I originally wrote this as an Op-Ed for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (and it can be found on their page here).
On January 28th, mayoral candidate Steve Landers posted four pictures on his social media accounts with the following text attached:
“What is our City doing to keep the streets clean? These photos were taken just two blocks away from our code enforcement buildings. Cars on blocks, washing machines on porches and trash in the streets. Our city needs leadership. #togetherbetterforeveryone #lrmayor.”
Of the four pictures posted, one picture was a wall filled with local community art alongside a small business. Another picture showcased assorted litter behind another local business. The final two pictures were of the front yards of Little Rock residents’ private homes. Additionally, Mr. Landers makes no allegations that any codes were actually broken, nor does he cite any codes that were potentially broken.
Mr. Landers took these pictures in the Hope Neighborhood, an area approximately three minutes from my house. The people who live in that neighborhood have been deprived of necessary resources and have witnessed grocery stores shutter their windows. They experienced the loss of their neighborhood school when LRSD closed Franklin Elementary in 2017 despite the outcry of the attending families. Many folks from Mr. Landers’ neck of the woods don’t frequent the neighborhood’s businesses or know its residents. But it’s just as much a part of Little Rock as anywhere else, and its people have the same inherent humanity and dignity as Mr. Landers does, despite how Mr. Landers speaks about the people of that neighborhood and others like it. The subtext of his tweets is crystal clear: certain parts of our city are trashy, and so are its people. Here are pictures of their homes to prove it.
This dovetails with Ward 5 Director Lance Hines’ words at the City Council meeting on February 1st, where he called for a “police state” for certain parts of our city and then used a dehumanizing racial slur to describe his fellow residents. Mr. Hines later offered an apology on social media for using “an offensive and inappropriate description of our Youth Prevention and Intervention programs” without mentioning the people that his slur was directed towards.
For Mr. Hines, a respectful approach would be two-fold. First, let us as a society do the absolute bare minimum and finally agree to stop using racial slurs, both publicly and privately. Second, the root causes of community violence are varied and complex, and “othering” any part of the equation is a tried-and-true way to ensure that the violence continues. So - for the sake of our community - let’s treat all of our Little Rock families and neighbors with dignity and respect.
For Mr. Landers, it would be prudent to stop calling for the City to descend upon Hope Neighborhood and use fines as a cudgel upon the populace. Instead, he should familiarize himself with the unique needs of each of our neighborhoods. This might give him the tools to respectfully offer a hand or provide linkage to existing relevant services (the City of Little Rock offers large trash pickup services, for example). That’s harder than firing off a pithy, dehumanizing tweet, but the job of mayor is a lot harder than firing off social media posts to rile up the base. More importantly, our citizens and our city deserve respectful and compassionate leadership. If Mr. Landers fancies himself a leader, it’s time he starts acting like one.
Mr. Landers and Mr. Hines seem so comfortable sliding into the rhetoric of years past, coupling the dog-whistles and public dehumanization of our more shameful history with today’s current issues. Little Rock deserves more and Little Rock deserves better from our public figures. Let’s hope we get it.
Excellent!