Author: Les Smith

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News The Fly-By

A Father’s Day Lament

Our eyes met for only a second or two. Throughout the court hearing, I had stared at 15-year-old Jonathan Ray. I wanted to get a sense of what he was thinking. Like most news reporters, I have a fascination with the criminal mind. But, with this African-American teenager, it was more like: What if it had been one of my sons who was doomed to decades in prison for the heinous crime of murdering his mother and setting fire to their home to cover up the dastardly act?

Could it somehow have been avoided? Could someone have sensed his silent pain and the depressive state that led up to the moment when he decided to take the life of the one person whose only apparent fault was her unconditional love for him?

Don’t get me wrong. Whether in the spur of the moment or intentionally planned, Ray consciously made the decision to become a killer. We, as a society, and through us, our judicial system, shouldn’t mollycoddle such people. Ray is the latest example of the legal conundrum: What is the right thing to do when “tweeners” — adolescents — who commit brutal crimes come before the bar of justice?

The day before I covered Ray’s trial, I’d done a story on an event called the International Fatherhood Conference. It was a three-day workshop aimed at bringing together fathers, predominately African American, to exchange views and techniques on assuming leadership roles in their own households. Presented by a “think tank” that had done years of study on the subject, there were plenty of statistics on how the absence of a father figure in the home has a detrimental effect on children: They don’t do well in school. They often run away. The male children tend to go toward fathering out-of-wedlock babies. The girls gravitate toward being “baby factories.”

I kept thinking, tell me something I don’t already know. The thing I found curious about the scheduling of the seminars and workshops was that nearly all of them took place during the day. If you’re a hard-working father, when would you have time to come to such an event? Besides, those who desperately need this kind of manly therapy in Memphis aren’t going to get anywhere near the East Memphis hotel where it was held. It reminded me of what my grandfather once lamented: “Do-gooders often drink the mother’s milk of fools.”

These two seemingly disparate stories have been gnawing at me as we approach another Father’s Day. With all due respect to the fine folks who put on that conference, as a father, I didn’t need somebody to tell me how I needed to assume a leadership role with my children. That is a given. If you’re man enough to have them, then you should be man enough to take care of them. That applies as well to the children you might inherit if you marry into an existing family. My biological father died of tuberculosis when I was 2 years old. My mother married my stepdad when my brother Larry and I were 4 and 5, respectively. He never made us feel anything less than his children, even though three other sons would follow. My mother was a strong woman. But there was never any doubt who the “leader” of our family was, like it or not.

That’s what made the testimony given at Ray’s court hearing so soul-wrenching for me. James Wallace, Ray’s stepfather, who married the victim, Gwendolyn Wallace, when Ray was 9, said under cross-examination by Ray’s defense team that he clearly remembered someone had read his then 14-year-old son his Miranda rights before he was grilled for hours without a bathroom break by criminal investigators. However, four hours of videotape dispelled Wallace’s testimony. No one read the teen his rights.

One of the investigators admitted to lying to the boy about evidence authorities didn’t even have in order to wrangle a confession out of him. Wallace admitted he was in a room adjacent to where the interrogation was taking place and watched it all without any interference. Where was Ray’s biological father during all this? He was nowhere to be seen; he lives in Detroit.

All of this made those brief seconds of eye contact with Jonathan Ray all the more sad. Yes, he’s been sentenced to 25 years in prison. Yes, he is a convicted killer. But he is somebody’s son, too.

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How to Go On Vacation

I can say with pride my wife Lisa is a “professional vacationer.” It’s not enough the woman works long hours at her regular job, but say the word “vacation,” and her fingers start flying all over the keyboard, checking out websites, looking for the best available deals at various destinations.

You see, the problem with using a travel agency is they basically suggest to you all the ways you can have leisurely fun. There are no guarantees that once you get there you’ll actually participate in things like para-sailing, hang gliding or horseback riding. They look good in the pictures, but I like to come back home alive. It’s why I take so much stock in the activities Lisa plans for a trip. A lot of places, she’s already been. She knows the lay of the land. But, most importantly, she takes great pains to ensure we’re going to take advantage of vacation pursuits both of us will enjoy.

This has not been the case in most of my life. Even the prospect of embarking on a vacation scared me so profoundly that when the National Lampoon’s Vacation movies came out, I was the only one in the theater who never laughed. The scripted family chaos was too close to home to be funny. We were the black Griswalds! Taking a vacation conjured up visions of some “death march” to get there before hotel check-in time. My usually affable grandpa, rather than stopping at highway rest stops, sternly enforced the “urinate in a can” rule until we got to our location. His kind eyes would morph into those of a steely eyed Transformer as he and the steering wheel melded into one determined machine.

Even after arriving at a chosen vacation spot, we were never guaranteed we would find peace and serenity. I have only my brother Larry as personal witness to the family’s annual two-week treks from Fulton, Missouri, to Las Vegas. The prospect of six people riding shoulder to shoulder in one car going across the desert never appealed to me, so I’d come up with some lame excuse not to go. Besides, everybody going knew there was one place in all of Vegas that couldn’t be avoided. It was some off-the-Strip lounge where my mother, yearly mind you, wanted to see a comedian named “Cookie Jar.” He was touted as a poor man’s Redd Foxx. Larry says his jokes were so off-color and downright obscene people started heading for the exits within the first five minutes of his act. But apparently my mother would laugh so hard tears would come to her eyes. She also raved about him because after his shows he’d come to her table and remember her name. Wow! When you’re playing to an audience of 10 people that’s pretty amazing, alright.

As I became a parent, mapping out summer camp for the children was just as challenging as mulling over the family vacation. While living in Florida, we chose to send the boys off to a four-week Bible camp. It’s not that we were all that religious, but we figured there’d be plenty of healthy physical activities to occupy their minds and bodies. Week one went really well. We visited them just to make sure all was good. They chattered about canoeing and hiking. We couldn’t have been more pleased. But, just before the start of the final week, they came home for a brief respite. At dinner, they were strangely silent, until we started to chow down. Then, as if in some Children of the Corn cult-like trance, they rose to announce: “If you and mom don’t change your ways, you will be part of the heathen savages that will be engulfed in the fiery pit of Hell, where Satan will eternally torture you until your heads fall off and they’ll be eaten by rats!”

No, we didn’t send them back for the final week of camp.

All of which brings me back to Lisa’s marvelous plans for a trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where we will be when you read this article. It’s one of those all-expenses pre-paid trips where you eat and drink to your heart’s content. There are blue skies and lovely Pacific Ocean beaches. However, just before we left, I caught my wife staring off into space. I asked what was wrong. She said, “Ah, nothing. It’s just that I’ve got a lot of work to do to take you on vacation,” and I said, “It’ll be fine. I checked. Cookie Jar is still in Vegas.”

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News The Fly-By

Race and Sexuality In Sports Aren’t New — But Change Is Coming.

I felt like I was at the first crossroads of my life as I knocked on the office door of Fulton (Missouri) High School head basketball Coach Ken Quest. I’d just received the news I’d made the school’s debate team. However, the debate team schedule was in direct conflict with basketball practices and games. As a sophomore point guard, I was eligible to play varsity ball.

To me, it was an agonizing decision. I just knew Coach Quest would feel my pain and would set about to work something out. He was totally silent as I explained my dilemma. Then he leaned forward and said, “Smitty, you probably got a real future in that debate stuff, because you sure don’t have one playing basketball. So long, and turn in your jersey!” At least I could say it was an honest reflection of what the man really felt.

The need to be honest with one’s feelings and the ramifications that come with it have invaded the world of professional sports within the past few weeks. In the cliché-ridden, over-hyped, closed-fraternity, big-money industry sports has become, the intrusion of societal issues such as racism and homosexuality can result in seismic reactions among those who play the games and those who vicariously follow the action. But it’s all part of a generations-long cleansing process of bigotry and prejudice that this nation is still undergoing.

A check of history reveals the racial rants captured by defamed former Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling are by no means the first time crude and archaic statements have been uttered by sports executives and personalities. The “Hall of Shame” in that regard has a number of infamous entries. Remember former Los Angeles Dodger General Manager Al Campanis on a 1987 edition of Nightline? Goaded by host Ted Koppel into an offhand remark, a live audience was aghast when the earnest 70-year-old said blacks didn’t have the “necessities” to be baseball managers or executives. He was fired two days later. A year after that, CBS sports analyst Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder joined Campanis in the unemployment line — fired for his statement that “blacks were bred through slavery to be better athletes.”

You don’t have to dial too far back to dredge up golfer Fuzzy Zoeller’s racist joke about Masters winner Tiger Woods serving fried chicken at the champions’ dinner. Radio shock-jock Don Imus’ feeble attempt at sports humor ended in an Al Sharpton intervention after Imus called the Rutgers women’s basketball team a bunch of “nappy-headed ho’s.”

The public purgatory these stupid men had to endure was self-inflicted and, except for the near-senile Campanis, well deserved.

Homosexuality in sports has been much more closeted. The late-round selection of openly gay University of Missouri football player Michael Sam has provided us with one memorable video clip of him and his significant other embracing and kissing after he received the draft call from the St. Louis Rams. When Sam made his sexual identity public in February, he was immediately congratulated for doing so by former NFL running back Dave Kopay.

In a 1975 Sports Illustrated cover article, published three years after his retirement, Kopay revealed he’d had an affair with another player who later died of AIDS. In a letter to Sam, Kopay advised him as to what lies ahead: “You need to bring it like you never have brought it before.”

Sam would be smart to heed Kopay’s words. There will be the initial media frenzy. There will be one news conference where he answers all their prying questions. Then the furor will die down, and he becomes a person simply trying to stay employed. We should respect his efforts.

It’s all the reflection of a society in flux. Dinosaurs like Donald Sterling still roam the earth, mired in their own ethical morass. They know their numbers are decreasing. They fear a world where intellect stares bigotry and prejudice in the face and doesn’t blink. They’re scared the good-ole-boy system of race-based locker-room myths will no longer apply to real life. They should be afraid of extinction. Yet, sometimes I still wonder if all those many years ago, Coach Quest was too hasty in accepting my jersey.

Nah — for in life as in sports, “You gotta bring it!”

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The “Circus”

Last week, the “circus” returned to Orange Mound. Hundreds lined Enterprise Street not to see clowns, not to marvel at the majesty of elephants or lions, but to watch the eerie sight of a coroner’s wagon maneuvering to the back of a house to pick up the bullet-riddled bodies of James and Danielle Alexander.

It’s a sad part of my job as a reporter to come to such scenes. Every time I do, I always try to put in the back of my mind the criticism of those who regard reporters as parasites leeching off the misery of others in order to get a story. However, when I look around at crime scenes it’s the morbid curiosity of others that makes me feel it’s important to be there to get the true details of what happened. No one should gawk at a scene of human tragedy as if they’re watching a scripted television show and eating a bag of potato chips. Each time I draw these assignments, especially in the African-American community, it is hard to try and divest myself of the emotions of the moment. I want to make the argument that it should be the same for you, when you see it broadcast later that day.

We have become a callous society. I’m not trying to drop some guilt trip on you. I’m just saying if the loss of human life, no matter how distant it is from one’s personal environment, doesn’t elicit some emotional response from the general public, then the deterioration of the country’s morals and ethics can’t be far behind. I know the majority of whites in Memphis feel murders and violent crimes in African-American neighborhoods are not their problem. To a great extent, I agree with you.

Black-on-black crime statistics are ridiculous. Numbers derived of decades of embracing some misguided sub-culture which has replaced the “American Dream” with a bizarro world equivalent, where success is measured in criminal arrests, bullet wounds, the number of illegitimate babies one can father, how much dope you can sling, and an adoption of a stereotypical swagger based on bluff, devoid of intelligence. In too many cases, blacks have shirked their parental responsibilities. Too many black children have grown up with no role models, other than inane entertainers, self-aggrandizing sports personalities, or street corner philosophers who dispense precisely the wrong information about how to overcome the obstacles presented by everyday life in America. And here’s the kicker: History doesn’t and shouldn’t owe we African Americans anything! It’s well chronicled how men and women such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and Memphis’ own Benjamin Hooks laid their blood, sweat, and tears on the line to enable future generations to enter the doors of equal opportunity. All of the civil rights legislation enabling that to happen has been passed. The biggest hurdle remains in the immeasurably difficult task of getting the minds of men and women to accept and take advantage of what are now the laws of the land as they apply to equal rights.

Let me at this point echo the words of Memphis Police Director Toney Armstrong. When asked by a gaggle of media people about the rash of violent crimes in the city, Armstrong told the truth. When it comes to guns, he said, all of us should recognize and understand to the responsibility that comes with owning a gun.

This week, I spoke with WDIA radio personality Bev Johnson, who comes from the same “old school” as I do. She spoke emphatically about how fear has gripped our community — the trepidation from all the guns on the streets in the black community. But she also reflected on how life used to be in our neighborhoods, back when people — relatives and neighbors — wanted to be a part of the village that raised a child. She talked about the days when people were more willing to monitor potential problems they observed on their streets, when they opted to get involved rather than refrain for fear of retaliation.

So rest assured, white community: The British had it wrong in regards to the future of the colored race, because we’re not your “burden” to assume. But the hard truth is, if we don’t all work together to address this epidemic, next time the circus may be setting up a big top on your street.

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The Right To Arm Bears

We will soon have a respite from the unfettered imaginings of the 108th Tennessee General Assembly. That is, barring any last-minute bills introduced to give babies the right to carry guns inside or outside the womb under the guise of Second Amendment protection. Since the 33 senators and 99 members of the House convened in January, Tennesseans have held their collective breath every day as to what new otherworldly musings would eventually take the form of “Mad Hatter” proposed legislation.

It would be too easy to just dismiss as partisan politics what’s come down the pike this session. It’s been a veritable cornucopia of attempted restrictive — verging on unconstitutional — measures that would have sent this country’s historic founding fathers like Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin scurrying back to England on the first boat. Despite the entrenched Republican majorities in both chambers, there remains plenty of blame to be dispersed among a feckless Shelby County legislative delegation and a popular Tennessee governor who has yet to display a spine when it comes to standing up to the bullies in his own party. However, one theme has remained consistent: There is a determined effort to minimalize the power, influence, and future growth of Memphis.

What else explains the passage of a bill giving communities the ability to hold referendums on establishing the right of refusal to annexation? Annexation reserves have been the gateway for cities in America to generate the revenues needed to offset the rising cost of their sheer existence. I know it’s not what you want to hear in south Cordova. But when Fortune 500 companies, such as FedEx and International Paper, list Memphis as their headquarters, it’s because they want that association to be known. We all benefit from that. I know you don’t like property taxes. Who does? So, would you rather see the inner city turned into some apocalyptic wasteland to prove your point? The legislature is feeding into your paranoia, just as they have on the issue of the right to bear arms.

Let’s talk about guns. I don’t own one. I never have. I never will. Oh, yeah, I’ve shot rabbits at the insistence of my grandfather, who I otherwise considered a sage mentor. But any obsession I might have had to kill defenseless animals ended right there. Do you realize what message this would have sent to those who would visit this city to have seen “open carry” on our streets? As Flyer political columnist Jackson Baker related to me this week, one Tennessee House member told him “every gangbanger in Memphis would be strapped” if this passes.

Disappointing, too, was the failure to appropriate $2 million for the thousands of rape kits still awaiting testing in Memphis. Apparently willing to take full credit for a bill that extended the life of prosecution for rape cases, Collierville Republican state Senator Mark Norris then chastised colleague Jim Kyle’s efforts to get the appropriation, labeling it “a stunt.” Norris, fully aware of the Bluff City’s predicament, says he’d rather wait until he finds out how many Tennessee communities statewide are beset by the same problem. Norris seems to want to wait until the rape-kit numbers are tallied in the potential sexual hotbeds of Gibson and Henry counties before addressing the issue in some place where it’s already a sad reality.

Yet, while it’s easy to snicker at the bombastic rants of Lieutenant Governor Ron Ramsey or the totally out of the box, off the charts stupidity of Senator Stacey Campfield, it is the waffling nature of Governor Haslam that both perplexes and angers me the most. In my humble opinion, he is a man who could be a game changer in this state. He’s personable. He’s affable. Unlike his predecessor, Phil Bredesen, he’s the kind of guy you wouldn’t mind going out to have a beer with, as long as he was paying. However, it’s his timidity, his apparent inability to offer his true thoughts on any important issue that’s so exasperating. From the school merger to gun legislation to a state health-care program for Tennesseans, Haslam avoids directly answering anything. Curiously, his popularity rating is one that most elected officials would kill for, but he allows the loquacious Ramsey and the legislative mechanic Norris to run roughshod over any opposition. “Well, we’ll wait and see what happens” is not leadership.

Fortunately, the legislative session is about over and Memphians will get a break … but it won’t be long enough.

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A Question of Character

The minutes had turned to hours as I waited for my Uncle George to arrive. It was the day after I’d graduated from junior high. As my favorite relative, my uncle, who lived in Kentucky, had promised me we’d take a road trip from my home in Missouri to Chicago, and just the two of us would enjoy the sights. My family had left the city when I was a child, so to me it was going to be a pilgrimage I’d excitedly anticipated. But, just to be exclusively in the company of the man I had idolized from afar most of my then short and uneventful life was going to be thrilling enough.

On those rare occasions when I saw him — family reunions or his brief stopovers while traveling through — I became fascinated by the stories George told of people, places, and events that he’d experienced in his life. Though my other siblings would tire of his well-worn tales, I always intently listened, as if I’d never heard any of them before. I relished his braggadocio, tales of how he set foolish men straight, how he took it upon himself, at the risk of possible repercussions, to right injustice whenever he encountered it, even in the pre-civil rights era. I envisioned him as a black version of Don Quixote. Yet, when I would sing his praises to my mother, she would wistfully reply, “Yes, son, George is a character.”

This past week marked the reemergence of two colorful “characters” from this city’s past. In an extensive interview with the Flyer’s sage political columnist Jackson Baker, former state Senator John Ford, released from the legal probation that followed his release from prison as the result of his bribery conviction after the 2005 Tennessee Waltz scandal, went back on the offensive. He alleged he was among a group of black Democrats targeted by a predatory justice system. He asserted videos presented by federal prosecutors were edited to make him look guilty. The boisterous Ford attempted to make the argument that we should all be fearful that freedom of speech is under attack, based on what happened to him. In an accompanying interview, Ford also lashed out at the credibility of his attorney in the bribery case, Michael Scholl. Having reported on the trial, I can say Ford should thank his lucky stars the adept Scholl was almost able to defy the logic of what was undeniably incriminating evidence.

And then it was “Joe Time.” Television personality and former Shelby County Court Judge Joe Brown once again briefly ruled the airways in another reality show setting. His outburst inside a Juvenile Court room, as the pro bono legal representative of a woman he met in the hallway, was the fodder of websites, twitter, and ridiculous analysis ad-nauseum. The fact is, and what Brown continually refused to honestly address, is that as a former jurist he knew better than to stage such a contemptuous performance in another judge’s domain. He wouldn’t have stood for such a scene when he was on the bench.

But, the recent exploits of “Joe and John” reflect the fear of an aging generation of which I am a part. No one wants to feel obsolete. None of us wants to admit the sense of wide-eyed enthusiasm that propelled our youth now seems reduced to spouting the type of clichés we once thought were the last resorts of the foolish and the prideful. Our generation now often dreams of creating new moments by simply ignoring the truth of history or by rewriting it with a different and more favorable spin. We don’t want to admit the time we had on our drive to succeed in life has waned so much. It’s just easier to use the “shortcuts” we learned along the trail to make up for the time lost and the time we have left to still make a difference.

If we had gone on that trip to Chicago, maybe Uncle George would have taken the time to explain something like that to me. Maybe he would have told me there is a stark difference between “having character” and “being a character.” To be a character takes little more than to establish a personality that stands out from the crowd. That can be manufactured. To have character is to realize honesty and truth are more than just words. They are the foundation of our existence.

At some point, I stopped waiting on Uncle George.

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Winners and Losers

Perhaps, more than anyone else I ever met, the late William Otis “Bill” Little understood the parameters entailed in being anointed the title of “coach.” His death last month at the age of 79 brought back memories of his befriending me when I arrived in Memphis 30 years ago as a sports reporter. We periodically met while covering the same stories on the high school athletics scene and the then-Memphis State Tiger basketball squads. A mutual admiration and our comfort level with each other soon developed to the point he’d just refer to me as “Smitty,” and I called him “Still Bill.” But it was mostly through other acquaintances that I learned what an icon in the African-American community Bill really was.

When we met, he was the sports editor for the Tri-State Defender. But his impressive resume included being a player with the Memphis Red Sox in the Negro Baseball League. He led high school baseball and basketball championship teams in 28 years of coaching. He was a respected referee in college football circles, including the SWAC Conference for 30 years. However, he always downplayed the subject of his accomplishments. Instead he opted to discuss his belief in the importance of mentoring young minds and the powerful opportunity coaches have to fill voids in those lives with positive reinforcement of ethics and values. Never once did he refer to the stale sports cliché “winning is everything.”

What my friend Bill did acknowledge — and indoctrinated in me — was the steadfast bond between this community and the fortunes of Tiger basketball. It is as if by some Siamese twins connection we collectively shared the euphoria generated by their victories and the plunge into massive depression when they lost.

Let’s be honest. The Grizzlies could win a string of NBA championships and they would never totally wrest away Memphians’ hearts from those who don the blue and gray. The Tigers are our continuing soap opera, bringing us pain, joy, disgust, elation, and frustration. We never seem to get enough of praising or ridiculing. Though players come and go in our hearts, we tend to focus our most rabid analysis on the man with the title “coach.”

In the three decades I’ve been here, whether on the sports beat or not, I have formulated my own opinions on the men chosen to assume the reins of Tiger basketball leadership. I was not a great fan of the late Dana Kirk. His self-promotion was disturbing, as well as a precursor to the disaster he would eventually leave behind for his successor, Larry Finch, to deal with. The homegrown Finch, like his mentor, Gene Bartow, was a man who truly cared about the players he recruited. No, he wasn’t the best “X’s and O’s” coach when it came to on-court strategy, but he tried to make sure the emphasis was correctly placed on the term “student-athlete.”

Tic Price was a walking disaster. Interim head coach Johnny Jones has since proven elsewhere that he might have been the one that got away. Coach Cal? Let’s just say no other coach in college athletics knows more about manipulating the psyche of the African-American collegiate athlete. Feed their egos and their dreams to get them to win. Throw them under the bus as undisciplined morons when they lose. Bobby Knight had him pegged right all along.

I do not doubt the sincerity of Josh Pastner’s passion for the welfare of his players or his allegiance to the University of Memphis. I don’t doubt he frets into the wee hours of the night about what he can do to make his team a cohesive unit, one as dedicated as he is to the task of making Tiger fans proud. At this point, you’re figuring there’s going to be a “but” placed in here somewhere? No. Instead, listen, Tiger fans:

If the team gets wiped out in the first round of the tournament, the sun will still come up the next day. A single jobless mother of three in Memphis will still wake up and wonder how she’s going to feed her kids. A father will worry about how he’s going to pay for his son’s college tuition. Someone will be murdered. Rape kits will remain untested. Babies will be born.

My mentor, Bill Little, a man who embraced sports his whole life, understood its triviality in the biggest game we all play. “Winning isn’t everything” if it teaches you nothing about the things that truly count in life.

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Memorandum of Understanding

When my wife and I got married two wonderful years ago, our rings signified we had our own “memorandum of understanding.” One of the clearest terms of our agreement was that if I cheated with another woman, I could, or make that would, be subject to bodily harm, as opposed to the offending paramour I might take up with. I have readily and wholeheartedly accepted that particular stipulation.

In a not so subtle way, it brings me to the recent public relations fiasco that transpired between Memphis Police Department (MPD) Director Toney Armstrong and Memphis Police Association (MPA) President Mike Williams. Within the space of 48 hours, both men argued, filed lawsuits against one another, and then “kissed and made up” at a hastily arranged news conference last week.

Their disagreement apparently stemmed from the ever-outspoken Williams taking issue with crime statistics indicating overall crime in the city was down. Williams asserted to a television reporter it wasn’t true. An irate Armstrong then filed disciplinary action against Williams, based on verbal misconduct, which led to the union president and two other MPA leaders being assigned back to their regular police beats. Within hours of the decision, MPA threatened a lawsuit. Despite backing from the administration of Mayor A C Wharton, Armstrong would later rescind his decision and reinstate Williams and the others back to their statuses as full-time union representatives. Before the media hordes, both men spoke of the need to engage in a joint mission to stand together in the common cause of crime fighting.

Where do I begin to express the sense of lunacy, displayed on both sides, that all of this entailed? First, by reported accounts, Armstrong apparently laid a trap for Williams by calling him into a meeting in response to a reporter’s baiting inquiries about Williams’ reaction to the statistics. True, he told the reporter he didn’t want any cameras to record the sensitive conversation. But why invite a reporter in at all? Could this not have been handled by inviting Williams to his office for a private conversation between two men who came up through the ranks together as colleagues? He had to have known it would make headlines. It’s like the old analogy about a man taking in a snake as a pet, and when the snake bites him he expresses surprise when the answer is “well, you knew I was a snake, and this is what I do!” Reporters are supposed to report.

As for Williams, his mea culpa statement during the news conference — alleging the media sparked a “tit for tat that inflated his comments” — is in a word, laughable. Consider the source.

Since taking over the reins as MPA president in April 2011 from the ineffectual leadership of J. D. Sewell, Williams’ self-determined “mission” has been to cast the Wharton administration as the “dark star” that’s taking direct aim at destroying city employee unions. In his efforts, fostered under the guise of full union approval, he’s pulled some outlandish and troubling displays of discontent. Not the least of which was last year’s MPA-sponsored billboard campaign warning visitors to enter the “dangerous” city of Memphis “at their own risk.” I don’t think in the annals of any other city’s history has such a foreboding message been as boldly plastered for public consumption.

In fact, that act alone might be construed as being in violation of the apparently flexible interpretation of the city’s Memorandum of Understanding with the police and fire unions. In January 1981, four years after the police and firefighter strikes of 1977, the Labor Law Journal, in citing the violent acts that had taken place during the eight-day strike, said the unions “had attempted to alter the structure of government by coercive means.” So, short of not making arrests, not issuing valid tickets, or not patrolling crime-riddled neighborhoods, could anything be more detrimental to the image of the city than telling people their lives are in danger if they come here?

Just as I have with my beloved, I know there is clarity to be had between MPD and MPA, based on one simple principle: Do the job you have sworn to do! The idea that a department and a union comprised of the same personnel can’t understand they share the common ground of ensuring the safety of more than 600,000 people is ludicrous. Your memo of understanding should have that printed in the biggest and boldest of letters.

Yeah, and it should be billboard size.

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The Line is Busy

Here’s a shout-out to Collierville Republican state Senator Mark Norris. As a man of intellect, not to mention the senate majority leader of the rambunctious Tennessee General Assembly, I bet he must cringe every time the phone rings. Imagine, having to appear to be understanding and civil to the looney-toon legislators of both parties who seek his advice on how to proceed with ethically and morally questionable legislative proposals they appear to have pulled out of thin air. Some of the proposed measures brought forward by his colleagues beg the question, “Have the inmates completely taken over running the asylum?”

I don’t know what his conversations specifically entail. But, for the purposes of this column, I’ll put my imagination to work.

“Senator Norris, I have Senator Stacey Campfield on the line, he’d like to speak with you?

“I thought I told you to block his number?”

“Well, sir, he insists it’s of some importance.”

“Okay, put him through.”

“Mark, Stacey here. I need some help on the language of a bill I’m working on to castrate all black men who have more than two children. I heard it works in cutting down on the Chinese population. And we could put more teeth in it by making them take a drug test before copulation occurs. I think I’ve got a sponsor lined up in the House from Johnson City. I know you’re busy, Mark, if you could just streamline the wording for me …”

“Senator, I hate to interrupt, but, it’s Senator Ophelia Ford on line two. At least, I think it’s her. It sounded kind of distant.”

“Okay, I got it.”

“Ophelia, to what do I owe the pleasure of this call?”

“Who is this?”

“Ophelia, it’s, Mark Norris, what can I do for you?”

“Oh, yes, Mark, I’ve introduced a bill to legalize medical marijuana usage in the state. I think it’s timely because, with all the mean nurses I’ve dealt with in the past, I’ve decided self-medication is the way to go. Besides, I read, or someone read it for me, that Congressman Steve Cohen likes marijuana too, and he’s a white man from Colorado. Did you know they have bike lanes just like us?”

“Oops! Sorry, Ophelia, we’ll talk more later. I’ve got another call.”

“Senator, Brian Kelsey, on line three.”

“Hello, Brian, I was expecting your call. Well, you’ve made quite the mess of it, young man, mixing religion and business with homosexuality. I wish you had come to me first about the wording of your proposal. It’s atrocious legislation and no sane-thinking legislator is going to back it. Brian, what in the world were you thinking? (click) Brian? … Brian?”

“Senator Norris, I’ve got state Representative Curry Todd on hold.”

“Okay, put him through.”

“Mark, what time is it?”

“Well, Curry, by my watch, it’s 3:15 in the afternoon.”

“You see, that’s the point of some new legislation I’m wrestling with. This whole daylight savings time issue is so confusing. Now, here’s what I was thinking: We could scrap the whole idea of daylight savings time or we could make it permanent. Or we could try to make the day longer, because this idea of having to go through the tedious process of fixing our clocks twice a year is just ludicrous. We got different time zones in this state. If we rolled back the clocks for an hour, it would give extra daylight for our farmers to be productive, and in the winter our children wouldn’t be going to school in the dark. And for people who go to bars there’d be extra time for happy hour, because, as I well know, it’s always five o’clock somewhere, ain’t it, Mark? If you’ll just put the right words in place, I’ll find some senate sponsor who’d like to have his name on a bill. I tried to call Campfield and Kelsey, but their lines were busy. Do you know how I could get ahold of Ophelia Ford?”

“Senator Norris, I hate to interrupt, but I’ve got a phone call from some supposed elected official from Memphis who’d like to talk to you about legalizing guns in parks?”

“Just tell them, it’s five o’clock somewhere.”

Categories
News The Fly-By

Family Justice

My grandpa and grandma were married for more than 60 years. They met at the start of the “Roaring Twenties” in Chicago. They used their wits and creativity, including the production of bath tub gin in the prohibition era, to build a comfortable life together.

Like all couples who experience that type of admirable longevity, their relationship didn’t come without highs and lows. Long before the television show Green Acres, we knew grandpa and grandma were exact opposites when it came to preferring an urban or rural setting. Grandma loved overseeing the apartment properties they’d acquired in the Windy City. Grandpa was happy to stay on the farm he bought in central Missouri in the early 1960s.

Periodically, grandma would bite the bullet and make a visit to the farm that would usually extend through the summer. Since the rest of my family had made the move with grandpa, having our feisty and opinionated grandmother there sometimes seemed to put everybody a little on edge. It prompted me to ask grandpa once if he’d ever felt mad enough to hit her. A warm smile came across his face and he replied, “Why would I do that? I love her. I’ve always loved her.”

His words were rolling around in my head as I reported on a two-day conference sponsored by the Family Safety Center, discussing the challenges of domestic violence in Memphis and Shelby County. Ironically, the conference came just hours after a Cordova nail salon owner and her estranged husband had been found shot to death in an incident authorities determined was a domestic murder/suicide.

I’ll be honest. I originally went to the event to track down Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich to pepper her with more questions about untested rape kits. But, while the kits and what’s being done with them is a vital public interest story, domestic violence is a continuing scourge of the human condition, just as startling, just as horrifying. It’s perplexing that it continues to go almost unnoticed, except to those who deal with the often reluctant-to-testify victims.

Casey Gwinn, president of the national Family Justice Center Alliance, laid out some of the compelling statistics. He said that if a husband or boyfriend puts his hands around his wife’s or girlfriend’s neck in anger one time, the chances are 80 percent that the woman will be the victim of a homicide. Children who grow up witnessing that type of violence stand a much higher chance of becoming victims or perpetrators of domestic violence when they reach adulthood.

Reported domestic violence cases in Memphis, Shelby County, and the state of Tennessee are among the highest in the nation. And that’s only the reported cases. As Gwinn observed, most of our statistics on this issue come from studies on white and black victims and perpetrators. Language and cultural barriers probably preclude us from getting the real numbers on Hispanic, Asian, and other ethnic groups, where silence often serves as a shroud for suffering.

This is where we come in. I know, these days, no one wants to get into anybody else’s business because of fear of retribution. But, reflect back on the days when neighbors took care of neighbors. Not seeing them on their porch, walking their dog, or in church, or observing a change in their daily patterns was met with concern. I’m not talking about being nosy. I’m saying be observant.

And if the time comes when a domestic violence victim confides in you, be more than a shoulder to cry on. Alert them to the avenues of help available at the Family Safety Center. Their first objective isn’t to prosecute, but to provide hope and healing and protection. For victims, it’s often not easy to initiate the first step. As the center’s executive director, Olliette Murray-Drabot, told me: “Domestic violence goes beyond a criminal issue. It’s emotional. There are relationships. You’ve got husbands and wives, and girlfriends and boyfriends who have built lives together. So that makes it more challenging.”

Of course, the challenge has forever been how to define “love” in any relationship. Observing my grandparents and their unique approach to crafting a relationship, I can only say it worked for them. They may not have always understood where the other was coming from, but they accepted each other’s differences. And they never failed to end a day together without those three little words that cement any relationship —I love you.