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This is a tale about a story that swept across the small town of Obetz, Ohio in 2003 when a racist group of men and women took it upon themselves to write and "publish" their own daily editions of something they called "The Odisville Gazette". The photo above appeared on the front page of a REAL newspaper in town and it shows two men (me on the left) sifting through a pile of pages of hate-filled rhetoric that had been circulating on the streets during the days and weeks leading up to an election.
The faux "newspaper" was named for the man on the right; his name is Odis Jones. Odis was the village administrator and the only African American to ever hold that position in the history of Obetz, and I was the Police Chief. We held coveted positions that neither of us were worthy of, according to the publisher and (guest writers) of the "Gazette" for one basic reason, according to them. Odis, because he wasn't white and me because I wasn't white enough. For those folks that meant embracing their long held prejudices and standing with them to oust the town's first African American to ever hold a position of authority and me because I supported him and liked him.
The Village of Obetz had a population with a demographic that was slightly above 95% white at the time and it had a tradition of doing business pretty much the same as it had since the late 1800s when it was just a tiny railroad stop known as Obetz Junction. By 2003 it had grown to just under 5000 residents and was rich with industry due to its proximity to Rickenbacker Air Base to the south, which by then had become a massive industrial complex that employed thousands of people. Marry those equations into the rail yards that crisscrossed in every direction we boasted of a daytime population of more than 20,000.
Traffic through the main corridor was as busy and as congested as anywhere else in Central Ohio during some hours but in the older sections of town a few long-time residents weren't as enthused as the village planners were to see us growing as fast as we were and they did all they could any chance they had to slow the progress. Odis was a visionary, something not everyone endorsed, but more importantly to them he was the wrong color to be holding such a threatening position against their hopes of staying just a small hamlet on the southeast edge of Columbus. Columbus had problems they wanted no part of and to a certain group those problems were mostly caused by people of color.
When I was named Village Marshal and Chief of the the police department I wasn't the guy that many residents wanted to have that position and some scrambled to "vet" me in ways no one should have reasons to; all the way to showing up at my house to dig through my trash to practically tracing my roots, with hopes of finding any reason they could to nullify my appointment. What they discovered was my mother's maiden name of Jewish origins, and when they found that, the "Gazette" went into high speed print mode asking why residents should be expected to accept not only a black administrator, but a Jew wearing the top badge when other "more qualified" officers on the force had been there longer and were more "in tune" with their normal traditions than I ever would be.
Now, of course none of us believed that just anyone with only access to a computer and a printer could possibly be taken seriously enough to have an effect on an election, but these people weren't just someone. In their small circle of collaborators was a few members of city council and even a couple of cops under my command who had their eyes on the job I was chosen for. They had a lot of support, because remember, they had been in town for years before Odis or I got there and a few of those career politicians didn't become political lifers by sitting around; they were masters at campaigning and telling their constituencies what they wanted to support. That is precisely what they did best! It is the formula used by most politicians everywhere whose names show up on ballots, year after year, after year.
Like I said, it was an election year and up for grabs was the mayor's office that could change all of that and get everything back to normal Obetz business. Their preferred candidate was hoping to unseat the current mayor and promised them that among his first acts if elected would be to remove Odis and find a more suitable Village Administrator and we all knew he meant it. I probably read between those lines as well as anyone else because in a private conversation I had with him when he came to introduce himself I asked why, if he were to be elected would he be so quick to remove Odis when he was growing the town as well as he was and he stated that Obetz is a "white bread town" steeped in certain traditions. This candidate knew that whoever holds that position does so at the pleasure of the mayor and can be easily replaced but not so for changing the guard in the division of police. He was trolling for what he probably hoped would be an ally and someone who could see things his way.
He also knew that cops have to be brought up on charges that can be proven, either criminal or administrative before the process of removing them can commence, so I was safe in my position. But Odis knew that if on election day the votes didn't count in the favor of the mayor who hired him that his days would be numbered. The "Gazette" was doing all it could to slander two reputations by using racists remarks that left many townspeople laughing in the barber shop and in the beauty parlor, and they were used as place mats in a local restaurant and hung on every pole around the town's busiest market. Printed under the "Odisville Gazette" banner at the top of the paper was "A Watermelon Publication." One edition even showed hand-drawn monkey's playing with one.
Dialect and quotes used in the stories contained phrases like "All-a-Y'all" and if the word "asked" was in a sentence it might read "axed". Jews and Black Folk weren't the only targets; one editorial wondered how a woman became mayor and why she didn't stay home more where she belonged and it asked readers what they thought of a police chief that lives in a community known to attract gay people; "Where men walk and talk like women and bounce around all day humming songs by The Village People." It was true that I lived in the south end of Columbus in an area called German Village and it has long had a reputation of being a gay-friendly community, so according to the "Gazette" I too must be assumed to be gay if I chose to live there. Never mind that I grew up on those streets and it has been my home most of my life: to them I must certainly be gay because I chose to be surrounded by gay people!
Elections can brutal, and that one was. The mayor was ousted and victory was declared by The Odisville Gazette. The mayor's last day in office came a few days after Odis Jones' last day. He didn't wait around to be replaced and Obetz would get the right guy to man the administrator's office and the right man to be my boss just as it was promised. But still they were stuck with me; a police chief that not only endorsed people of color to hold important jobs, but also someone that lived virtually next door to gay people and whose mother was Jewish! The day after the votes were counted I received a voice mail calling me a nigger loving Jew fag. The voice sounded like a former Obetz City Councilman that I had run-ins with for numerous years; he was one of my biggest detractors of them all and someone that was suspected of having ties with a small pocket of Ku Klux Klan wannabes. Whether any in that group were actually a part of the Klan remained a mystery.
My job for the next year wasn't easy! Before I finally retired in 2005 I could look back on a stay in that town where I experienced the air being let out of my tires, lug nuts on my wheels loosened, hate letters mailed to my wife accusing me of infidelity, my kids being harassed and being followed and video-taped almost everywhere I went. But in the end I left on my own terms and when I look back on those ten years as an Obetz lawman I smile. Not because any of it was easy, but to paraphrase an old JFK speech, because it wasn't.
You may have noticed a Chess Board on that conference table in my office; Odis and I never played against one another and it was never used in any contest by anyone. I set it up on the day I took over the police department to remind myself that I had entered an environment where I would have to use my brain to its full potential and and my wits to avoid being checkmated by some very diabolic forces that surrounded me. Those "pawns" never moved and my Queen was never in jeopardy, and when it was all packed away and I left the building for the last time I went home feeling like a Chess champ because I knew we had made the best moves for the overall good of the community while we had the chance.
In the years that have passed since I retired, Obetz grew in spite of itself and today it is regarded as one of the fastest growing communities in Franklin County and is an ideal spot to set up camp for families of any diversity. It has a good reputation for putting behind it many prejudices and most of the scars from decades of narrow mindedness by too many who refused to go down without a fight. I came out on the other side just fine and so did Odis so in that regard this story has a happy ending. I am enjoying retirement and Odis found a high position in the City of Detroit where he has accomplished remarkable things in a town tougher than Obetz could ever imagine.
And like I said, when I reflect on all of that I really do smile because of what I learned from the experience and because most of those people were good people; they must have been, because how else can it be explained when we look at them now and see the progress that has been made; progress that will see a village become a city in about 4 years when the next census is taken and where so many people today outnumber the narrow minds that once ran in large numbers and held powerful posistions but now are hard to find? Much of the steps taken forward to beyond that era were in the footprints we left behind.
Those new residential neighborhoods that have sprung up since then were the blueprints on Odis' desk, as were many of the infrastructure projects that were finally completed. The job growth there can be largely attributed to what that administration had been planning for years and the police department has grown bigger and better than it ever was under the direction of a chief that I hired and trained back when he was a young rookie.
What none of those knuckleheads back then ever knew was I looked forward to the challenges they laid before me day after day. I embraced the rhetoric and the slander and every attempt to derail my own intentions they could conjure up because, well, it kept life interesting for me while providing me with a priceless education. They only saw a man who showed up for work every day, wearing a clean and neatly pressed uniform, someone who was required by law to play by the rules and have skin thick enough to endure whatever came my way. I gave them that, but what none of them ever figured out was I am a pretty good Chess player and someone who is usually eager to engage anyone foolish enough to underestimate my abilities. Couple that with my own agenda to stand up to corruption within bodies of government as well as in our streets and it was easier to hold my own than any of them could ever understand.
The epilogue here is that racism and deep rooted prejudices can be difficult to navigate but we can do it better and more effectively if we stop making the same mistakes over and over by electing the same politicians that keep the embers of division smoldering by constantly reminding us of how divided we always were. We see it and hear it more from the candidates that cannot stop babbling about inequality and how they can make things better for one group while never discussing what they can accomplish for everyone. When that happens all we get is more people like those behind "The Odisville Gazette". The message is different only in its wording. Anytime I see the slogan "Black Lives Matter" at a political rally or hear some candidate say that in a debate without finishing the sentence I am compelled to wonder if they believe all lives matter. In other words, I don't have any problem with Black Lives Matter until that is all there is to the message. We all matter!
I don't buy the argument that we can't make black lives matter as much as they should for everyone if we don't focus on only on that because I believe when we do we only empower people like those Odis and I tried to silence years ago. To me it is like rattling cages and waking old prejudices and giving them new room to breathe. I saw it in Obetz and I see it again on a larger national political scale now. But what we should keep in mind is there will be as many losers as winners when this next round of elections is finally settled.
Odis and I moved on without causing a ruckus anywhere and I think he would agree with most of what I shared here. Especially the parts about leaving color issues alone when constantly stiring them up and making elections only about that can lead to what it sometimes does. Odis was the only man in town I never wanted to play chess with and he never challenged me to a game. I think that was because we both knew that game might never have ended.
The faux "newspaper" was named for the man on the right; his name is Odis Jones. Odis was the village administrator and the only African American to ever hold that position in the history of Obetz, and I was the Police Chief. We held coveted positions that neither of us were worthy of, according to the publisher and (guest writers) of the "Gazette" for one basic reason, according to them. Odis, because he wasn't white and me because I wasn't white enough. For those folks that meant embracing their long held prejudices and standing with them to oust the town's first African American to ever hold a position of authority and me because I supported him and liked him.
The Village of Obetz had a population with a demographic that was slightly above 95% white at the time and it had a tradition of doing business pretty much the same as it had since the late 1800s when it was just a tiny railroad stop known as Obetz Junction. By 2003 it had grown to just under 5000 residents and was rich with industry due to its proximity to Rickenbacker Air Base to the south, which by then had become a massive industrial complex that employed thousands of people. Marry those equations into the rail yards that crisscrossed in every direction we boasted of a daytime population of more than 20,000.
Traffic through the main corridor was as busy and as congested as anywhere else in Central Ohio during some hours but in the older sections of town a few long-time residents weren't as enthused as the village planners were to see us growing as fast as we were and they did all they could any chance they had to slow the progress. Odis was a visionary, something not everyone endorsed, but more importantly to them he was the wrong color to be holding such a threatening position against their hopes of staying just a small hamlet on the southeast edge of Columbus. Columbus had problems they wanted no part of and to a certain group those problems were mostly caused by people of color.
When I was named Village Marshal and Chief of the the police department I wasn't the guy that many residents wanted to have that position and some scrambled to "vet" me in ways no one should have reasons to; all the way to showing up at my house to dig through my trash to practically tracing my roots, with hopes of finding any reason they could to nullify my appointment. What they discovered was my mother's maiden name of Jewish origins, and when they found that, the "Gazette" went into high speed print mode asking why residents should be expected to accept not only a black administrator, but a Jew wearing the top badge when other "more qualified" officers on the force had been there longer and were more "in tune" with their normal traditions than I ever would be.
Now, of course none of us believed that just anyone with only access to a computer and a printer could possibly be taken seriously enough to have an effect on an election, but these people weren't just someone. In their small circle of collaborators was a few members of city council and even a couple of cops under my command who had their eyes on the job I was chosen for. They had a lot of support, because remember, they had been in town for years before Odis or I got there and a few of those career politicians didn't become political lifers by sitting around; they were masters at campaigning and telling their constituencies what they wanted to support. That is precisely what they did best! It is the formula used by most politicians everywhere whose names show up on ballots, year after year, after year.
Like I said, it was an election year and up for grabs was the mayor's office that could change all of that and get everything back to normal Obetz business. Their preferred candidate was hoping to unseat the current mayor and promised them that among his first acts if elected would be to remove Odis and find a more suitable Village Administrator and we all knew he meant it. I probably read between those lines as well as anyone else because in a private conversation I had with him when he came to introduce himself I asked why, if he were to be elected would he be so quick to remove Odis when he was growing the town as well as he was and he stated that Obetz is a "white bread town" steeped in certain traditions. This candidate knew that whoever holds that position does so at the pleasure of the mayor and can be easily replaced but not so for changing the guard in the division of police. He was trolling for what he probably hoped would be an ally and someone who could see things his way.
He also knew that cops have to be brought up on charges that can be proven, either criminal or administrative before the process of removing them can commence, so I was safe in my position. But Odis knew that if on election day the votes didn't count in the favor of the mayor who hired him that his days would be numbered. The "Gazette" was doing all it could to slander two reputations by using racists remarks that left many townspeople laughing in the barber shop and in the beauty parlor, and they were used as place mats in a local restaurant and hung on every pole around the town's busiest market. Printed under the "Odisville Gazette" banner at the top of the paper was "A Watermelon Publication." One edition even showed hand-drawn monkey's playing with one.
Dialect and quotes used in the stories contained phrases like "All-a-Y'all" and if the word "asked" was in a sentence it might read "axed". Jews and Black Folk weren't the only targets; one editorial wondered how a woman became mayor and why she didn't stay home more where she belonged and it asked readers what they thought of a police chief that lives in a community known to attract gay people; "Where men walk and talk like women and bounce around all day humming songs by The Village People." It was true that I lived in the south end of Columbus in an area called German Village and it has long had a reputation of being a gay-friendly community, so according to the "Gazette" I too must be assumed to be gay if I chose to live there. Never mind that I grew up on those streets and it has been my home most of my life: to them I must certainly be gay because I chose to be surrounded by gay people!
Elections can brutal, and that one was. The mayor was ousted and victory was declared by The Odisville Gazette. The mayor's last day in office came a few days after Odis Jones' last day. He didn't wait around to be replaced and Obetz would get the right guy to man the administrator's office and the right man to be my boss just as it was promised. But still they were stuck with me; a police chief that not only endorsed people of color to hold important jobs, but also someone that lived virtually next door to gay people and whose mother was Jewish! The day after the votes were counted I received a voice mail calling me a nigger loving Jew fag. The voice sounded like a former Obetz City Councilman that I had run-ins with for numerous years; he was one of my biggest detractors of them all and someone that was suspected of having ties with a small pocket of Ku Klux Klan wannabes. Whether any in that group were actually a part of the Klan remained a mystery.
My job for the next year wasn't easy! Before I finally retired in 2005 I could look back on a stay in that town where I experienced the air being let out of my tires, lug nuts on my wheels loosened, hate letters mailed to my wife accusing me of infidelity, my kids being harassed and being followed and video-taped almost everywhere I went. But in the end I left on my own terms and when I look back on those ten years as an Obetz lawman I smile. Not because any of it was easy, but to paraphrase an old JFK speech, because it wasn't.
You may have noticed a Chess Board on that conference table in my office; Odis and I never played against one another and it was never used in any contest by anyone. I set it up on the day I took over the police department to remind myself that I had entered an environment where I would have to use my brain to its full potential and and my wits to avoid being checkmated by some very diabolic forces that surrounded me. Those "pawns" never moved and my Queen was never in jeopardy, and when it was all packed away and I left the building for the last time I went home feeling like a Chess champ because I knew we had made the best moves for the overall good of the community while we had the chance.
In the years that have passed since I retired, Obetz grew in spite of itself and today it is regarded as one of the fastest growing communities in Franklin County and is an ideal spot to set up camp for families of any diversity. It has a good reputation for putting behind it many prejudices and most of the scars from decades of narrow mindedness by too many who refused to go down without a fight. I came out on the other side just fine and so did Odis so in that regard this story has a happy ending. I am enjoying retirement and Odis found a high position in the City of Detroit where he has accomplished remarkable things in a town tougher than Obetz could ever imagine.
And like I said, when I reflect on all of that I really do smile because of what I learned from the experience and because most of those people were good people; they must have been, because how else can it be explained when we look at them now and see the progress that has been made; progress that will see a village become a city in about 4 years when the next census is taken and where so many people today outnumber the narrow minds that once ran in large numbers and held powerful posistions but now are hard to find? Much of the steps taken forward to beyond that era were in the footprints we left behind.
Those new residential neighborhoods that have sprung up since then were the blueprints on Odis' desk, as were many of the infrastructure projects that were finally completed. The job growth there can be largely attributed to what that administration had been planning for years and the police department has grown bigger and better than it ever was under the direction of a chief that I hired and trained back when he was a young rookie.
What none of those knuckleheads back then ever knew was I looked forward to the challenges they laid before me day after day. I embraced the rhetoric and the slander and every attempt to derail my own intentions they could conjure up because, well, it kept life interesting for me while providing me with a priceless education. They only saw a man who showed up for work every day, wearing a clean and neatly pressed uniform, someone who was required by law to play by the rules and have skin thick enough to endure whatever came my way. I gave them that, but what none of them ever figured out was I am a pretty good Chess player and someone who is usually eager to engage anyone foolish enough to underestimate my abilities. Couple that with my own agenda to stand up to corruption within bodies of government as well as in our streets and it was easier to hold my own than any of them could ever understand.
The epilogue here is that racism and deep rooted prejudices can be difficult to navigate but we can do it better and more effectively if we stop making the same mistakes over and over by electing the same politicians that keep the embers of division smoldering by constantly reminding us of how divided we always were. We see it and hear it more from the candidates that cannot stop babbling about inequality and how they can make things better for one group while never discussing what they can accomplish for everyone. When that happens all we get is more people like those behind "The Odisville Gazette". The message is different only in its wording. Anytime I see the slogan "Black Lives Matter" at a political rally or hear some candidate say that in a debate without finishing the sentence I am compelled to wonder if they believe all lives matter. In other words, I don't have any problem with Black Lives Matter until that is all there is to the message. We all matter!
I don't buy the argument that we can't make black lives matter as much as they should for everyone if we don't focus on only on that because I believe when we do we only empower people like those Odis and I tried to silence years ago. To me it is like rattling cages and waking old prejudices and giving them new room to breathe. I saw it in Obetz and I see it again on a larger national political scale now. But what we should keep in mind is there will be as many losers as winners when this next round of elections is finally settled.
Odis and I moved on without causing a ruckus anywhere and I think he would agree with most of what I shared here. Especially the parts about leaving color issues alone when constantly stiring them up and making elections only about that can lead to what it sometimes does. Odis was the only man in town I never wanted to play chess with and he never challenged me to a game. I think that was because we both knew that game might never have ended.
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