It’s much more than fatherless homes causing hate for cops on the streets of the inner cities in America

By KEVIN CANESSA Jr.
Publisher

JERSEY CITY, N.J. —

This is one of those topics that is next to impossible to talk about. And yet, former News 12 NJ reporter Sean Bergin did it — and it in essence cost him his job.

Following the shooting death of Jersey City Police Officer Melvin Santiago, Bergin equated a community’s disdain for the police to a generation of Black men growing up in fatherless homes.

He hit a nerve with the public.

At first, he was suspended. Then he was demoted to a point where he’d only be able to make $300 a week. Then, on his own, the reporter resigned his post at News 12 and has since spoken out (we’ll get to why he quit later).

But this also hit a nerve with me, personally.

On The Hill, there is a lot of this -- burnt out properties.

I grew up in a fatherless home. And I think I turned out OK — for now, at least.

There’s a staggering statistic that 1 of every 3 children in this country lives in a single-parent household, and a majority of those households are fatherless, not motherless.

Experts say that leads children to having “disdain for authority,” as one conservative pundit said on Fox News the other day.

And he may be right.

But these comments are blanket statements. They suggest every child who grows up in a fatherless household will wind up hating cops. They suggest Black kids who don’t have dads are worse off, immediately, because they don’t have fathers. They suggest every child is worse off for not having a dad.

Oh really?

Let me share my own fatherless-household story.

My parents divorced around 1978 when I was just 4. In reality, I don’t recall what life was like having two parents. I was just too young when my father was around. And even then, he was too busy going out, drinking and living it up without giving any help to my mother.

Many years later, my father, with whom I share a first name, spent years living on the streets or in storage units. He is bi-polar and rarely, if ever, realizes how much medication can help him.

And boarded-up buildings next to empty lots.

He finally get help in 2011 from the Veteran’s Administration — he’s a Navy vet (was a cook) — and it seemed he was getting his life in order.

A few months ago, I got a Google alert — he was in jail. It was on a warrant … not sure what the warrant was for.

So the cycle came full circle — the dad I don’t know and haven’t seen since I was 6 — that was 1981 — went from being a heavy drinker who didn’t care to help my mom. He’s the father who just decided, in 1985, to stop paying the child support he was ordered to pay until Sept. 21, 1992. He’s the father who hasn’t been around in 32 years. He’s the bi-polar dad who generally refuses to take care of himself. He’s the dad just coming off a stint in a Louisiana jail.

And experts will tell me I am worse off because this man wasn’t in my life?

I think it’s pretty clear that there are cases — likely plenty of them — where single-parent households are much better and much stronger than households where there is a useless father in it. So often, the experts forget there are plenty of dysfunctional two-parent households where the dad is there, but invisible.

So I have a very hard time believing that a blanket statement that says fatherless households are to blame for the Black community’s disdain for the police.

Think of the guy who murdered Officer Santiago. He lay in wait to kill police. He was believed to be involved in another murder. If he had children, do you suppose the kids would be better or worse were he involved in the children’s lives?

And closed businesses.

I’d say if such children existed, they’d be much better off without him.

So what does this all mean? Especially for the Black community?

Let’s say this.

I once taught at St. Anthony High School in Jersey City, from 1998 to 2002. When I’d occasionally drop kids off at home — many lived in a neighborhood nicknamed “The Hill,” that is also known as Greenville — they’d always say some variation of this when I’d get to their homes.

“After you drop us off, get the hell out of here — and run red lights if you have to.”

These were wonderful kids saying this. Yeah, some of them came from broken homes, too. They knew how unsafe “The Hill” was, and wanted me to use unthinkable caution when I was in the neighborhood driving alone.

And I think of those 500 or so kids I knew over the years. I miss them. In many cases, I’ve kept in touch with them. Most live wonderfully successful lives now. Some are even cops in Jersey City. And again, many lived in homes where dad wasn’t there — and where mom did it all.

And no, they don’t all have disdain for the police.

So what does this, now, mean?

It means we’re afraid, as a society, to discuss why this violence really continues in the inner-cities, and it’s not because of fatherless homes, it’s because these kids are born into circumstances no one would dare ask for — and the opportunities for things to get better do not exist.

Thugs run the streets up on “The Hill.” When it’s all you’ve ever been exposed to, how do you break the cycle? Some have, thankfully. But not everyone has that chance.

And homes fortified by bars -- on multiple floors.

In Jersey City, there are apartments | condos that sell for $2 million, with the most beautiful views available (of Manhattan) available anywhere in the country. It’s rather safe there. It’s also rather safe in the north of the city, the Heights and Western Slope, where it’s actually desirable a place to live.

And yet just a couple miles away — travel along Kennedy Boulevard to see the stark difference — rests “The Hill,” where the people are forgotten, where there are few police patrols, where there are no foot patrols, where there are few bike patrols — where the police presence is minimal and the drug-trade presence is everywhere.

So much has been done to improve Downtown Jersey City — the police’s East District. And so little has been done for the South and West districts, where crime is at its worst.

The people have been forgotten by the city’s leader for decades, whether it was Mayor Jerry McCann, Bret Schundler, Glenn Cunningham (RIP), Jerramiah Healy and now, Steven Fulop.

Fulop ran on a platform that he’d increase police presence in the neighborhoods that need it most — and yet, it hasn’t happened to date. There are 820 cops on the books in Jersey City, the second-largest city in New Jersey, with a population of 255,000, just 22,000 fewer than the state’s largest, Newark.

Newark, by contrast, has 1,004 cops on the job, and there are plans to increase that number to 1,400 -- and even that is not enough.

There must be more cops in Jersey City. They have to be on foot. They have to be on bikes.

And they must not be feared as they often are. They must be seen as partners in solving the city’s problems.

A dear friend of mine gave me tremendous insight as to why the mistrust is so great. And it’s psychologically based.

Think of this.

All Jersey City police cars are mostly black.

The cops — save for the superior officers — all wear very dark, navy-blue uniform from head to toe.

The sirens blare and are intimidating.

The commonality here?

It’s all dark — and there’s a notion that this darkness creates a distinct separation between the community and police.

Give them white shirts. Make the cars less intimidating. Create a system where the community sees the police as partners and not as the enemy — and perhaps things change some.

Even if you aren’t speeding, doesn’t this sight still get your nerves up?

Have you ever been driving along, knowing you’ve done nothing wrong — and boom! There’s a cop hiding on the side of the road, sitting there waiting behind a tree or something else that causes the car to be shielded or hidden. Tell me your stomach hasn’t dropped every time that has happened — even knowing you weren’t speeding and didn’t do a thing wrong!

Tell me whenever you need to speak to a cop, it doesn’t cause you some sort of angst or anxiety?

It doesn’t require one to live in a bad neighborhood for this to happen. The bottom line is that no matter how hard departments have tried — especially beginning in the 1990s when Community-Oriented Policing programs began in earnest — cops are never seen as partners. They’re always seen as the antagonist. They’re never seen as approachable.

Take all of this — and add it to bad neighborhoods — and you’ve got what we have in Jersey City right now … a community that does not trust the police, a community where a cop killer’s wife says she wishes her dead husband had taken our more cops in his wake.

Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop

Until leaders step up and make significant changes, this will always exist. It matters not one but whether a family is led by a mom, a dad, or a mom and dad. It matters not one bit whether the father is present or on the streets dealing drugs.

Mayor Steve Fulop has his hands full with this most awful crime. He will either make or break his mayoralty (perhaps unfairly) by how he handles the aftermath.

I hope and pray, more than I can express properly in words, that his leadership results in significant change here. I want nothing more than to see “The Hill” get better.

I won’t be holding my breath though.

And no father or lack thereof could change my thinking on that.

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