Rev. Ricky Burgess

The Rachel Maddow show interviewed Rev. Burgess on site in his neighborhood in Pittsburgh on May 6th. His description of what young men have done to their community, of the many serious life losses he has incurred in his own family, and
of his tireless pleading for better gun laws in his area, Hometown, broke my
heart. Rev. Burgess is a city councilman living in America, in a third world country. Nothing much emerging from that country but callous risk-taking on the part
of the learned challenged, and death or dying for the murdered and their per-petrators.
From my experience, young people have to be scarred by utter hopelessness by the ages puberty settles in to be so panicked about joylessness that they have to destroy all they can see.
I know neighborhoods like Homewood exist all over the U.S. In Detroit, driving for
instance out Gratiot street from downtown, the neighborhoods look as though bombs
have recently gone off on several streets at that main thoroughfare.
Mayor Coleman Young struggled against it as best he could for as long as he could
stand on his feet. The gun violence was somewhat under control, but investment
died anyway because Mayor Young wouldn't countenance all white work crew and work
details roaming the streets in an almost all black city. And knowing the price toiil
be paid, Detroiters loved their mayor.
Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick also led in that same spirit, but had an even more progre-
ssive bent. For that he was crucified.
The last progressive mayor Detroit had who lied about an even more scandalous picadillo than Mayor Kilpatrick, Jerome P. Cavanaugh, got away only by the skin of
his teeth. In those days, judges in the north were not circling their wagons in the
"kill them all" fashion they love to do these days. Dr. Michelle Alexander calls
the blight left to flourish in black communities 'The New Jim Crow'.