The painful images and graphic stories of repeated violent assaults and
vandalism by mobs of black teenagers had gotten to be too much for
Mayor Michael Nutter.
As an elected official and a "proud black man" in the nation's fifth-largest city, Nutter felt he had to go a step beyond ordering a law enforcement crackdown.
So he channeled the spirit of another straight-talking Philadelphian: Bill Cosby. Nutter took to the pulpit at his church last weekend and gave an impassioned, old-fashioned talking-to directed at the swarms of teens who have been using social networks to arrange violent sprees downtown, injuring victims and damaging property. Moreover, he called out parents for not doing a better job raising their children.
"You've damaged yourself, you've damaged another person, you've damaged your peers and, quite honestly, you've damaged your own race," Nutter said at Mount Carmel Baptist Church.He called out absentee fathers and neglectful parents. He did not mince words, saying they need to be more than just a "sperm donor" or a "human ATM."
"That's part of the problem in our community," Nutter told the congregation. "Let me speak plainer: That's part of the problem in the black community. ... We have too many men making too many babies they don't want to take care of and then we end up dealing with your children."
At a National Association for the Advancement of Colored People gathering in 2004, It can be recalled Bill Cosby chided the black community in a speech commemorating the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the legal case that toppled segregated education.
"These people marched and were hit in the face with rocks to get an education and now we've got these knuckleheads walking around," Cosby said then.
"I can't even talk the way these people talk, 'Why you ain't,' 'Where you is' ... and I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk," the entertainer said.
Unfortunately while a lot of people in the black community believe this is a problem that needs to be address, Others say he's airing private community matters now that crime is sprouting downtown, near businesses and popular tourist attractions in a sprawling city with many other sections already plagued by persistent gun violence.
Annette John-Hall, a black columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer, wrote this week that the mayor crossed a line when he said, "You've damaged your own race."
"We can deal with the public tongue-lashing, even if his intended targets were nowhere to be found among the law-abiding churchgoers in their Sunday best," John-Hall wrote. She went on to say, "But what really bothered me was when Nutter fired the age-old salvo that has historically evoked head-hanging shame among black folks."
That is just the Problem from my point of view too, it seems every time you call on black folks to correct the many problems we have in the black community, they get angry, call you an Uncle Tom, or worse. We need to grow up and take care of our responsibilities and not always blame the White man or anybody else for our problems.
The sad fact is many in the 'inner community' will chide him as being an 'uncle tom' for demanding that people account themselves for their actions.
Bill Cosby made similar statements and was raked across the coals for it.
In one attack last month, a man ended up in the hospital with broken teeth and a wired jaw after a group of teenagers attacked him downtown. Hours later, a crowd of young people assaulted four other men. The city plans to increase legal sanctions for parents whose children participate in the attacks. Nutter has also said strict enforcement of a curfew will continue and more programs at youth centers will be offered.
For his part, the mayor said he felt he had no choice but to go to the pulpit Sunday, regardless of the reaction.
"This is about personal responsibility," he told the AP. "We have to be very straightforward."
Philadelphia's first black district attorney, Seth Williams, also lauded the mayor for using his position as one of the city's most visible leaders to confront a public problem.
"What he was saying was perfectly accurate. People need to hear that," Williams said. "Call it for what it is."
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