Racial profiling sparks mall boycott
By Leslie
Feinberg
Cheektowaga, N.Y.
A group of some 60 people--predominantly Black and ranging
from very young to elders--stood on the soggy lawn at the
Walden Avenue entrance to the Galleria Mall here on April 7.
The messages on their hand-lettered signs varied, but they
all arrived at the same point: Boycott!
As drivers and passengers on the crowded highway passed
the protest, many slowed to demonstrate which side they were
on. They shouted in assent, waved, flashed victory signs,
honked and clenched fists of solidarity.
The crowd calling for a boycott of the mall waved back.
Many in the group were encouraged by how many white drivers
blared their car horns and waved in agreement with their
cause.
It was hard to hear the Rev. Darius Pridgen over the din
of horns honking. Pridgen told Workers World that this
struggle "will change the whole area. It will bring people
together."
Call for public hearing
He explained, "This protest is against blatant racism and
discrimination at the mall and in the town of Cheektowaga by
the police department and some of those sitting on the
judicial bench. We are asking for very small things," he
said.
"Number one, we don't claim to be the voice for every
citizen who has been harmed. So we are asking the town to
hold a public hearing." That way, more accounts can be added
to the record.
On Feb. 26, Black area residents had packed a Cheektowaga
Town Board meeting to demonstrate their anger at a pattern of
Jim Crow racist incidents in this virtually apartheid suburb
of Buffalo. Of the 100,000 residents here, only some 5
percent are people of color. The Town Board, town supervisor,
both judges and the police chief are all white. So is the
entire 133-member police department.
The day of the Town Board meeting, the coalition set up
two phone lines for residents to lodge complaints about
racist abuse in Cheektowaga. By the next afternoon, more than
120 people had called with personal accounts--about half of
which occurred at Walden Galleria mall. Hundreds more have
called since.
The coalition held an April 3 news conference to call on
people of all nationalities to boycott every business in
Cheektowaga in which racist mistreatment has taken place. At
that media conference, Buffalo lawyer Roland Cercone told the
media that the coalition had amassed enough data about racist
discrimination and harassment to warrant a class-action suit
against the town.
Three more demands
The fact that the entire 133-member police department is
white, Pridgen said, "allows the police department to operate
with no checks or balances in regard to race relations." So
the coalition is calling for adding Black police officers to
the force.
"We're not just concerned about the past, but about the
future," he stressed. "So we're asking for the town to set up
a Human Rights Division to investigate racism, discrimination
and harassment."
"The final thing," Pridgen explained, is that town
officials "have to send out a clear message that racism or
discrimination will not be tolerated in the town of
Cheektowaga. They have not done that to this point. So now we
wait for the meeting with the town. Then we begin to sit down
at the table to bring about justice in this town."
That meeting is set for April 18.
"We'll be here again next Saturday," Pridgen concluded.
Saturdays are the busiest shopping days at the mall.
This Saturday morning a small group of about a dozen
protesters had met in a church parking lot on the East Side
of Buffalo in a cold downpour. Because of racist profiling of
motorists by Cheektowaga police, everyone rode out together
in a van.
The group in the morning shift stood by the Walden
entrance to the mall in the cold rain, holding signs aloft
for passing motorists to read. The moment they appeared,
honks of support began.
By afternoon, when the location of the protest was
broadcast on radio, 60 men, women and children filled the
area waving to the many motorists--Black and white--who
slowed down to demonstrate solidarity with the boycott.
Mama B., an older Black woman, told Workers World she has
been followed in the mall while she shops. "And it's a very
hurtful thing. I love to shop, I love my plastic and I pay my
bills on time."
That's why she braved the cold vigil outside the mall to
stand up for the boycott. "I am a flexible person. But I will
not bend against my standard," she explained. She pointed
toward the sprawling retail and entertainment complex. "It's
not who built the mall that's the problem, it's who runs the
mall. It's not about the workers in here. It's at the top.
Hit the top."
Al-Nisa Banks, editor and publisher of the weekly
newspaper The Challenger, said this protest was "certainly
long overdue. Ever since the tragic death of Cynthia Wiggins,
this community has been waiting."
In December 1995, Cynthia Wiggins--a young Black
mother--was a passenger on a city bus coming from the African
American community in Buffalo. It wasn't allowed to stop on
mall property. She was killed trying to cross seven lanes of
traffic on Walden Avenue to get to her job at the mall.
Lawyers for her estate argued that the bus was barred from
stopping at the mall to discourage inner-city residents from
shopping there. Mall owner Pyramid Corp. settled the suit for
$2.55 million in November 1999.
Banks concluded, "We're going to have to take it to the
next level of activism and organization. Some of us have to
be willing to go to jail. To be truly effective, we have to
go to those sixties' tactics that got us where we are today.
"
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
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