Author: Les Smith

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The View From Afar

The gentle breezes of the tropics stream through the open doors of our casa here in Belize. We leave these doors open from sunrise to sunset.

It’s a far cry from our life in Memphis — bars on the windows, a security system, and two dogs who went ballistic every time the MPD blue lights flashed in front of our house for traffic stops made at the busy intersection of Jackson and McLean. That’s because there is an inherent sense of tranquility here and not the constant fear and worry generated in an urban setting.

During our few weeks here, I’ve had a chance to reflect on how much the fear factor impacted our lives. I’m not just talking about our personal safety. It’s how local government, business interests, police, and prosecutors continue to exploit various forms of fear to deflect from substantive issues that could improve the quality of life for all.

Memphis government dictates that city finances are in dire straits. They tell us our tax dollars are still not enough to deal with a formerly neglected pension debt. But rather than demand that audit, taxpayers are only told that city finances could be taken over by the state if pension obligations are not met. Is it better to be informed or stay afraid of shadowy consequences? Aren’t taxpayers not owed that courtesy?

For years, the PILOT program run by the EDGE board, which grants millions of dollars in tax-free property initiatives, has had its hand firmly on the panic button. Since its creation, it has espoused that we must give out-of-town companies tax breaks or they will never move here. Yet women- and minority-owned businesses struggle to keep the wolves from the door on a daily basis. Granted, small businesses may not generate the potential for hiring hundreds such as IKEA, Electrolux, and Mitsubishi promised in pushing for tax breaks. But shouldn’t keeping local businesses whose home-grown allegiance to Memphis comes through only their own determination to succeed also become an EDGE board top priority?

The fear factor is never more prevalent than the constant threat of crime in the Bluff City. When people are gunned down in the streets, there is very little comfort when you’re told by MPD that violent crime statistics are down from the previous year. It is of little comfort when the Memphis Shelby Crime Commission uses stats from 2006 as the basis for a reduction in crime over nearly a decade. How do you explain that to the families of the murder victims?

The media too fan the flames of anguish and fear. Get ready for a barrage of crime-related stories during the November ratings, referred to as the “sweeps.” Titles such as “Do you know who really lives down the street from you?” and “Are your children safe at their day care?” will headline every local news broadcast. Some of these stories will contain useful information; most will rely on the shock value generated by the title, meant only to hook viewers.

As I mentioned before, it’s the public’s fears that serve as the driving force behind decisions that too often are based on emotions rather than logic and reasoning.

This year’s elections offer a crucial opportunity for voters to look for candidates willing to set sail on new courses of action. This is a critical time, one that will shape the city’s direction for the near future. A 20 percent voter turnout will only ensure more of the same directionless leadership.

Last week, I posted on Facebook my impressions of what I’ve heard and read about the race for Memphis mayor. My suggestion that the candidates should pledge to improve the lives of all Memphians was met with derision and complaints that “it can’t be done in four years!” Those reactions completely missed my point. With the myriad of problems confronting Memphis, expansive efforts to change a culture from bottom to top over a few years is unrealistic. But demanding accountability from our elected officials should be set as a standard for a mayor or city council person.

The stakes for the future of Memphis have become too high to invest our public trust in individuals with their own personal agendas. I sincerely hope that you will have the opportunity to inspire and breathe the winds of change and do so without fear of what lies ahead.

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Adios, Memphis

My first news director gave me this advice on my first day on the job as a television reporter: “The thing you have to remember, Smitty, is to keep it simple for the audience to understand.”

I asked, “How simple does it have to be?”

He rolled back in his chair and said, “Well, look at it like you’re talking to Joe and Josephine Six-Pack, who have come home from work. They don’t want to hear from local people using big words telling them about the news of the day. You leave that to Walter Cronkite. All you have to do is tell them a simple story about what happened in our neck of the woods.”

Forty years later I can tell you: His advice then went in one ear and out the other.

But now, as I’ve come to the end of my broadcast journalism career, I can appreciate the basic wisdom of his cautionary words. Every electronic news organization these days touts being fast and first in reporting the daily headlines. Notice I didn’t include being “accurate” as part of that mantra. Because of the insurgence of social media into the journalistic mix, too much rumor, innuendo, and downright lies are being peddled as truths to the general public. As was once written, “The fault lies not in our stars, but in us.”

So on the way out the door, I have a few words of advice to give to young reporters looking to make a respectable impression in Memphis broadcasting.

It helps to have a dictionary. A computer’s spell-check system can give you the correct letters, but it doesn’t help you learn the true meaning of what you’re trying to convey. Armed with the knowledge of what you’re talking about, it is possible to confidently use words that empower, enlighten, and inform the viewers, perhaps enough so that they’ll go looking for a dictionary. That’s viewer engagement, exactly what you want to achieve. If they learn something from a story they might not have known before, chances are they will listen to you the next time they see you. That’s why it’s imperative that you learn as much about this city as possible. Learn its history. Learn the street names and areas of town. Find out who the movers and shakers are. Incorporate that knowledge into your reports. Do your own legwork, and don’t rely on Twitter or Facebook to do it for you.

Strive for objectivity. It is the crux of journalism. I’ll be the first to tell you, I’ve probably crossed that line more than I’d like to admit. But I did so, because I’ve always had a desire to improve the human condition. When lives are lost for no reason, when governmental decisions are made with no apparent thoughts of the consequences or the people they will affect, when racial and sexual prejudices and injustice go unchecked, then it became my obligation to alert the public to what I knew was happening. I’ve taken the heat for what I reported over the years, but I always tried to be fair. I never burned any bridges, because, in a business where communication is key, I learned those bridges are interconnected among all races, ideologies, faiths, and political persuasions.

I’ve often said that being on television is not a right, it is a privilege. I’ve always been amazed by the number of people who were willing to open up their hearts and trust me to tell their stories. This is the gauntlet I throw down to our local journalists: Tell stories from a human perspective. Every story has an emotion. Find it, feel it, and report it. Every story comes with facts. Dig down to find out what they are before you go on air. The worst mistake you can make is to not be prepared to speak logically and concisely about the story you’re covering. If you have questions before you go out the door, ask veteran reporters what they know.

Our industry has gone far beyond Joe and Josephine Six-Pack, but the basic principles remain the same: Try to report the news first, fast — and most important — accurately.

Les Smith is a former reporter for WHBQ Fox-13.

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Looking for a Leader

For the more than 30 years I lived and reported in Memphis, it always pained me that thousands of people live out their lives in anguished anonymity. Many of these folks have accepted their sad lot in life based on their faith. I’ve always had a hard time comprehending that.

On my final day of work as a television reporter last week, I led a visiting PBS documentary team to a few of the most desolate and blighted areas of the inner city, so they could get a feel for the desperation that continues to plague many of the 28 percent of Memphians living below the poverty line.

In North Memphis, we found an elderly woman overseeing the care of her pre-school grandchildren, ages 2 and 3, by herself. She told me her home was the only house on the block that hadn’t been boarded up and abandoned. She pointed to her left and told me that two drug addicts had burned down the house next door. She believed those who had been living in the empty house on her right had been responsible for poisoning the dog that had served as her family’s only protection against the neighborhood’s rampant crime. Her house was now being “guarded” by a small Pekinese a family member had given her.

When I asked her about safety concerns, she said whatever happened to them would “be the Lord’s will.” I thanked her for telling me her story and quickly turned to walk away so she wouldn’t see the tears welling in my eyes.

It was with that memory still searing my brain that I read a newspaper article last weekend about the hundreds of thousands of dollars being raised by candidates running for Memphis mayor in October’s citywide election. The more I read, the angrier I got. I know money is often described as “the mother’s milk of politics,” but it has worsened in recent years due to increased money coming from sources outside the city looking to influence local politics.

What really irritates me is the amount of money being spent to gain a mayoral office that doesn’t pay as much as the candidates will spend to get it. It’s just another disheartening example of the power of special-interest groups to put the blinders on those who seek elected office — men and women who otherwise might use the mantle of that office to strive for transformative change.

The success of fund-raising efforts should never serve as the main barometer for how voters cast their ballots. If you take your right to vote seriously, go online and find out exactly where the candidates’ money is coming from. In Memphis, though I haven’t looked yet, I’d be willing to gamble the names of the donors are quite familiar — as well as the motivations behind their financial support.

I’m now retired, officially, and for the first time in decades I will not be here to report on election night. But I will exercise my right to vote through absentee ballot. My choice for mayor will not be made based on fund-raising amounts. Having been to nearly every nook and cranny of this city, I will vote for the candidate who takes his case to the streets, who walks the walk and doesn’t just spout the rhetoric of change. I want to vote for a leader who doesn’t emerge from a limo surrounded by a photo-op entourage when he or she visits Orange Mound, South and North Memphis, and Frayser. I want a leader who does more listening than talking when it comes to learning about the needs in those imperiled communities. I want a leader who will take that information and use it to devise a comprehensive, no-nonsense plan to attack poverty, blight, and unemployment.

And I want an elected City Council not mired in personal agendas or racially motivated political partisanship. I want a leader who doesn’t use the past as an excuse for not envisioning a progressive future. This city has yet to reach its full potential, but that potential is there.

And when it comes to divine intervention, I still believe the Lord helps those who help themselves.

Les Smith is a former reporter for WHBQ Fox-13.

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A Week of Change

In a week of monumental events signaling — and legally upholding — transformational change in America, my imagination was drawn to a 21-year-old man-child sitting in an isolated jail cell in Charleston, South Carolina. What must admitted mass murderer Dylann Roof be thinking, I wondered. He set out to tear apart, through one heinous and violent act, the moral fabric of this democratic republic established nearly 239 years ago. He is not the first to try — and fail — to do so, and he won’t be the last.

What Roof missed — now that he’s just another misguided, murderous idiot behind bars — was hearing the resounding echoes of social and economic triumph two United States Supreme Court rulings finally addressed in declarative fashion. What Roof missed was a president of the United States rising to oratorical heights in a speech meant to speed the healing process surrounding the pain, anger, and disillusionment Roof’s act of racial intolerance created. He missed the inspiring words that celebrated the resiliency of our country in times of unspeakable tragedy. He missed “Amazing Grace.”

In his incarcerated absence, Roof may have been unaware of the high court’s solid majority vote upholding the legality of the Affordable Care Act. For millions of people in this country, including thousands in Tennessee, the fight to insure the poor, the elderly, and those on the borderline of a healthy existence will continue. They will have new paths toward being able to secure medical treatment for afflictions and diseases that otherwise would have sentenced them to lives of pain or unneccessarily premature death. Unfortunately, the SCOTUS decision on Obamacare by no means ends the political opposition to it, but it gives legal clarity to what is an earnest attempt to level the health-care playing field for the haves and have-nots.

The same antagonistic forces that have long opposed “Obamacare” have vowed to continue to seek a constitutional amendment overturning the court’s ruling. Word to the wise: Barring more conservative appointments to the high court, an unlikely prospect, that ship has sailed.

Roof, in the personal “manifesto” that surfaced after his arrest, expressed his loathing for African Americans, Latinos, and Jews. Oddly, none of his hate-filled rants targeted gays or same-sex marriage. Not that Roof will be in a position to witness such unions, but that issue was also addressed by the Supreme Court last week, and the court struck down barriers against gay marriage instituted by state governments. The majority decision used the words “human dignity” — a number of times — to bolster its judicial opinion. The same phrase was often used by abolitionists in arguing against the evils of slavery.

While young Mr. Roof rots in prison awaiting his likely execution, he will find plenty of the kind of seething anger and racial and sexual intolerance he had hoped to ignite by sparking a race war. He will have plenty of time to ponder how his cowardly and pathetic actions served as a sad precursor to what became a magnificent week in American history.

I hope he will agonize about the hour he spent inside the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church — a Judas in the House of the Lord. I hope the parishioners’ words of prayer and forgiveness that he heard while plotting his mayhem will be seared in his memory for whatever time he has left on this earth.

Mr. Roof, you picked the wrong place, the wrong time, and the wrong people. You failed.

And as long as the United States remains strong enough to tolerate dissent and disagreement, as long as “we the people” are willing to listen to opposing opinions about the issues that divide us, as long as we recognize injustice and fight to right the wrongs that befall the least of us, then people like Dylann Roof will be forgotten footnotes in the great American story.

As a nation, we are a work in progress, an ongoing saga of success and failure, where perfection will never be achieved. But last week demonstrated we’re still valiantly searching for it.

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Passing for Black

Imitation of Life is a movie that emotionally connects my late mother and my wife — who never had the pleasure of meeting each other. When it was — or is — on television, they both shed a trail of tears, every time.

The 1959 film is a weeper of a melodrama in which a “mulatto” child embraces the idea of “passing for white” in order to seek a better life than the one led by her black mother, Annie, a maid.

Susan Kohner, a Caucasian, gave the Oscar-nominated performance of her career, portraying the soulless and opportunistic Sara Jane, who is hell-bent on disowning her mother’s black heritage in order to steal her white best friend’s unwitting boyfriend.

In the end, when her mother dies, Sara Jane’s cold heart is melted and she stages a tear-jerking meltdown at the funeral, throwing herself on her mother’s casket. Despite her histrionics at movie’s end, it never seems enough to offset the heartbreaking moment earlier in the film, when she tells her distraught mother, “If we should ever pass in the street, please don’t recognize me.”

While critically panned at the time of its debut, Imitation of Life touched a chord in the black community. For decades, “passing for white” was a whispered rite of passage for some of those who passed the “lighter than a brown paper bag” skin test, regarded as the minimum standard for attempting the racial transformation.

And, oddly, there have been a few recorded cases of people going in the opposite direction. Another earnestly produced but woefully executed film was Black Like Me, the quickly forgotten 1964 adaption of author John Howard Griffin’s experience as a minstrel-colored white man attempting to garner insight into racial prejudices. Years later, it was the subject of a memorable and hilarious Saturday Night Live skit performed by comedian Eddie Murphy.

Now, 30 years after Murphy’s biting satire, the “black like me” pretense appears to be at the heart of the controversy over the racial identity of Spokane, Washington, NAACP leader, Rachel Dolezal. In a message to her organization, the 37-year-old woman said she planned this week to address the furor created when her parents “outed her” as falsely portraying herself as black for years.

Dolezal, an artist and noted activist in the Spokane area, tried to rebut her white parents’ claim that she is not black by birth. In a heavily covered news conference, Dolezal said, regarding her ethnicity, that “the question is not as easy as it seems.”

What’s not easy? Is it confronting the truth of your real heritage? I’ve read where Dolezal’s parents said they served as foster parents to four African-American children as their daughter grew up. In a unique situation like that, I can see where it’s possible the desire to assimilate might happen. And I can imagine Dolezal’s artistic and activist spirit might lead her to take up causes that would lead to her becoming a member of an organization such as the NAACP, which once was seen as the primary engine for socio-economic change among African Americans.

However, if Dolezal had read or studied anything about the history of the NAACP, she would have known she had no reason to submerge her racial identity in order to be a member, or even a leader. In the heyday of the NAACP, its most influential work was accomplished through blacks and whites working together. From doctors to lawyers to movie stars, the NAACP accepted all the help and financial support it could garner, from every strata of society willing to give it. In Memphis, in recent years, NAACP leadership has become less diverse, more reactive than proactive, and appears to have lost touch with the frustrations and aspirations of young blacks. But that observation is fodder for another conversation.

As for Rachel Dolezal, I hope she can find the peace to resolve her inner conflict and discover who she truly is. She appears to be a woman of talent and drive and dedicated to the struggle for human equality. That gives her a leg up on many in this country. In the meantime, maybe she should check out some vintage Eddie Murphy.

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Belize It!

Mary and her husband had planned a dream vacation to Belize. It was the top priority on their bucket list of places to enjoy together after retirement. Last March, after 40 years as a teacher in Stone Mountain, Georgia, she finally arrived in the country they both had hoped would be a shared paradise. But she had to come alone, after burying her life partner just two months before.

As she related her experience as we sat outside at a sunny Belizean bar and restaurant, there was no hint of what would have been understandable melancholy. She elected to sell most of their worldly possessions, including a five-bedroom house. She worked through the vehement skepticism expressed by her adult children that she could go it alone in Central America. But Mary has fallen in love again. Not with another man, but with a simplicity and vibrancy of life she hasn’t felt since her childhood.

It’s the eternal human quest to find contentment and happiness that lured my wife Lisa and me to Belize. It’s a country of unmatched natural beauty and ethnic diversity — and equally visible abject poverty. With a government that’s borrowed itself to the hilt, Belizeans exist without unemployment insurance, food stamps, and welfare programs. You could consider it a laid-back version of rugged individualism. Their motto is, “Take care of your needs first and your wants become secondary.”

We met many American fellow travelers. It’s safe to say that many of our countrymen have a tendency to flaunt their self-perceived superiority while abroad. Some of the American visitors were brash, loud-laughing, loud-talking masters of the universe. They consumed voluminous amounts of alcohol, not that there’s anything wrong with that while on vacation, but the solitude and time for personal reflection Belize has to offer are lost on such people. I didn’t really hold anything against the sometimes crude attitudes of my fellow Yankee Doodlers. The majority of Americans have been taught to believe that happiness can only be achieved through hard work, determination, and sheer will. Serenity is not top of mind.

Belize offers the exact antithesis of everything we’ve been taught to desire. Most Belizeans get around on bicycles or golf carts as primary transportation. Or they walk. The American dollar is worth twice as much as Belizean money. The average Belizean makes about $20 a day. Yet, in this melting pot of ethnic, cultural, and religious diversity, there appears to be no caste system. No one seems particularly jealous of anyone else’s status as server, waiter, bartender, driver, security guard, or beach captain. Instead there was a shared universal zest for enjoying life’s basic pleasures. They have a roof over their heads. They have an abundance of natural foods. They work hard for hourly wages. They love their heritage — and their children (who seem to love and respect their elders). For Belizeans there is no fee to enter into paradise, because they believe they are already living in it, every day they are here on earth. There is a serenity of body and spirit that can’t be measured. It emanates from within.

On the next to last day of our stay, we caught up with Mary again. She just appeared from a side street in the bustling Placencia Village. It’s a community noted for having the narrowest main street in the world. She had just emerged from a Thai-owned restaurant and massage parlor. I thought that sounded interesting, but Lisa insisted we had business to attend to first. Besides, Mary told us she was in a hurry to get to her apartment. She was going to get some rest and prepare herself for the “second half” of what had already been a very active day of walking, talking, visiting, and learning about the country she now calls home.

She was preparing, too, for a visit from her daughter, coming from Illinois. She hoped one day her son and his family would make the trip, as well. As we waved goodbye, I could not help but think how proud and happy her late husband would be if he knew how well his wife is fulfilling their bucket list.

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Remembering Pierre

When I first met Pierre Kimsey I had no idea what to make of him.

It was an era when it seemed everyone in the television industry was trying to find the elusive magic formula that would capture viewing audiences in whatever media markets we were in. The “happy talk” format, which often painfully forced interactions between news anchors, was just starting to become a trend. I could imagine to uncomfortable viewers it verged on the voyeuristic. Here were people in a previously one-dimensional box suddenly sharing snippets of their personal lives when they were on camera in an attempt to humanize themselves with a strained 30-second exchange of conversation.

But I knew, when Pierre and I watched in disgust — at the now defunct Fort Pierce, Florida, television station WTVX — while two of our anchors feebly struggled to talk to one another, I’d found a kindred spirit. What I didn’t know was it would be the beginning of a 30-year bond between two people who saw an opportunity to explore television as the free-form medium we thought it was meant to be.

WTVX, a UHF start-up, was the perfect testing ground for us. Pierre was hired as feature reporter and film critic. I reported and anchored sports, but was pressed into service for news stories, as well. Our station struggled to find an identity in one of the fastest-growing television markets in the country. Since we had to fill hours of news time with a small staff, it was imperative that on occasions, we would stretch the envelope of creativity.

I specifically remember when, in his role as film critic, Pierre came up with the idea of doing a review of one of the original trilogies of Star Wars movies. He enlisted my help as co-starring in a four-minute piece in which he portrayed Han Solo and I was his nameless co-pilot. I was nameless because Pierre, long before such concerns existed, worried that casting me as “Chewbacca the Wookie” might come off as racist.

In true Pierre form, the preparations and logistics were meticulous. We commandeered station owner Frank Spain’s twin engine plane, which was parked in the station’s lot. Our fellow employees came out and rocked the plane as if it were undergoing an attack. The finished product was seamless. With his usual unselfish nature, Pierre gave me all the laugh lines while he played the foil. It was brilliantly edited and produced … and when the ratings came in, it was stunningly obvious, almost nobody watched it. Thus was life at X-34!

After working together for a couple of years, Pierre took a job in Detroit and became a sensation. We kept in touch through the years as I eventually landed in Memphis, and he fell from the stars in Detroit as a feature reporter to be resurrected in Huntsville, Alabama, as a producer of award-winning documentaries.

We eventually reunited at WHBQ to work together on investigative stories. It was during that time I came to fully recognize the talent and caring for the human condition Pierre had behind his cultured and sometimes distracted demeanor.

As I related in a recent WKNO tribute to Pierre with my television colleagues Jackson Baker, Bill Dries, and Andrew Douglas, issues such as the depth of poverty and racism in Memphis truly angered and befuddled him. He wasn’t naïve enough to believe that every man could be transformed into a foot soldier for change. However, unlike many of us, he was willing, until proven otherwise, to give everyone he met the benefit of the doubt.

Pierre’s unmatched body of television work was reflective of his attempt to reach the core of people’s feelings. He assumed a life’s mission to make that one-dimensional box come alive, not through idle chatter but by producing thought-provoking weekly programs and thoroughly researched documentaries for WKNO.

My biggest heartbreak is in knowing that for all the lives he may have unknowingly touched and motivated, Pierre died alone. The circumstances of his death will haunt me for the rest of my life. Why didn’t I ask him about his health? Why didn’t I have him over to the house just to talk with him about whatever was going on in his life? Why didn’t I know there might be something amiss?

The answers to those questions were just a phone call away. Yet, it was a phone call I didn’t make.

Decades ago, I didn’t know what to make of my first meeting with Pierre Kimsey. But I learned, as so many viewers also did, to appreciate his creative genius. He will be sorely missed.

Les Smith is a reporter for WHBQ Fox-13.

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Lives That Matter

I never met Freddie Gray. But in reporting on cases in “the pit” — the bottom floor of the Shelby County Criminal Justice Center in Memphis — I’ve met plenty of guys like the man so many African Americans in Baltimore have exalted to martyr status.

They are the ones who suffer from a fatal flaw of omission, as they anxiously relate to me their stories of persecution at the hands of police, either before or after their arrests. I’ve patiently listened. Then I’ve gone back and checked their criminal rap sheets and found out the vital information, the arrest history they didn’t bother to tell me.

In the case of the 25-year–old Gray, public outrage with his death has continued to overshadow a lengthy criminal record that included almost two dozen prior arrests from illegal gambling to burglary to drug possession. It makes me shake my head in wonderment that Gray’s acknowledged criminal career and the highly questionable nature of his death in the custody of Baltimore police, should be elevated to a martyrdom that becomes the catalyst for people burning down their own neighborhoods under the banner of “black lives matter.”

Why, given the illustrious history of the civil rights movement, are we African Americans now willing to let social media, racially motivated opportunists, and our thirst to create modern-day martyrs lead us to ignore the lack of moral character of some of these victims of police misbehavior?

In the dictionary, “martyr” is defined as a person who willingly suffers death on behalf of any belief, principle, or cause. Where does Gray fit into any of that? What in his life dictated his death should be elevated to the same category as those of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Medgar Evers, or James Chaney? Why should Gray’s murder be categorized as a life that mattered any more than that of white civil rights icons Detroit housewife Viola Luiza or slain civil rights activists Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner?

The success of the civil rights movement didn’t hinge on the skin color of those who knowingly and willingly were ready to sacrifice their lives for the tenets of social justice they believed in. It was because, in one of the most turbulent times in our history, those eventual victims of atrocities all embraced the unpopular concept that all lives matter, whether white, black, or brown.

I was warned not to write this column, because it might be construed as somehow being disloyal to black people. I was told it might be safer to take some middle ground, where I would express some amount of outrage for Gray’s death and stress the need to continue efforts to establish a civilian review board in Memphis to have some form of oversight on potential overzealous MPD actions.

I do feel sadness for Gray’s family, and I believe the Baltimore police officers involved in his death should be investigated. And now that the Baltimore prosecutor has filed charges against the officers (who were black and white, male and female), the investigation will go forth as it should. I also hope the Memphis City Council will give members of the civilian review board some teeth in order to help to be more effective watchdogs over incidents when law enforcement officers have possibly overstepped their legal bounds.

However, why I wrote this column didn’t come to me until I sat across from my granddaughters and grandson for a joyous brunch in Overton Square. I’ve read all of this fatalistic crap about how black children are destined to fail in life. I’ve heard all the arguments. They’ll have no parental guidance. I’ve ingested those cold statistics that project by the time they’re in their teens they’ll know a family member who’s been shot or is in jail or is dead. Because they’re black, they’ll be prone to acquiring felony records that will immediately limit future career opportunities and they’ll be sentenced to being on the welfare rolls.

None of those dire predictions will happen as long as my grandchildren remain in the loving embrace of their family. Whether they like it or not, they will be exposed and entrenched in the values of pride, honesty, and the drive to succeed. They will not help to burn down cities. They will strive to be active parts of the foundations upon which great cities and communities are built. But above all, it will be instilled in them, that wherever life takes them, they will always be ensconced in the truth that “all lives do matter,” including theirs.

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We Don’t Have Jack

Jack McCoy, where are you when we really need you?

Jack McCoy was the fictional hard-driving executive assistant district attorney who stopped at nothing in his quest to put felons behind bars in the iconic television series Law and Order. As brilliantly played by actor Sam Waterson, McCoy was often arrogant, overbearing, and idealistic, but always a passionate advocate for justice. He reluctantly plea-bargained in some cases, but only if it led to the eventual conviction of someone higher up the criminal food chain. Of course, since the show was described as a “police procedural legal drama,” everything from arrest to conviction was usually neatly wrapped up in one pulse-pounding hour.

As a reporter, I’ve covered my share of criminal cases and, unfortunately, in the real world of establishing law and order, the gap between the time of arrest and conviction can be interminable. It can stretch into painful years waiting for justice — both for the accused and the families of their alleged victims. The supposed tenet that all accused have — the legal right to a speedy trial — is a myth. The justice system, not just in Memphis but across the country, is backlogged with cases. Protracted incarcerations and trials cost taxpayers millions.

It’s against this backdrop of three high-profile violent incidents — the shooting deaths of 15-year-old Cateria Stokes and 7-year-old Kirsten Williams and a mob attack at a Midtown gas station on a man trying to help a frightened woman into her car — brought outcries of disgust and calls for action from nearly all sectors of Memphis. The arrests of three men in Williams’ murder focused an intense scrutiny on just how deep the problems of gangs and criminal recidivism continue to erode our public safety. The extensive rap sheet of 21-year-old Jordan Clayton drew special attention to the fact that even though he had previously pled guilty to aggravated assault and robbery charges, he served just over six months in jail for crimes for which he was sentenced to a collective total of four years.

As frustrated District Attorney General Amy Weirich told me, Clayton would have been behind bars, if the victim of an aggravated robbery, where Clayton was a prime suspect, hadn’t told a different story at a preliminary hearing than the one he originally told police and prosecutors. Instead, Clayton received a lesser charge and soon returned to the streets.

So far, nine teenagers have been arrested and charged with aggravated riot in connection with the BP gas station mob attack against Memphian Orrden Williams. First-term General Sessions Judge Gerald Skahan drew public criticism for lowering the $100,000 bonds leveled against some of the suspects to $5,000. Skahan said the initial bonds set were “unjustly high.” Skahan also stipulated that the Northwest Prep Academy students involved must return to classes, adhere to a 6 p.m. curfew, and stay away from the gas station. It’s estimated by Memphis police that as many as 50 young people participated in the attack. Their investigation continues.

So as I recently watched another of the countless reruns of Law and Order, I asked myself, “WWJD.” What would Jack do? My guess is he’d wholeheartedly share MPD Director Toney Armstrong’s on-target assessment that “guns in the hands of youth are a recipe for disaster.”

In reality, the Tennessee General Assembly’s penchant for easing gun restrictions only complicates efforts to stop that access. I suspect McCoy would have used the bully pulpit of his office to rail against that legislation, and he probably would have used every prosecutorial weapon at his disposal to go after illegal dealers of weapons, gang members, convicted felons in possession of guns, and would have argued for tougher sentencing after every conviction.

Just as in real life, the fictional McCoy encountered some of the legal restrictions that bind the hands of police, prosecutors, and the judiciary. But it never seemed to stop him from doing what he felt was the right thing to do. He pushed the envelope and encouraged his fellow prosecutors to approach their jobs with the same passion for seeking justice. McCoy didn’t win every case, but he wasn’t afraid to do all in his power to get criminals off the streets and to vigorously fight for the rights of victims and their families. Fiction is created to entertain us. But in these perilous times, we need to find inspiration wherever we can find it.

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News News Feature

On the Bus

For years, in the early 1960s, I rode the bus to school every day, for an hour each way, back and forth. As one of the few black students living in the central Missouri countryside, most of those who endured this ordeal with me were white. It wasn’t because of some court ordered edict designed to offset segregation. It was because our junior high was 25 miles away in the community of Williamsburg.

What brought me to remember those days was last week’s furor over the decision of a Durham school bus driver to stop her vehicle after some Bolton High School students began acting up on her route. She emptied the bus and gave them an expletive-ridden tongue-lashing about their conduct and how she wasn’t going to tolerate it while she was driving.

As always seems to happen these days, her tirade was captured on video and went viral. Durham opted to temporarily suspend the driver, but by week’s end, public support of her actions forced the company to reinstate her as a driver, though not in the Shelby County School system. The school system vowed to take disciplinary actions against the students, who were ready to incite a fight on the bus.

It may sound like I’m waxing nostalgic, but on those long bus rides with my classmates on the way to school, we actually had many meaningful conversations. My best friend, who I always sat next to, was Robbie Christensen. On a socio-economic scale, we shouldn’t have even come close to bonding. His parents had money. Mine did not. Yet, through sharing our youthful observations of the changing world around us, a genuine friendship blossomed.

As 12 year olds, we told each other of our fears about dying during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. What if a nuclear war broke out against Russia, we wondered. Who would be our allies? Robbie told me his family had already built a bomb shelter and he’d have to ask, but he was pretty sure my family could use it too if we were attacked.

As school opened after the summer of 1963, the March on Washington had taken place. Robbie told me he’d heard his parents say they didn’t know what the Negro people wanted in terms of civil rights. Didn’t we have rights already? I told him I thought it meant more than just being able to go to places we hadn’t been able to go to before. “We want to have the right to choose our own paths in life,” I said. “Whether it was to be a doctor, a lawyer, or somebody on television.” Robbie promised me that if I ever got on television he’d watch me.

But when we got to our freshman year in high school, we found our friendship wasn’t immune to societal pressures. After getting off the bus, we sat together in our school’s auditorium, with black students on one side and whites on the other. For weeks, we tried to ignore the polarization. Sadly, I was the first to crack. It was the toughest and longest bus ride home I ever had. Robbie and I sat together again, but we didn’t speak. The age of our youthful innocence was over. We would see each other at school and briefly exchange pleasantries, but it wasn’t the same. Our estrangement seemed complete when my family moved into town and I stopped riding the bus.

So, who could have imagined that, years later, when I circulated a petition to become the school’s first black student body president, the first signature at the top was Robbie Christensen? When I won, he held my hand up on stage in triumph.

It makes me sad to think that times have changed so much that our children can’t think of any more to do on a school bus than to be disruptive, obnoxious, and unmannerly.

When that lone bus driver took her foot off the gas pedal and put it down to try to stop that unruly behavior, her words were perhaps harsher than they should have been. But, they were earnest and necessary. And the fact that she felt the need to say them at all bespeaks the loss of respect for common decency too many of our children display. I know from experience that a bus ride can offer an opportunity for meaningful discussion and growth. It’s too bad the kids in question don’t seem to know that.