Sunday, October 26, 2003

MY HOMETOWN -- AND MAYBE YOURS. Some readers may know that I come from Bridgeport, a very corrupt city in Southern Connecticut. Once a proud industrial town, producer of metal and rubber products -- with, for several terms, a Socialist mayor -- it turned during my boyhood into a rust-belt worst-case-scenario nightmare. Jobs fled, crime soared. When I left it was locked in a tug-of-war between the Democratic ward-heelers (the Curran mob) and the Republican ward-heelers (the Panuzio mob).

It was hard to see what they were fighting over. The old town was down-at-heels, and its establishment incredibly racist. Put it this way: the first word I learned for a black person was definitely not African-American. I still remember a little demonstration I saw Downtown when I was a teenager, at which the cops grabbed a black woman and threw her in a squad car, leaving behind what looked to be her pre-teen son. "That's my momma!" the kid screamed at the cops. "She supposed to take me home!" The white, scumbag cop yelled at the kid, "Walk!"

In the many years of my exile I have desultorily followed Bridgeport's progress. In 1991, shortly after Republican Mayor Mary Moran tried, in typical Republican fashion, to file bankruptcy on the city's behalf (Hey, it's a business decision! There is no such thing as society!) and was slapped down in Federal Court, a Democrat named Joseph Ganim became mayor. He presided over a long period of economic rehabilitation -- and was this year taken down in a bribery scandal.

His successor is named John Fabrizi. As it happens, Fabirizi is an old pal of the former Mayor, and I have heard some hair-raising stories about both of these worthies from people who have cause to know.

You see, I still have my sources back in my old hometown, and they recently told me that a black high-school student recently turned up dead, allegedly the victim of a suicide, except that the suicide looked suspiciously well-laid-out, and is said to be the result of a beef involving a local white supremacist group called the White Wolves. Here is some of the (so far) scant media coverage of the situation:
The threat of the spread of hatred and bigotry by a group known as the White Wolves led a handful of concerned parents to meet with several [Trumbull, CT] officials Saturday morning.

The meeting at Town Hall had been planned before recent rumors about the white supremacist group, including that it was linked to the suicide of a Central High School student this past week, began spreading.

Trumbull school officials had even considered canceling a football game between Central and Trumbull high schools Friday night because of the rumors, but decided against it.

The game went on as planned without incident.

My sources tell me that the aforementioned game went "without incident" because it was attended by dozens of Bridgeport cops. Cops have also been hanging around Notre Dame High School in Fairfield, where, it is rumored, some local black kids have been seen lurking, in search of payback for the bogus suicide. This is because Notre Dame is the alma mater of one of the young chuckleheads involved with the White Wolves. This young man's father, I am told, is very highly placed in the Fabrizi administration, and I mean very highly placed.

More than usual tonight, I am in no mood to hear any bullshit about how this country is over its racial problems. This is probably the first you have heard of the White Wolves and their depradations in Southern Connecticut. You may hear more about them here. And I would not be at all shocked to hear hundreds of similar stories out of hundreds of other places in this country where money is tight, things aren't going well, and black people are convenient targets of white rage -- if I had connections in those places like the ones I have back home.

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