Apologies to all who have been following along as Newark Councilman Ron Rice chronicled Sundance Channel's 5-night documentary about his city, Brick City. We were both in Atlantic City, and the Trump folks screwed up my internet, so I couldn't help post this till now. It's still worth reading, and Brick City is worth looking for, in cable On Demand and in replay. The series drew considerable attention to Mayor Cory Booker and the city council and police department he works, and the people who live in NJ's largest city. Ron watched every episode, then wrote about it in the wee hours of the morning - Newark's leaders keep late hours. Expect this series to be in competition for film awards, and expect it to be shown again. Here's Ron, about Night Four. - - promoted by Rosi
On the 4th night of Sundance Channel's Brick City, you see a major internal city government fight in Newark during 2008: who will run the Newark Police Department, the Police Director or the Police Chief? Both men, Director Garry McCarthy and Chief Anthony Campos, are hardworking men of their word and fighting the good fight. Campos, however, is a Newark born and bred cop from the city's Portugese community that rose up through the ranks to a top law enforcement position. Director McCarthy is an Irish cop from NYC. Some, in the city and within the Police Department, have a strong case of xenophobia, an irrational fear and/or resentment of outsiders, some of it justified, some of it is a knee jerk fall back position that helps to stop change in our city. Its roots are found in the resentment of the city's African American and Latino population to the white flight that started in the '40s, picked up steam in the '50s, and was complete in the late '60s and early '70s. It is also grounded in the fact that Newark's population during the day swells to close to 500,000, but goes back down to 281,000 after 5:00 PM. Many feel that people just use our city to make money, get what they need and have no real commitment to our city or its people. So, the attitude is stay out, we that live here can solve our own problems without anyone's help and indeed, we don't want any new immigrants, income diverse people from NYC and other places, etc. coming to "our" city because it just means trouble. Add to the mix that the Police Director is trying to change a culture within the Department, change policing techniques to be more aggressive (he has moved lots of desk police back to street patrol and altered a department that had a majority of its force working 9 to 5 to working when crime actually occurs), and the fact that Mayor Booker was not born and raised in Newark and you see the resentment of the "outsiders" trying to take over Newark at the expense of good, Newark born people like Campos and others that were laid off from City Hall as we shrink government and the new businesses and condos that are coming downtown. In the end, the city council supported the Mayor and his request to support him by supporting the man he brought in to lead the agency to record reductions in crime, but I like the comment that has traction beyond this fight from David Cruz, on air personality at our Jazz 88 radio station in Newark: "No matter how much good you get done, there is always someone that will put out something that you are F@#king up on."
You get a really good inside look at gang life in the city. Jiwe, an author and Blood member says that as long as there is poverty, no jobs, projects, crack, there will be gangs. It is hard not to like Jiwe as he knocks down stereotypes. He is intelligent, prolific, clear minded, but gang related, like Jayda. You see why gang life is attractive in poor urban communities because it is not all violence, murder and drug dealing. In fact, that is only a part of it (a major part, but not the only one). Gang life is family, support, even fun times. It is protection, acceptance and, yes, love in a world where Todd Warren said last night, men do not know how to show love to one another. Crime is a small exchange for this sense of belonging that no one else is offering or providing. The key challenge is, how do we take these gangs and make them gangs that support our community and indeed build community in Newark? How do we educate them and make them emulate groups like the Black Panthers that fed our communities, politically educated themselves and others and protected our neighborhoods from crime and destruction?
Jayda's case progresses. Now that she is doing right, old bad habits and her past could disrupt it. This is a message to all of our young people that your past can be an anchor around your neck so don't start down that path in the first place.
Ringling Bros circus comes back to Newark. The Prudential Arena has been a mixed blessing for the city of Newark. Good events, spurring new venues and nightlife in downtown Newark, great events like Miley Cyrus, Lil Wayne, Gospel fest, and Devil's hockey (when r we going to get out of the first round of the playoffs). But the perception is that there is too much police protection for the "outsiders" that come here to the city to just use us and take vitally needed police protection from the neighborhoods. The city has also been in constant fight mode with the Devils over non payment of rent, lack of needed certificates of occupancy, water bill payments, even street and campus improvements that they are responsible for all after the fact that the city has done all we promised.
Lastly, we meet Hood Ru, Blood gang member and friend to Jiwe's set...briefly, because he commits suicide. Gang life is hard and a hard life and the lesson that all, not some, will eventually end up dead, in jail for extended periods of time making them unemployable, or crazy mentally just does not get through. Gang life, no matter what Jiwe and others may say in the documentary, are recipes for an early death, a lifetime of abject poverty, and relegation to a permanent underclass as well as their progeny and offspring that will come into the world with two strikes against them and worst odds for a better life than his mom or dad. but most in that lifestyle don't think they will live that long. Most do, and their lives are many times unsaveable. Stay tuned.
Brick City aired five straight nights this week, on the Sundance Channel. Expect it to be rebroadcast.
One of the emerging themes in Forest Whitaker's 5-night documentary film on Newark, Brick City, is that some of Newark's youngest can't always count on what they need. Can't count on a job, their own safety, their school to be ready, a future waiting for them to grow up into. Newark Councilman Ron Rice has been writing a chronicle of these episodes as they unspool every night, and the murders of 3 college students last night's film deals with happened in the West Ward. His ward. Here's Blue Jersey's coverage of that awful day. In this episode, young people are in struggle. And in this diary, a Councilman supports his Mayor, but disagrees on a few key points. - - - promoted by Rosi
Tonight you see the stark real choices we have to make with a major budget crisis and competing demands to keep the level of services up, expand on policing resources (new police recruits, technology, overtime, etc.), new community initiatives, etc. In 2008, we cut every departments' budget by 15% across the board, except the Newark Police Department.
You see the father of two victims of the horrible tragedy that befell our three college students in 2007 at Mt. Vernon School at a support group for fathers of murdered children where Ali Muslim is also a member with King Sau. Those murders still haunt me every day as they occurred in my ward in the back of the school playground that I routinely to this day jog by at 10 and 11 PM @ night. Those murders of our babies violated what was best about our city in the most racially and culturally diverse area of the city. It was also, in my opinion, what ignited the city to fight back collectively against the scourge of crime and drugs in our community. Ali Muslim says it best when talking about the pain and desire to seek revenge against those that killed his child:
It is a struggle...but I am trying, trying to be a better man.
You also see a charge of police harassment and brutality. You also see the Police Director's staff not doing what was necessary to react or correct the alleged abuse of power. Here is a major difference of opinion that I have with the Mayor and his Administration. I believe that there are strong and very real inequities in how community policing is carried out in our city. Police and community relations particularly with regards to the Black and Latino community has always been contentious. The rebellions of '67 were created as a direct result of a police brutality incident. And inevitably, as New York City has shown us under Mayor Giuliani, when crackdowns start to fight crime and quality of life enforcements, charges and actual incidents of police brutality and harassment go up. To be fair, this did not start with Mayor Booker and Police Director McCarthy, but I do think it is up to them, me and my colleagues to do more to fight it within the NPD and its external manifestations against average citizens. I and many of my colleagues support the continued crackdown on crime, but we support safeguards such as a citizen complaint review board with an Independent Monitor (and subpeona power) as well an increase of our oversight of NPD disciplinary procedures and practices of police officiers via Faulkner Act revisions (statutory). We are still working on the Mayor to support all three initiatives. We think crackdowns without these safeguards will doom the chances of real community policing because the community must have faith that the NPD will be policed.
Jayda starts her new non profit and during that same time a friend of the original 9 starting members of 9 Strong Women is murdered in the streets. Again, this is a documentary, but this is literally an everyday reality for the entire city. That's a reality I think most in the suburbs do not get.
And the new Central High School is completed in time for September 2008!!!! And for those that say new school construction has nothing to do with educational achievement, Central High School's test scores went up last year, my Republican friends. And this year, the Mayor raised millions of dollars and built Nat Turner Park across the street in 2009 with a football field, 8 lane all-weather track, water play locations and fieldhouse. And Governor Jon Corzine played a role in helping to finance all of those projects and in getting the high school open in time. Now, that is leadership (quick plug, but earned).
Lastly, my friend and school principal Ras Baraka, organized an all boys freshman overnight to mentor, around the same time as Jayda overnights with her girls. The most striking moment is when Todd Warren, my friend and Vice Principal for Discipline at Central, asks how many of the boys were being raised by women and 97% of them raised their hands. The dearth of fathers in the home to teach these boys how to be men is a problem that must be met head on in exactly these ways. Street Doctor and Todd Warren said it differently, but with the same diagnosis: it does take a village to raise a child, but what does the village do when it is sick and dysfunctional itself? Stay tuned...
The 4th episode of Brick City is on Sundance Channel 10 pm tonight, with a 1am replay.
Residents of Newark and people tuned to Sundance Channel all over the country watched the second episode of Forest Whitaker's 5-night documentary about the seismic shifts going on in New Jersey's largest city. West Ward Councilman Ron Rice, a member of the Blue Jersey community, was watching, too, and this column's a running commentary of last night's film, which includes the emotionally-charged romance between Jayda, community leader and member of the Bloods, and Creep, community leader and member of the Crips. Tonight 10pm is episode 3. - - - Promoted by Rosi
Tonight, a young man starts off the episode after asking Mayor Booker for a job during a late night "curfew drive" we electeds in Newark do periodically, by stating what the overwhelming majority of our good, energetic and hungry for success young people feel much too often: "I'm tired of this sh#@."
The two questions we are asked the most in Newark is, can you get me a job, and can you find me a place to live, basics many of us take for granted. The myth is that jobs vanished from Newark in the late '60s and early '70s due to the Newark Rebellion and the racial overtones that rippled from that tragedy. The truth is that Newark, like most Northeastern "Rust Belt" urban centers, began losing manufacturing jobs to automation and blue collar industries out West slowly since the '40s and '50s. Before we can create jobs, the infrastructure and foundation for job creation and retention has to be created and you see some of that in this episode with our Port Newark Initiative, plans to update a city MasterPlan that has not been updated fully since 1978, and marketing our resources to industries because it is cheaper to build and buy in Newark than NYC or even Jersey City, Newark is the next frontier.
You met Ali Muslim, a man built like Job from the Bible. After having served his sentence and changing his life (he worked his way up from being a laborer because former Mayor Sharpe James gave him a chance - a reason why the former Mayor is still so beloved in our town despite his conviction), he lost his son to violence in 2006 and in this episode another family member he also raised. How does a man deal with his anger, pain, hurt, and loss after turning his life around? Most of us could not forgive much less go on. And he does so without leaving Newark, he stays, he endures and he fights. He does not give up. He is a brick. And brick by brick, Newark grows, rebounds, and we build upon each other.
You see Creep trying to hold his family together in his best Michael Keaton impression from the movie "Mr. MOM," for you '80s movie junkies like myself, but you also see Jayda's step mom, Dave Kerr the indomitable leader of Integrity House - recent recipient of a highly publicized financial contribution from Oprah Winfrey - King Sau and Earl "Street Doctor" Best joining together to fight alongside her. I think we do this more in Newark than any other place I know. Elected officials, community activists, churches, community based organizations, etc. all band together at different times to help each other . I think this is why we can fight so hard against each other, but still not hate each other and continue striving together. It is also why everyone in Newark knows everyone from Newark and maybe why we are so xenophobic about "outsiders."
You see the catch 22 of fighting against violent crime as the Police Director changes the culture of attacking it: as we dramatically knock down shootings and murders, robberies, burglaries and crimes like prostitution go up, which you heard from a resident at a community meeting as she tells the Mayor, "You have let me down." Welcome to an elected's average day in Newark.
Personal plug, you see our new West Ward Abandoned Property Initiative in which we build new housing, rehabilitate bad housing stock, demolish eyesores and construct parks and gardens, expand community centers and create a community clinic within a school - all done by local developers with Newark workers (and it represents my lone cameo in the series). In addition, Jon Bon Jovi building affordable housing with assistance from our Governor Jon Corzine.
And all of this as we battle a structural deficit in our city budget built by years of rising costs and inaction by the last Administration to increase revenues and lower costs, in the middle of the worst economic crisis since the Depression in America. Stay tuned to Part 3.
We were introduced to some of the main characters and initiatives of the city of Newark of 2008. Many of you may not know, but Newark led the nation in violent crime reduction for a major city, a point most news and media tended to gloss over in 2008. In fact, we had the least amount of murders last year since the late 1960s. But even as one murder or shooting is too much, we in government with the community, our police department and yes, average citizens started fighting back in ways that will mirror how we will win this battle in the long run. We are winning battles, but it is a war and this first night of Brick City shows how we have high highs in Newark and stark realities that bring us back to earth to fight yet again.
You met our phenomenal Mayor that personifies a public servant, not a politician. A man that lives his politics and embodies the need for changing mindsets and mentalities as much as the need to change the economic realities of our city. As the mayor celebrates another new affordable housing development deal, he gets news of a 10 year old being shot.
You met our Police Director Garry McCarthy, a tough cop from the NYPD who has been given the mission of changing a culture within the Newark Police department and to beat crime back, period. Easier said than done as you will see later in the series, but Director McCarthy is unrelenting and stays even keel, thank God for us in the city. He is singly focused to drive crime down to historic lows.
You met Jayda and Creep, two young people in Newark not unlike a lot of our young people. She is a member of the Blood gang and he is a Crip that met and fell in love and even they cannot explain how or why. Though "gang related," they are both coming out of that negativity and trying to fight for a new life, but old charges might stop Jayda from realizing her dreams for her children and her new non profit she wants to start to help girls that were just like her so that they do not have to go through what she has to be the woman she has become.
More is coming and it is compelling and will make you think and rethink how you understand urban cities and the challenges we have. But what I hope you take away from the first night is how tough change is to make in our metropolis where over 30% of our population lives below the poverty line, but how committed so many of us are in making sure that happens and why we, the Mayor, our Police Director, Jayda and Creep, the Street Doctor Earl Best and, yes, even guys like me who work late into every evening at City Hall and in our community, because we know that change is hard, but the struggle to achieve it is in so many of us and it is worth it. We are the embodiment of the American Dream that says loudly as Langston Hughes said over 60 years ago "America was never America to me, but this I swear, America will be."
There is lots of talk about the 5 part mini series on Sundance which Rosi wrote about yesterday, Brick City. Mayor Booker himself has been making the rounds, here talking on the Colbert Report:
And then yesterday the Mayor joined the crew on Morning Joe:
Below the fold I'll put an interview with the Executive Producer of Brick City, Forest Whitaker. He talks about some of the challenges facing Newark in the documentary.
I just came across a great Huffington Post piece by our old friend Jack Bohrer about how Mayor Cory Booker helped bust a heroin deal on the streets of Newark this summer. The guy buying? From Whitehouse Station. Five minutes from my house, here in safe, bucolic Hunterdon County. Christie country.
In a million years, Christie's running mate Sheriff Kim Guadagno would never cop to the contribution people from the "safe", predominantly white communities we both live in make to the Newark streets she so fears. That's another reason why her remark about being afraid on the streets of Newark is so unsettling.
Newark is imperfect, close-to-the-edge, and complicated. But what's important isn't only that Newark has crime, gang violence, drugs, trouble. It's about what people are willing to do to shed light and make change.
Man, how do you not notice that something worthy and exciting is happening in Newark? Republican or Democrat. If you can't see past Newark's "reputation," you're in no position to stand behind its progress, or to lead its folks. Or anybody else, given that this is our city.
Brick City premieres tonight at NJPAC. Just blocks from the well-lit Rutgers campus Guadagno's afraid of. Maybe somebody should buy the lady a ticket. Here's a promo, which airs starting Sept. 21:
There is lots of talk about the 5 part mini series on Sundance which Rosi wrote about yesterday, Brick City. Mayor Booker himself has been making the rounds, here talking on the Colbert Report:
And then yesterday the Mayor joined the crew on Morning Joe:
Below the fold I'll put an interview with the Executive Producer of Brick City, Forest Whitaker. He talks about some of the challenges facing Newark in the documentary.
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