Word count: 785 | Reading time: 4 min read
Pretzel Logic
The little voice in my head keeps whispering.
“Don’t go there.”
“Don’t go there.”
“Don’t go there.”
People are tired of Grays Ferry.
But I just can’t help myself.
I am reacting to Citizens Voice, a little white newsletter that has found its way to my junkyard of a desk.
Specifically, I am reacting to the lead article, titled “Ethnic Cleansing.”
It’s just too good to pass up.
Ethnic Cleansing. Such a phrase. Brings to mind Mr. Clean with a Kalishnikov, disinfecting the landscape of Apaches, Jews, Kosovars and other undesirables.
In the case of this newsletter, distributed by the Committee of Concerned Citizens (CCC), the ethnic cleansing in question is taking place in those acres of fun known as Grays Ferry.
Whites, claim the CCC, are trying to cleanse Grays Ferry of blacks.
“The United States government used ‘manifest destiny’ to remove Native Americans from their ancestral lands,” states the newsletter, a slickly produced, well-edited (nary a typo or grammatical error) 12-page document. “The Nazi hate group used ‘racial purity’ to eliminate Jews from various European countries. Most recently, the Serbian hate group used religion to remove Moslem ethnic Albanians from their homeland. Here in Grays Ferry, on a much smaller but very real scale, the GFCC [Grays Ferry Community Council] hate group uses ‘quality of life,’ ‘home ownership’ and ‘neighborhood stability’ as their rationale.”
Before I go any further, a little background.
The GFCC is an all-white community group. Some of its members have been known to engage in the fine art of knuckleheadedry. The CCC is a mostly, if not all, black organization aligned with Charlie Reeves, himself a devout knucklehead.
Never will the twain see eye to eye. Reeves and the GFCC have been sparring for years and will continue to do so as long as there are black people and white people still left in Grays Ferry.
In this latest dust-up, the CCC is claiming that the GFCC is guilty of ethnic cleansing because it has urged its members to inform the Philadelphia Housing Authority of problems with Section 8 tenants in the neighborhood.
Now, it is true that there are white people in Grays Ferry who don’t like blacks. And vice versa.
It is true that this dislike sometimes ends in violence, though that is the exception.
It is true that, last month, there was an egregious act of ethnic intimidation on the 1500 block of Marston Street.
But frankly, my dear members of the CCC, to blanketly equate complaints to PHA with ethnic cleansing is a bit of a stretch.
Having had my own problems with one or two of the neighborhood’s Section 8 homes, I know this for a fact.
I knew it the time visitors to one of those houses threatened to cleanse me and my family out of our home, or, more accurately, burn us out. I’ve known that from the many sleepless nights I’ve spent, thanks to the loud domestic battles tumbling out of another Section 8 home, and the frequent visits by police thereto. (Similar incidents at the homes of white folk — homeowners and renters alike — are met with similar complaints.)
And it’s not just whites doing the complaining. Several months ago, City Paper’s Frank Lewis wrote about a black homeowner complaining about Section 8 tenants.
In fact, contrary to the beliefs of all the knuckleheads in Grays Ferry, black, white or otherwise, a lot of this really is about the issues of quality of life and neighborhood stability. Two issues our mayor, who just happens to be black, is a true believer in, at least according to the impassioned conversations I’ve had with him.
Having had relatives gassed in the death camps, I know a thing or two about ethnic cleansing.
Big Bob clearing the ice and snow from the street and sidewalks of his neighbors, not just the whites, is not ethnic cleansing.
The little kids who play together, white and black, is not ethnic cleansing.
The white woman working the counter at the corner convenience store, chit-chatting about a family party with a black customer, is not ethnic cleansing.
Is life all hunky-dory?
No.
Do blacks and whites in Grays Ferry hold hands and sing “We Shall Overcome” together?
Not often.
Is there racial prejudice and hatred?
Unfortunately.
But contrary to the message disseminated by the CCC, what’s taking place right now in Grays Ferry is not genocide.
Don’t take my word for it, Charlie and the gang.
Just hop on the Web, and type in words like Wounded Knee and Auschwitz and Pristina.
You’ll see pictures of real ethnic cleansing.
