had Northern philanthropists Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller on his mind, men who were vital to Tuskeegee=s mission of educating a people.  And he had his fellow newly-freed people on his mind also, people who were recovering from the trauma of the slave experience while still under daily attack. 
Mr. Washington=s call for Black people to concentrate on industrial skills and education rather than social integration was resoundingly received by the first two constituencies, but many blacks, W.E.B DuBois being the most prominent, were not happy with the appearance of retreat from social progress.  But Mr. Washington=s approach was more of a strategic withdrawal than a retreat: time for the enemy to become civilized, time for people to be educated and strengthened.
The Jamestown Exposition of 1907, took place twelve years after Mr. Washington=s speech.  The following account, written at the time, is a window on the advances made by black people under severe circumstances and following Mr. Washington=s model. 
As we look around Brooklyn today, with Acivil rights@ laws giving full access to venues such as Marriott and the Waldorf, we have to ask, AHow far have we come economically in the last ninety-six years and what would Mr. Washington think of our >progress=?@  DG

Much has been made of, and I think we are all very grateful for, the judgment and intelligence of President Barack Obama and he is certainly handling his job with a grace and ease that is comforting, but what the country needs now is more than that. Of that famous “check him out” game with Michelle Obama’s big brother Craig Robinson, Mr. Robinson reported to the Democratic Convention, “If you’re looking for a political analysis based on his playing, here it is: he’s confident but not cocky, he’ll take the shot if he’s open, he’s a team player who improves the people around him, and he won’t back down from any challenge.” Left unanswered is the question, Did he ever try to drive through to the hoop and take the hit from the 6 ‘6″ two-time Ivy League Player of the Year? Because that’s the Obama who has to get on the court now.

He has been thinking deeply about the various options available to him in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has listened to passionate voices on all sides and we can be sure he has reviewed several scenarios. But as a thoughtful man, he is surely doing his calculations in the context of the nation’s needs and what else is happening in the world.

In recent comments at the introduction of his “Education To Innovate” Campaign, the President made some observations which should send chills through anyone who is concerned about the future of the children of Brooklyn. He said, “You know, I was in Asia, I think many of you are aware, for a week, and I was having lunch with the President of South Korea, President Lee.　 And I was interested in education policy — they’ve grown enormously over the last 40 years.　 And I asked him, what are the biggest challenges in your education policy?　 He said ‘the biggest challenge that I have is that my parents are too demanding.’　 (Laughter)　 He said, ‘even if somebody is dirt poor, they are insisting that their kids are getting the best education.’　 He said, ‘I’ve had to import thousands of foreign teachers because they’re all insisting that Korean children have to learn English in elementary school.’　 That was the biggest education challenge that he had, was an insistence, a demand from parents for excellence in the schools….And the same thing was true when I went to China.　 I was talking to the Mayor of Shanghai, and I asked him about how he was doing recruiting teachers, given that they’ve got 25 million people in this one city.　 He said, ‘We don’t have problems recruiting teachers because teaching is so revered and the pay scales for teachers are actually comparable to doctors and other professions.’”

As his education campaign opened the President said also that, “One assessment shows American 15-year-olds now rank 21st in science and 25th in math when compared to their peers around the world.”　 In November 23rd remarks to his Cabinet regarding the spiraling unemployment rate, the President spoke of how businesses “have learned to produce the same amount of goods with fewer people.” And that presents “significant challenges in terms of us creating more jobs in this economy.”

And then, of course, he is thinking of the health care debate, where as the only industrial nation in the world without universal coverage, he has to face a health insurance industry that is fighting on all fronts to ensure its existence and prevent a “single-payer” program from happening.

As the President is looking at all of this while reading his briefing books in Air Force One, Marine One or in the limo they call “The Beast” and pondering, as he said to his Cabinet, that the keys to solving his domestic problems can be found in investing in “infrastructure and green technology”, he knows he just needs the money to do it and he knows these wars are costing $720 million dollars a day.

The Chinese, who are financing this whole venture by their willingness to purchase Treasury Notes, may have brought this to his attention in the President’s recent visit, just for assurance that their investment is safe, but not so much as to dissuade him from pursuing an inevitably weakening course.

So as the President looks at the various war scenarios, he will no doubt note the common elements of a loss of life and treasure to no certain end except that we know in the end, we will leave. Having called for the ball, this is where the President has to drive to the hoop and take the hit. He can define a concept around which to declare an early victory, perhaps in the demonstration that this nation will cause pain and destruction when we feel threatened, and having made that point, we can now bring all forces, including the private contractors, home in a quick-hurry, and the $720 million-dollars-a-day cost of these wars can then be spent on investing in the health and education of the core asset and strength of any nation, its people.

The President is well aware that it is critical that the United States return to these basics if we are to compete in a world that is changing as never before, at a computer-enabled pace. And as for the hit, he’ll be giving Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and that crew a push with their ratings. But that will only of interest until resources start flowing to state and local governments for projects that put people to work. After that, in this scenario, Obama will go into the next election looking like new money.