WHO WE CELEBRATE IN DEATH
SPEAKS VOLUMES ON WHO WE VALUE IN LIFE
SPEAKS VOLUMES ON WHO WE VALUE IN LIFE
A street ceremony was held for NYPD Randolph Holder Jr. who
died in the line of duty.
TAGS: NYPD DETECTIVE HOLDER, STREET RENAMING,
LINE OF DUTTY DEATH,
PUBLIC SERVCIE VS STREET FAME,
CHRISTOPHER WALLACE, ALEX HALEY V MIKE TYSON,
RODNEY KING, LA 1992,
NYC “ROTTING APPLE”, NYPD EFFORTS BIG APPLE
(Friday
August 4, 2017 Collier Ave., Far Rockaway, Queens, NYC) Fulton Street in the
Clinton Hill section of Brooklyn is, as the crow flies, a baker’s dozen miles
from Collier Avenue in the Far Rockaway enclave of Queens. Where that
particular section of Brooklyn is benefiting to some degree from
gentrification after being infamous for decades as a hotbed of violence, drug
abuse, criminality, and urban decay, South Queens has always had a sense of
safety and security; it is still working to recover from the devastation left
by Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
Today
memorial ceremonies were held in each location celebrating the lives of “native
sons”. That the ceremonies for each man
occurred on the same day will forever be the only commonality between them;
they were as different in life as they are in death. One was a career criminal who died in a hail
of bullets. The other was a third
generation NYPD Officer who was shot dead in the Line of Duty. They were born and raised in abutting
Boroughs into secure environments yet they made diametrically opposed choices
that would forever define their lives.
Hours
ago, a neighborhood basketball court was opened and christened as the Christopher “Biggie” Wallace Courts at the Crispus Attucks
Playground near the border of Bed-Stuy.
Shortly after and a world away, a street naming ceremony was held
dedicating the intersection of Briar Place and Collier Avenue in Far Rockaway
as Detective Randolph Holder Way.
If our society can be judged by who and what we celebrate, of our
priorities, values, and character, today’s media coverage of these two events
speaks volumes regarding what we do and do not deem worthy of mention. The Notorious B.I.G. park dedication, as he
came to be known, was covered widely in all major media outlets in NYC while
the ceremony in Far Rockaway was covered solely by the New York Post. But this disparity is nothing new. The profound rifts and schisms bemoaned by
media and politicos of all stripes are just the most recent baring of decades
long outright antagonisms, sporadic upheavals, and entrenched attitudes. It did not take a President Obama or a
President Trump to shake some of the dusty cobwebs off our most ossified
perceptions on race, poverty, drug abuse, crime, broken families, and the
malignant cluster of thorny issues under the rubric of urban decay.
ALEX HALEY VS MIKE TYSON
There
could not be a more bizarre pairing of famous African American men in the
history of late 20th century America. Alex
Haley’s groundbreaking
1976 novel “Roots” became an epic TV mini-series that transfixed the country in
1977. The story recounted the real history of his family ancestors from
slavery to the post-Civil War years. His
work spawned a movement that created Black Studies, African American history,
and all manner of Afrocentric academic programs across the campuses of our
colleges and universities. Haley was not
a talented and gifted “African American author”, he simply was one of the greatest
writers of his generation and his impressive collection of works rank among the
most influential of his day and times.
He died on February 10th, 1992. Many media outlets gave short shrift to his
passage aside from the brief, pot boiler obits in some newspapers.
Perhaps
there was a reason aside from lack of interest in the paucity of coverage his
death received. Something that was
obviously more important, of far greater significance and cultural gravity also
occurred that day in an Indianapolis, Indiana courtroom. Mike
Tyson, the most feared heavyweight boxer of his time was found guilty of raping a Miss Black Teen pageant
contestant. The Tyson story was a
literal media frenzy while Haley’s death was a media afterthought. Many Black communities across the country
protested via blatant civil disobedience over the fact that Tyson had been
convicted. This roiling anger and
resentment in many Black communities would be in full throttled evidence a few
weeks later after the four Los Angeles Police Officers who were captured on
film beating an unarmed convicted felon, Rodney King, were all acquitted of all
but one minor charge. The violence and riots
that ensued reverberate in many pockets of South Central LA and elsewhere to
this day. Many point to that particular
case as the genesis of the widespread distrust of and hostility to the Police
within Black America.
B.I.G. VERSUS BIGGER AND
BETTER
Young
Christopher Wallace was a good student.
By age 12 he had added minor drug dealing to his curriculum. His
physical size enhanced his nascent street image and allowed a penchant for
intimidation and violence to flourish.
He eventually dropped out of school and began associating with others
involved in the growing rap music scene in Brooklyn. As time went by he gained
some success and local notoriety that set him on the road to national acclaim
among the rap music audience. The
details of his life from that point on are irrelevant since he cast his loyalty
to rappers on the West coast. There had
been a low-level war of insults, “dissing”, and malignant competition between
the New York City bred rappers and their counterparts in Los Angeles. He was
shot to death on March 9th, 1997 and his case remains open.
On
October 20th, 2015 NYPD Officer Randolph Holder was assigned to a
housing unit in East Harlem ad responded to a call of shots fired at 420 E. 102 street. Callers to 911 reported gunfire between
members of rival gangs. Holder wound up
in foot pursuit of one suspect when that individual stopped suddenly and shot
Holder in the forehead. His killer was
apprehended shortly thereafter, PO Holder died almost immediately.
Biggie
Smalls, another moniker Christopher Wallace employed, died as he lived. His music has been dubiously hailed for its
“’authenticity” with the New York Times going as far as calling him “The Bard
of Brooklyn”. A morbidly obese career
criminal and self-designated “thug”, “gansta”, and “strong arm drug dealer”
could not hold a candle to the dedicated, courageous Police Officer that gave
his life in the service of our City. That their lives and deaths were
celebrated so differently is a shame; it is actually an insult to all MOS, past
and present, of the NYPD. Once a society
elevates obscure people to the heights of acclaim for their “talents”, however
banal and overlooks those among us who serve unselfishly and literally put
their lives on the line after time they go to work, there is an erosive force
at play.
CULTURE AND SOCIETY
Often
it is necessary to juxtapose events against each other in the effort to find
moral clarity. What transpired today in
Brooklyn and Queens stand in stark contrast to each other; simply by
memorializing the lives and deaths of two New Yorkers who’d walked such
divergent paths, says much about our priorities. The political environment of today reflects
the many gulfs straining the cohesiveness of our society. The multiple fractures evidenced only serve s
borders of the divisions that wrack society.
New Yorkers of every political and apolitical affiliation share points
of agreement if they’d step aside from behind the shields of their core
beliefs. The dramatic transformation of
New York City in 1992 as compared to today are as profound as they can be. It took people to “cross” Party lines to
elect Rudy Giuliani to the Office of the Mayor in the hopes that a “Republican”
tough on crime, former federal prosecutor could and would take what was our
“Rotting Apple” back to our rightful place among the greatest cities in the
world.
From
1993 until 2014 strong Mayors, Giuliani and Mike Bloomberg, each coupled by
effective NYPD Commissioners exerted the monumental forces required to “clean
up” our City. The process was not always
pretty nor was it without controversy however, one cannot deny the
results. But in the slow yet steady
swing of the societal pendulum, the very creative, proactive strategies and
tactics that allowed the NYPD to achieve what seemed an impossible goal, have
now come under scrutiny. People have
short memories. Anyone among us who
lived through those darkest or dark years of 2000 plus homicides a year and the
staggering rates of crime of all categories, cannot help but acknowledge just
how far we have come.
The
politics of race are always in the shadow of every discussion of culture and
society. A small coterie of “activists”
have emerged from the flames of places like Ferguson, Missouri and Baltimore
and have capitalized on the knotty issues of relations between the Police and
the public, particularly the Black public.
The “Black Lives Matter” (BLM) ‘movement’, such as it is has no relation
to the principled individuals who over 50 years ago lead the legal and
political struggle for Civil Rights. PO
Holder was a Black man shot dead by a black gangbanger; where was the outrage?
Where was the BLM protesters? The
overwhelming majority of violence and street crime is Black on Black. Again, where are the BLM agitators? Black America is not the only constituency
that can speak from both sides of their mouths when it suits their
“cause”. But they are the most
hyperbolically hypocritical. If all
Black lives matter why are these self-appointed leaders and activists
protesting nightly on the streets of the south side of Chicago; a major American
city that has been in the suffocating embrace of gun violence and murder for
the last few years. Perhaps the reality
of Chicago is not of interest to the BLM movement?
REST IN PEACE, SIR
The
sun will come up tomorrow bathing Brooklyn and Queens in its summer light and
heat. Kids will play at the new
basketball courts in Brooklyn while people in Far Rockaway will go about their
business and crossing the street at the newly designated Detective Randolph
Holder Way. To some, perhaps many, the designation of each of those locals will
not register; others will perhaps remember the men whose names are now
synonymous with each place. That is just
the ebb and flow of life in our vast City.
Biggie
Smalls may very well remain in the consciousness of young African Americans for
his music and the gangbanging life he lauded in his raps. So be it.
PO
Randolph Holder posthumously promoted to Detective, will forever be Honored,
Remembered, and Respected for his Service and Sacrifice. The institutional memory of the NYPD will see
to that. Rest Easy, Detective, Rest Easy
in the Light and Presence of the Lord.
Fidelis Ad Mortem.
Copyright The Brooding Cynyx 2017 © All Rights Reserved
Copyright Brooding Cynyc 2017 © All Rights Reserved
