Two days after the removal of the statue by the Park
Commission, not the city’s elected Board of Alderman, tempers were still sparking.
“You should have been here,” Fidel told Elicker.
“Everyone makes mistakes, and I make mistakes,” Elicker
responded. In retrospect, Elicker confessed, “he should have been in Wooster
Square rather than in his office at City Hall on
Wednesday.”
On the day of removal, Elicker had been at a safe distance
from the park in his office attending to business. Two days later, he ventured
out and met with about 30 protesters who had cheered as the offending statue had
been carted off.
“Sitting on the grass in a circle with the group,” The New
Haven Independent reported, “Elicker spent most of the first hour listening to
Fidel tell his story, interspersed with critiques of the mayor. (Watch the full
conversation in the video above.)”
The video captures Fidel hurling imprecations at the mayor.
“F**k you!” critiqued Fidel at one point.
His manners exquisitely intact, Elicker responded, “That’s
not respectful.”
Fidel’s story was poignant:
“I’m looking at the
f**king white devil," Fidel said at another point. He then apologized for his
manner, and wiped away tears as he recounted getting punched in the back of the
head and having slurs shouted at him Wednesday.
Fidel spoke of the many
times he has been arrested over the years, for charges including felony
possession of a deadly weapon and driving under the influence. He said his
first arrest came at 13, and that the deadly weapon charge had to do with
fishing equipment and was exaggerated by police.
He expressed how he
has felt traumatized by law enforcement growing up in Bridgeport and living in
New Haven for over 15 years.
"I’m a felon. I’ve
been arrested for things I didn’t do my whole life," Fidel said. He said law
enforcement has falsely targeted him. "I stabbed somebody in self-defense." He
said he was charged with operating a "drug factory," when in fact, he said, he
had less than an ounce of marijuana at his place. (According to court records,
he has been found guilty of second-degree assault, probation violation,
larceny, and reckless endangerment, among other offenses.)
To be sure, life in the city under the glare of the
hypercritical police is no walk in the park. But Elicker’s problem, purely
political, is a bit different than Fidel’s. Will the whole affair surrounding
the removal of a mute statue help or hurt Elicker politically? It may seem
obscene to people who are not professional politicians, but politicians, as a
general rule, have an eye cocked on political loss or gain when they engage in
politics. And politicians are always on the job, so to speak,
always politicking, whether they are hugging babies or, in the midst of a
Coronavirus outbreak, not hugging babies.
Other protesters joined in the conversation after Fidel had
recovered his manners. “Disband police officers that have lost their legitimacy
because they are working as an occupying force and stealing wealth from
African-American communities,” one recommended.
Elicker responded that he was “prioritizing moving along
appointments and seating the police Civilian Review Board… ‘I think there are
opportunities to civilianize the police force,’ Elicker said. He said he sees
opportunities to have police officers show up to fewer calls, which can be
diverted to other responders,” the cri de coeur of the Black
Lives Matter (BLM) movement.
So it goes in New Haven, and much of this is “de ja vue all
over again,” in Yogi Bera’s memorable phrase,
for people familiar withThomas Wolfe’s still readable essays published in
a book titled “Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers.”
Here is Wolfe
carefully probing the difference between a confrontation and a demonstration in
“Mau-Mauing the
Flak Catchers”:
A demonstration, like the civil-rights march
on Washington in 1963, could frighten the white leadership, but it was a
general fear, an external fear, like being afraid of a hurricane. But in a
confrontation, in mau-mauing, the idea was to frighten white men personally,
face to face. The idea was to separate the man from all the power and props of
his office. Either he had enough heart to deal with the situation or he didn't.
It was like to saying, "You--yes, you right there on the platform--we're
not talking about the government,
we're not talking about the Office
of Economic Opportunity--we're
talking about you, you up
there with your hands shaking in your pile of papers ..."
Intimidation of this
kind may not be “respectful” – but it works well enough in New Haven.
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