City government gets F in diversity, A in racial disrespect

But the real numbers are even worse, much worse, than that in regard to Black-owned enterprises seeking city contracts. I mean no disrespect to women, people with disabilities or non-Black minorities. Allow me to explain. Among those four demographics — women, non-Black minorities, people with disabilities and Blacks — only one has ancestors who were legally kidnapped, transported, bought, sold, enslaved, whipped, raped and lynched.

Only one has ancestors who were constitutionally designated as less than fully human at a mere three-fifths. Only one has ancestors and elders who were legislatively classified as second-class citizens who were not permitted to ride in the front of buses, drink at clean water fountains, use hygienic bathrooms, sleep at quality hotels, testify in court, attend good schools, live in decent neighborhoods and work at jobs they were qualified to perform.

Only one has ancestors and elders who had to fight for civil rights as recently as 1964 and voting rights as recently as 1965. Only one still has to fight for voting rights in 2021 because, as the New York Law School-based Brennan Center for Justice points out, “Between January 1 and July 14, more than 400 bills that included provisions that restrict voting access have been introduced in 49 states. [And] during that same time, 18 states have [already] enacted 30 laws that make it harder for people to vote.” And by people, they primarily mean Black people.

Only one has suffered and continues to suffer more than any other demographic in Philadelphia – a city with a well-documented notoriously racist past and present.

For example, let’s start in 1684 when the “slave” ship Isabella from Bristol, England, anchored in this city with 150 captured Africans. Continue to 1685 when William Penn himself held three Black persons in bondage at his Pennsbury manor, just 20 miles north of Philadelphia.

Then keep in mind, beginning in 1754, the London Coffee House on the southwest corner of Front and High Streets, now Market Street, where shippers, businessmen and local government officials, including the governor, socialized, drank coffee and alcohol, and ate in private booths while making deals that involved, on the High Street side, auctions for African men, women, boys, and girls who had just been unloaded from ships that docked right across the street at the Delaware River.

And don’t forget that slavery was a key component of daily life in Pennsylvania generally and Philadelphia particularly as evidenced by the fact that in the 1760s, nearly 4,500 enslaved Blacks labored in the colony with about one of every six white households in the city holding at least one Black person in bondage.

Fast forward to 1810 when the Bethel Burying Ground in South Philly near Fourth and Catherine Streets was established as a cemetery for Black folks because the law prohibited us from being buried in the city’s public graveyards. By 1869-1873, local white businesses began desecrating the site – which, in 2021 still has the remains of at least 5,000 or more Black women, men and children in it – with so much trash and garbage that city health officials closed it. Then, city recreation officials transformed it into a garden then a park that’s still called Wecacoe Playground. And the remains of Black folks are still there.

There’s more. In 1834 near Seventh and South Streets, mobs of white folks for two days straight rampaged, destroying 30 Black homes and two Black churches while viciously beating what’s been described as “any Black person in their path.” And in 1838, 3,000 racist white Philadelphians mobilized outside an abolitionists’ majestic meeting place known as Pennsylvania Hall, located on Sixth Street near Franklin Square, while dozens among that 3,000 burned it to the ground.

There’s also the three-day Lombard Street Riot of 1842 between Fifth and Eighth Streets in which white folks firebombed and destroyed the Second African American Presbyterian Church and the abolitionists’ Smith’s Hall while looting numerous Black homes and buildings. This kind of tragedy happened again in 1918 when, during a four-day white rampage, four Blacks were murdered.

And most recently, there’s the “Columbia Avenue (so-called) Riot,” when in 1964 white cops brutally assaulted innocent Blacks in North Philly. In response, many rebelled, resulting in two deaths, 350 injured and $4 million in property damage.

Speaking of racist police brutality, Philadelphia in 1979 became the first city in the entire country to be sued by the U.S. Justice Department for committing and condoning “widespread and severe” acts of police misconduct.

Philadelphia’s 2021 population, according to United States Census Bureau estimates, totals 1,607,667. And, based on the most recently available reports, which are from 2020, Blacks constitute 43.6%, which equals 700,943.

We have a cultural base of more than 700,000 members in this city. And assuming, for the sake of argument, that half of us are voting age, then we have an army of about 350,000 soldiers who can and must flex their political muscle.

We shouldn’t accept a measly 30% from Philadelphia’s city government, especially since that insultingly low amount would have to be divided with other oppressed groups (for whom, by the way, we obviously have compassion.) Instead, we should, correction, we must, demand that at least 43.6% of all city contracts be awarded to Black firms.

And if we don’t get it, we should, correction, we must leave what many Blacks have begun to describe as the “political plantation,”which means the local Democratic party. And by leaving, I don’t mean running to the racist Trump-loving RepubliKKKlan party. I mean starting our own Black party. I mean boycotting the local Democratic plantation for as long as it takes until it shows us some respect.

I mean taking a page out of the metaphorical playbook written by our ancestors and elders in Montgomery, Alabama, exactly 66 years ago beginning Dec. 5, 1955.

I’m sure you’ve heard about the lack of respect shown to Black folks up to and including the mid-1950s when the bus company in Montgomery took our money but made us sit in the back. I’m sure you’ve heard that we reminded that bus company that we constituted 75% of its ridership. I’m sure you’ve heard that when it ignored our demands for equality, we boycotted for 381 days from Dec. 5, 1955, through Dec. 21, 1956. And I’m sure you’ve heard that our ancestors and elders won when the racist bus company surrendered and began showing us respect by allowing us to sit wherever we pleased.

Well, here in Philly, we wanna sit at 43.6% of all city contracts. In fact, we demand it.

If the local Democratic party thinks it can call our bluff, then keep disrespecting us. But do so at your peril. In the hood, we say, “FAAFO.” But in this respectable newspaper, I’ll simply say, “Go ahead and try us. We can show you better than we can tell you.”

Don’t make me initiate the creation of The Official Black Philadelphia Political Party. I’ll do it. You know I will.