'Fear of a Black Planet'

It's funny, the other day, everyone in my neighborhood received a copy of an e-mail in our mail boxes.

The e-mail told the harrowing tale of one house being intruded one night in our subdivision. The whole purpose was to let folks know that there may be a prowler lurking, but also that there's a problem with the police department.

It seems the person called the police and the police said they'd come around later. Well, they never came and there was a big to-do about the police really caring or whatever.

Then I listen to Public Enemy and their song "911 is a Joke."

Essentially, there's a vocal African American section of the population that believes that police and emergency crews are unresponsive to the ghetto.

And there's a vocal mostly white, middle-class, surburban section of the population that believes that the police are unresponsive to their part of the world.

Could it be that the system's just broke, or fails sometimes, in spite of class or color.

Naw. Never. It's always about class and color. Class and color sell records.