Fire this time in American ghettoes?

Press, 2 June 1982, Page 24

Fire this time in American ghettoes?

By

W. J. WEATHER

BY, in New York, for “The Guardian," London

As the hot months draw closer in the northern hemisphere. the big question is whether the American ghettoes will erupt during the long, steamy summer. Reaganomics have hurt the ghettoes more than other places. A recent national conference of United States mayors agreed that teen-age unemployment of 22 per cent (over 40 per cent among black teen-agers) was a “time-bomb." Rumblings of discontent have been heard throughout the winter. When the heat drives people into the streets, the ghettoes could become like dry forests ready to go up in flames if careless police or political action provides the spark. Examples of hardship through unemployment — double the national average in the ghettoes — and through cuts in the social services are common in the big cities. One recent experience summed up the ghetto poverty statistics. When a 24-year-old man died in a poor neighbourhood in the Bronx, his parents and brothers and sisters had great difficulty paying for even the cheapest New York funeral (roughly $1000). The mother insisted on a burial, which put up the cost a little but only one car was provided for the ride to the cemetery. One brother who was in a wheelchair from polio went panhandling on the subway trains. Another asked the dead man’s friends and neighbours to make a contribution. I was asked to give the eulogy at the Harlem funeral parlour to save a minister’s fee. The funeral had to be delayed a week until the cost was covered. The last few dollars came in only on the morning of the funeral. Such poverty creates great tensions and resentments, and a racial background intensifies it, especially among the young whose dreams seem to have little hope of fulfilment. The aim in previous summers has been to provide something for the jobless to do, but some of

the major “social safety net” programmes have been greatly reduced or even abolished. The summer youth employment programme, for example, which was set up to provide ghetto youths with job opportunities and training; has been cut by 18 per cent, and the Reagan Administration intends to do away with it altogether next year. In talking to people in Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx ghetto areas, I have been impressed by the teenagers’ willingness to try anything. Three youths I met in different parts of the city had just found jobs — one was sweeping the streets, another was handing out leaflets for a sex massage parlour, the third was cleaning windows when cars stopped at traffic lights. And they considered themselves lucky. The majority of their contemporaries had found nothing and spent much of their time in the local little concrete parks, playing basketball and dreaming their dreams with the usual escapist aids — a can of beer and the most readily available drugs. In comparing the ghetto situation now with the changes over the last 20 years, one is forced to conclude that conditions are worse than at any time in that period because jobs are so much harder to find and inflation has made what money there is worth far less. There is a certain hopelessness that has replaced the old cynicism; few people I spoke to expected any improvement br political solution in their lifetimes. When I listened recently to a ghetto sermon by the brilliant Muslim minister, Louis Farrakhan, he was loudly cheered when he declared that “the civil rights movement is dead because the white devils don’t, want it — or us — any more.” His strong talk on the theme of “Liberty or Death” probably represented a minority of activists, but he was much closer to the feeling of the ghetto

majority than he was even two years ago.

If this reading of the ghettoes is correct, then trouble is certain during the summer months. But when one walks through Harlem or BedfordStuyvesant, or the South Bronx, or talks with people living in ghettoes in the Mid-West or the South, the situation is not so simple. If the ghettoes don’t explode, it won’t be thanks to astute Federal or civic programmes — for these are increasingly restricted — but because drugs have sapped the energy and will of potential activists and troublemakers. And this may not be entirely accidental. These escapist agents have grown in importance in the ghettoes over the last 10 years, but the biggest change is that marijuana and heroin have now been overtaken by cocaine, which used to be a luxury only the affluent could afford. The spread of the cocaine culture down the financial ladder has been one of the most remarkable developments in the United States. The highly-publicised accidents of such show business personalities as Richard Pryor and the late John Belushi are but the tip of the iceberg that now extends through much of American society, at least below the age of 40. The white powder has for years been a status symbol for many younger swingers in the professions and in politics. In the ghettoes, it used to be the equivalent of champagne or caviare — and even rarer, for it costs about $2OOO an ounce or several times the price of gold. But obviously a way has been found to cut the market cost and greatly extend -the distribution. Cocaine has become commonplace in many people’s lives. In the ghettoes, it is still a luxury, but only the kind of luxury now that a Broadway movie is or dinner out. . What happened to marijuana and heroin seems now to have

overtaken the cocaine market — cut-price very inferior supplies, often no more than 20 per cent pure cocaine. Sometimes much of the desired effect must be the work of a person’s imagination rather than the real drug. For 30 miiiutes, it is supposed to transform the user into the ideal person you want to be, even in the field of sex. Regular users claim it’s not addictive or harmful, but those I’ve known seem to seek it with the eagerness of alcoholics pursuing a bottle, and the aftereffects certainly are not always pleasant, causing psychological problems and even malnutrition, with vomiting, irritability, and depression. This coke culture — cocaine is often now called the “allAmerican drug” — has grown up largely unchecked by law enforcement, though cocaine has not been legally distributed since 1906 (when one of the American soft-drink manufacturers had to drop the drug from its secret formula). The law in the United States is generally inconsistent in its

attitude towards drugs, but especially towards cocaine. In New York, I have observed a policeman stand within earshot of a street seller of cocaine and do nothing, only to see later another policeman arrest someone merely for possessing a marijuana cigarette. Certainly there has been no effective campaign to check the spread of cocaine. One explanation often given is that enforcement agencies would need much more manpower to stop cocaine’s import and distribution; another explanation is that too much money is made from cocaine — an estimated $4O billion in the United States, more than from any other drug and almost as much as the total revenue of the Ford Motor Company — and with that kind of income, huge bribes are too widespread to get effective action. Yet another explanation, relating to the spread of the cocaine culture in the ghettoes, is that no real effort is made to stamp out the drug trade in the ghettoes, and, in fact, it is encouraged in some way, be-

cause it helps to keep the ghettoes quiet. This explanation is sometimes attributed to ghetto paranoia about the white world’s manipulation of the racial scene, but official attitudes at both Federal and local levels suggest there may be some truth in it. Certainly, when I talk with some of the ghetto youths hanging out in the little concrete parks and witness their dependence on the excitement of drugs, it is difficult to believe there will be serious disturbances this summer. But the possibility remains as long as the tensions of poverty build, the unemployment grows — so much harder to bear in a rich country like the United States — racial injustice remains, and the Government continues to take an increasingly laisse faire attitude. Even with drugs keeping the peace, there remains the possibility of that spark that could cause a conflagration — and a confrontation. .