Des Moines is behind in resources

There’s something that the African-American community and other communities can do to help stop crime and violence among the young people and youth on the west, south, east and northwest sides of Des Moines: more summer jobs and more youth activities. We need to start more drill teams. We’ve got one — the Isiserettes have been together for 33 years. Omaha’s got eight. Other cities have lots more. Waterloo has three.

NWAACP, Urban Dreams, African-American leaders and churches could start Christian drill teams. Roy Marvin Jenkins has one, Boys and Girls Club, African-American business, other businesses, concerned citizens and other people that want to do something for the youth could and should start drill teams. Creative Visions needs help. Start drill teams. Des Moines is behind other cities.

Beware rich, white guys?

The fast-sinking Des Moines Register desperately threw out a life preserver to its abandoning readership on Saturday, Aug. 4. It was a dodgy political cartoon, no doubt mean to lure them back aboard with some wit and social insight, but instead gave the rapidly disappearing passengers a waterlogged straw man riding atop the waves over a sea of red herrings.

The political doodle presented a big cop rousting a black man in a troubling New York “Stop and Frisk” pas de deux. The message: The Big Apple’s authorities consider black and Latino men and youths not just potentially but statistically dangerous; they’re in gangs and packing loaded burners and ready to shoot, maim or kill.

The cartoon calls upon us to wisely ixnay simplistic group profiling that reduces everything to the false dichotomy of “if P then Q.” If you’re a minority, P, then you’re an automatic suspect, Q. But what about “not Q?” Stop and Frisk is on the skids, so goodbye to all of that.

However, the dim cartoon then presents its own two-step fallacy. The words of the cop in the cartoon objectifies those authorities behind the troubling Stop and Frisk policy as — you guessed it — rich, white men. Not only an “if P then Q fallacy,” but a sexist and racist profile that would make any coffee shop socialist wet his or her pantaloons in agreement.

Thanks to the Register’s scribbling, one now knows who to objectify and profile in this civil rights tussle. We must immediately be on the lookout for these dangerous rich, white guys waiting to crush civil liberties once and for all. Here’s a brief list of some dangerous race gangsters who might order a national pat-down of all minorities if they gain, or regain, political power: Jimmy Carter, John Kerry, Al Gore, Ben “Batman” Affleck, Elton John, George Clooney and… oh the list goes on.

A cartoon editorial that wishes to put the stink on a public policy sprung from illogic 101 should not try to make its case by mirroring identical, fuzzy racialized reasoning.

Send your opinions to Cityview, 414 61st Street, Des Moines, Iowa 50312. Fax us at 953-1394, or e-mail us at letters@dmcityview.com. Please limit letters to 200 words or less. Cityview reserves the right to edit for length and clarity. The writer’s address and daytime phone number will not be printed, but must be given for verification.