“It’s the mayor’s job to tackle race relations,” says the former Philadelphia City Councilman, who now prefers to be called “Jim.”
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Now that Former Philadelphia City Councilman, Mr. Jim Kenney, no longer has an office on the third floor of City Hall, the public can call him Jim, for now, though he hopes to answer to the name Mayor next January.
Though Mr. Kenney’s campaign will undoubtedly include a significant spend on media – particularly television – the lifelong Philadelphian, considering his candid thoughts on injustice, could potentially enjoy the best kind of press: word of mouth among those who crave the highly coveted “honest conversation on race.”
A taboo topic for most, racism dominated Techbook Online’s exclusive interview with Mr. Kenney, who’s responsible for decriminalizing marijuana in Philadelphia, a move he consistently suggests was less about pot and more about criminal records.
83 percent of the 4,200 people a year in Philadelphia being arrested for marijuana possession, says Mr. Kenney, were blacks, who were getting criminal records for holding a mere dime bag of pot.
In a story I first heard from Mr. Kenney when covering Mayor Nutter’s signing of the marijuana decriminalization bill into law, white people, said the Democratic politician, were smoking pot in the parking lot of Lincoln Financial Field, but weren’t getting arrested.
Mr. Kenney says he bought it to the attention of Philadelphia Police Commissioner, Mr. Charles Ramsey, who put an end to proverbial free-for-all.
Another anecdote I first heard from Mr. Kenney at City Hall – but recounted again during our talk in the office of a small corner church in South Philadelphia – was how his son, who’s in his mid-20s, has never been stopped randomly by police.
“Stop and frisk is a very unfortunate policy that needs to be eliminated, moderated or something,” he said. “If a police officer feels unsafe they have the right to pat you down. The problem you face (with stop and frisk) is that a young man… most times young men of color get stopped three or four times a month simply for walking down the street. That does not create a good environment or a good attitude among the citizenry towards the police.”
The issue of who gets arrested (for pot) or stopped and why in Philadelphia was and continues to be a race issue that can (and has) been mitigated through bold legislation.
However, the bigger problem, which Mr. Kenney identifies as an “inherently racist society,” won’t be as easy to fix, but he says it can start to be mended by acknowledging and learning each other’s true history.
“One of the biggest problems in race relations is that we aren’t taught real history. The history I was taught growing up was a sanitized portion of it. When you read about some of the African-American contributors to Philadelphia’s history and America’s history, none of them were mentioned in my history books. If you know the contributions to history of African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Mexican-Americans, we can at least have our children mutually respect each other growing up. “
Among the many things he’s learned throughout his 23 years in City Council, Mr. Kenney has come to terms with one undisputed fact: “policing and governing in an urban environment” will clearly require you to take race into consideration.
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