[Peace-discuss] Part I: Post-Kiwane Carrington: The Struggle for Truth

[Melodye Rosales]

*PART I*    *The Struggle for Truth *

*Post-Kiwane: **A City Preparing for Community Building* *or* *A City
Fulfilling its Divide and Conquer Plan* *in order to achieve perceived calm
and control.*

Last night's City Council Meeting left any morsel of hope that the City of
Champaign would voluntarily revisit its Best Practice approaches to
resolving conflicts between Black Community and the Champaign Police
Department dashed by the closing comments of City Manager, Steve Carter.

*(note: For those who may have missed the council meeting---it loops for one
week on Cable Channel 5 or a DVD copy can be obtained from the City Building
for a $5 service fee)*

However, it wasn't merely the predictable way the City was making fresh
lemonade out of old rotten lemons that left our community sickened, it is
the complete lack of respect we have been shown by empowering those thirsty
for power----to actually fill our glasses of hope with the lemonade---while
they, themselves, drink from the City's purified water system that filters
all levels Civil Rights consciousness.

The most current water boy is:

Kenith Bergeron is the U.S. Justice Departments Conciliation Specialist that
Champaign City Manager, Steve Carter brought in to "so-called" mediate, with
the City's hand-picked choices they've entitled Champaign's Black Leaders,
after the tragic death of 15-year-old Kiwane Carrington, a slightly built,
unarmed, African-American youth.  Bergeron is not new to Champaign or the
climate unrest among the racial divide.  Bergeron was called in by the City
Manager two-years-ago after the Brian Chesley "resisting arrest" case that
led to this African-American youth's arrest that also caused unrest in the
Black Community, leading to protests and public complaints about the
Champaign Police Department "Use of Force" tactics and Bias Profiling in
areas heavily populated by African-Americans.

Now, the Justice Departments Golden Boy, Bergeron, is on a mission.  The
fear is that he needs to make sure he is not called back to Champaign again
to "mediate" because his bosses might question Bergeron's long term
mediation effectiveness in a single community---and, perhaps, may look
deeper into his passive-aggressive bullying tactics that never quite seem to
research the community he immerses himself in, but to simply red-flag
individuals he is not able to use as community quellers instead of building
equitable communities.  But, of course that takes more serious work then the
"Dog 'n' Pony" boilerplate formula used by Bergeron in a very Bean-counter
methodology and approach.

How can we expect truth and justice from a representative from the U.S.
Justice Department when that person (Bergeron) has spouted both misleading
and mistruths himself.  One glaring
overstatement/misstatement/misleading/mistruth is when Bergeron sailed into
town wearing his "Obama" badge of honor and claiming he is President's
Obama's man in the trenches (as if President Obama named him into
office)---but Bergeron was actually hired during the Bush Administration and
President Obama simply inherited him.

Below is the first of several stories about City's mystery mediation man,
56-year-old Kenith Bergeron, a native of Louisiana who is Black and boasts
of his Creole Heritage and Pride, has roots are in (Morgan City and
Patterson, LA) but currently resides in Chicago where he is the Conciliation
Specialist for the Midwest territories.
*


http://old.economichumanrights.org/m4ol/dailyreport/2008_08_01_archive.html*


Southside Pride: Federal mediators want to get involved in protest plans

Federal mediators want to get involved in protest plans

by Dennis Geisinger
published August 4 '08

"He said, 'We're not here to spy on you. Is that what you think?’ ” recalled
local activist Cheri Honkala about her follow-up phone conversation this
month with U.S. Justice Dept. conciliation specialist Kenith Bergeron.

Bergeron had called Honkala at Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign
(PPEHRC) headquarters on July 3 to ask if her group would be willing to
participate in training to mitigate what he saw as possible violence during
PPEHRC's planned "March for Our Lives" at September's Republican Convention
in St. Paul.

"He basically implied violence toward myself and toward the other marchers,"
Honkala said. "He said that he was concerned about a counter demonstration
and that the (St. Paul) police had recently purchased 300 new Tasers," said
Honkala.

Bergeron's office within the federal justice system is with something called
the "Community Relations Service" (CRS) whose stated function is "mediation
of disputes and conflicts, training in conflict resolution skills, and help
in developing ways to prevent and resolve conflicts," according to the
government. CRS was created by the 1964 Civil Rights Act and has a long
history of involvement in defusing confrontations, including easing racial
tensions in the South and helping pave the way for gay and lesbian issues to
be addressed on college campuses.

"My question was, 'Why do they have to be involved unless they have
knowledge of an intention of violence. And if they have, they should reveal
those threats to the public," said Honkala. "He also told me that AIM
(members of the local American Indian Movement) and the Welfare Rights
Committee had said they would be participating in his training, which I
later discovered was not true," Honkala said.

Both AIM and the Minnesota Welfare Rights Committee, as well as the local
Anti-War Committee, have gone on record as saying they would not be
interested in federal training. They say that their own efforts to apply to
authorities for common ground—like applying for the proper permits to
demonstrate—have been frustrated or delayed. The Coalition to March on the
RNC and Stop the War was forced into court with the City of St. Paul because
city officials wanted to keep protesters out of the sight of convention
goers.

Nineteen St. Paul and Minneapolis police officers were given CRS training on
July 23.

"Police are one entity that may call us in—we may enter a community on our
own or at the request of the community," said Ryan Breitenbach, CRS Senior
Counsel. "But we are unique within the Dept. of Justice as we have no
investigative or law enforcement power. We only provide facilitation of
dialogue, particularly in regard to protests or marches," Breitenbach said.

"We are a movement that practices nonviolence. The federal government has
never seen the need to become involved in our movement in more than twenty
years," said Honkala. "Our only other experience in dealing with the feds is
our experience with ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and their
treatment of our local immigrant population. We have many immigrants in our
movement," Honkala said.

"Communities often don't want any kind of federal presence, and that's
understandable," another CRS mediator, Patricia Campbell Glenn, told City
Pages back in 2002. At that time, the Minneapolis City Council and local
community leaders asked CRS to facilitate talks between the city and
neighborhood groups after a riot broke out in the Northside's Jordan
neighborhood when a police bullet hit an 11-year-old black child in the arm.
After a months-long mediation process between a diverse coalition of
community groups and representatives of the Minneapolis Police Dept., a
federal mediation agreement was reached.

Yet according to Honkala, CRS's contact with her was a bit more heavy
handed. In a subsequent phone conversation with Bergeron, Honkala said that
her group had declined the use of CRS services."He got really upset and
started screaming," said Honkala. "He told me that if anyone even had a
heart attack during the march, that I would be held responsible," she said.

So much for federal facilitation at the Republican Convention.
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