Take Note: The Black Boys and Men of Philadelphia

Never Has Given a Damn, and He Never Will

By David Stephone Cherry
QuailBellMagazine.com

I was approached by my friend who works for Philly.com to answer the following question for the article, "How about Philly's young black men, Mayor Nutter?":

“Do you believe Mayor Nutter really cares about the murders of black boys and black men in Philadelphia?”

I wrote him back about 10 minutes after, 5 days before I moved to York, Pennsylvania.

This was my response:

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Hell no.

In the many years that I’ve seen Mayor Nutter run this city, I’ve seen not an improvement. Every single day, I hear three issues float over the city of Philadelphia: Crime is as normal taking a breath, the city is almost openly corrupt, and every (or at least almost) every citizen of the City of Philadelphia complains about Septa.

Crime is the most prevalently spoken of these grievances, and specifically, murder is the most feared and known in the city.

Growing up as a child in West Philadelphia, murder is something that isn’t new to me. I was lucky to have a father to guide me through the rough-spots in my life, as most young boys my age didn't. I would see some of those young boys do one of three things: either sell narcotics, murder someone, or in turn, get murdered.

Around the time I began middle school, John Street had been outed as the mayor of Philadelphia, to be replaced by a church-going, good-boy Michael A. Nutter (I’d preferred Mr. Fattah, but we all can’t win.). The city was abuzz with good vibes, “We’ve got a good one!” and “Hopefully shit’ll get better” were things I’d always hear, and I kept hope, but hope...hope vanished. The murder rate would continue to increase as Philadelphia would lose hope. During re-election, though, Philadelphia seemed to forget these issues, and re-elect “Nut-Ass Nutter” for a second term, the democratic machine of the city of Philadelphia would continue.

Which leads me to directly answer the question asked of me:

“Do you believe Mayor Nutter really cares about the murders of black boys and black men in Philadelphia?”

Hell no!

If Mayor Nutter had cared about the black boys, and young men of Philadelphia, wouldn’t he had rallied for their right to visit a local library? Wouldn’t he had put something more on the line, instead of a politician’s promise, that means nothing after re-election? Wouldn’t he had showed the true passion that Fast Eddie did in the 90s, addressing issues of concern with anger, instead, of with false-angst, only to make Philadelphians like him, because it made them feel closer to him? He would have.

And just because he goes to a church every now and then, and declares a block party open, doesn’t mean he cares.

A few years ago, when he dispatched local police to patrol areas around flash mobs, why did he only select the University City and Center City areas of the city? Obviously, it was because that’s where most of the problem had been, but if he had cared about the young black men and boys of the city, he would have realized, that taking those police off of the corner of Kensington and Allegheny, off of the streets at 52nd and Market, off the streets of Broad and Olney, that he put them at risk. Instead of a police officer catching a kid with a blunt, tossing it in the gutter, and telling them to go home, a kid gets caught up with the wrong people after he bought the weed and gets gunned down.

Nutter doesn’t care about the black youth of Philadelphia, he only cares about Trayvon because everyone else does, and to look like a good publicity figure.

Recently, I’ve felt bad about when people said that Nutter wasn’t “black enough”, or, “He was white in a black body," and I still do, but now I understand fully what those voices mean.

Mayor Nutter, no one expects you to be “black”, but they do expect you to connect with the community you grew up in as an African-American youth.

Don’t act new. Don’t act special. Mayor Nutter, this is a problem you’ve ignored too long, but I’m pretty sure if Trayvon Martin was Olivia Nutter, Philadelphia would be akin to London, in terms of homicides per year and per capita.

Hell no, Mayor Nutter doesn’t care about the young black boys, and the strong black men of the city of Philadelphia. He’s never given a damn, and as long as he’s a black democrat in the city of Philadelphia, no one will ever notice.