Another report from the Justice Department confirms once again that “we” are our own worst enemy. The report deals with the latest increases in crime and basically tells us what we already know...that black people kill black people and white people kill white people.
What is so disheartening about this report is that it claims that most black murder victims..93% in fact, are between the ages of 17 and 29 and male. Conversely, white victims tend to be older, only 37% are between the ages of 17 and 29.
Blacks make up 13% of this country’s population yet account for 49% of all murders and 15% of rapes, assaults and other non fatal violent crimes. The only people who die younger and faster than black youth are native americans.
The experts blame easy access to illegal drugs and guns and generations of young black men locked out of economic opportunity.
As I look at these statistics, I guess my own outlook has changed. Usually I am outraged at this senseless loss. My anger usually pores out on the page. But today is different. I’m, well, maybe I’m tired. Maybe I’m resigned. Maybe I’ve given up trying to reach anyone through my words. Outrage doesn’t work. Nobody listens...not the kids, not the parents, not the community, not the politicians, not the police.
I drive through my neighborhood, a once and future vibrant corner of city life and see the hopelessness on every street corner. Young men in white t-shirts and baggy jeans blatantly displaying their designer boxers shorts above their sagging waistbands disrespecting all who bother to glance their way. They’re out there at all hours, no matter what time I pass by. Girls, young women, standing in the shadows admiring the young men, visibly pregnant, with maybe a baby or two in tow. Anytime of the day, this drama unfolds itself for anyone watching.
While the young men pose on the corner, Avondale, one of the oldest of Cincinnati neighborhoods is being taken away from them. It is being revitalized by whites moving back into the neighborhoods in answer to the gasoline crisis. Real estate is cheap. Older black homeowners who bought from the Jews when Avondale was a Jewish ghetto, are dying out being replaced by younger white speculators with cash to burn and money to invest, spawning a new generation of absentee landlords. Avondale is going green and getting a new coat of paint. It is getting set to sparkle once again like when I was kid, some 50 years ago.
The young men and their absent families are being pushed out. I don’t know where the young men on the corner go when and if they go home. Their neighborhood, the very thing that could save them, is being taken. The sidewalks are being pulled out from under their feet as they claw for existence and survival. Home is the foundation for economic well being. They have none. Their families have none. Even if they have a home, they don’t have the skills to take part in the buildup. No one makes them go to school.
They propagate and perpetuate the cycle, making babies, and baby mommas, with no support or way to get a leg up in society, chewed up almost before they’re spit out.
Soon they will be gone from the corners in Avondale. Police crackdowns and enforcement cameras will push them away from the newly revitalized areas. Out of sight, out of mind. The cycle will resume again somewhere else, if they live.
And maybe that is the answer....dying rather than living...their only way out of a bleak and seemingly endless waking nightmare.
Showing posts with label police. Show all posts
Showing posts with label police. Show all posts
8.10.2007
11.27.2006
Fear of Black Men
Three black men go to a club the day before one of them is to be married to the mother of his two children. The party ends in a hail of gunfire with the groom dead and his two friends mortally wounded and hospitalized.
The shooters, cops, New York City undercover police officers. The police were in the club, according to reports, investigating illegal activity in the establishment. They were reportedly trying to shutdown the business for repeated violations of the law.
According to the latest official story, the officers allegedly heard one of the young men make reference to a gun in his car while still inside the club. After the men got into their car, the undercover officers moved to intercept them.
This is where it gets crazy.
One undercover officer steps in front of the car as it is pulling from the curb. A witness, who was also supposed to be in the car but hadn’t gotten in yet, said the undercover never identified himself and simply opened up on the car when it drove toward him. Another police van was rammed in the process. The van had pulled around the corner in an effort to block the car in, apparently. The officers in the van as well as one officer in another car also opened fire on the men. Again, witnesses said, no one identified himself.
Police said the officers, all veterans, believed they were under attack because the driver was trying to pull away from the curb. Witnesses said the men in the car thought they were being robbed and were simply trying to get away. Bullets hit nearby houses and cars during the onslaught. Luckily no one was hurt in the houses.
50 shots were fired....one man died...one man was shot eleven times...one man was hit three times....one cop emptied his gun, reloaded and emptied it again...
The men in the car did not have a gun. They were totally unarmed. The only guns on scene were the 9 mm carried by the officers.
The officers involved in the shooting are two whites, two blacks and one Hispanic. This was an equal opportunity execution. One officer, one of the white ones fired 31 of the 50 bullets. He got down on one knee, according to reports, emptied his clip, reloaded and fired again.
Brother officers said he is a good cop who simply lost it and, I guess, panicked. The police have been placed on administrative leave. The prosecutor has decided to present the case to the grand jury.
Al Sharpton is marching, leading the family and friends in protest marches around the hospital.
Fear of black men....
These situations keep happening....Lorenzo Collins, a man armed with a brick, surrounded by eleven uniformed police officers....shot to death. The brick is a threat only until he throws it at one of them. Why did the other officers fire. Execution of an unarmed black man.
Amadou Diallo, holding a wallet in his hand, standing at his door....dies in a hail of bullets from police who thought he had a gun. No threat except he was black.
A man named Carpenter, pulled over by police, who then open fire on him from behind, killing him by firing through his rear window....again....no gun in sight...and since the officers were behind the car, no apparent threat except for the fact that they’d stopped a black man.
Fear of black men.....
There has to be change.
The shooters, cops, New York City undercover police officers. The police were in the club, according to reports, investigating illegal activity in the establishment. They were reportedly trying to shutdown the business for repeated violations of the law.
According to the latest official story, the officers allegedly heard one of the young men make reference to a gun in his car while still inside the club. After the men got into their car, the undercover officers moved to intercept them.
This is where it gets crazy.
One undercover officer steps in front of the car as it is pulling from the curb. A witness, who was also supposed to be in the car but hadn’t gotten in yet, said the undercover never identified himself and simply opened up on the car when it drove toward him. Another police van was rammed in the process. The van had pulled around the corner in an effort to block the car in, apparently. The officers in the van as well as one officer in another car also opened fire on the men. Again, witnesses said, no one identified himself.
Police said the officers, all veterans, believed they were under attack because the driver was trying to pull away from the curb. Witnesses said the men in the car thought they were being robbed and were simply trying to get away. Bullets hit nearby houses and cars during the onslaught. Luckily no one was hurt in the houses.
50 shots were fired....one man died...one man was shot eleven times...one man was hit three times....one cop emptied his gun, reloaded and emptied it again...
The men in the car did not have a gun. They were totally unarmed. The only guns on scene were the 9 mm carried by the officers.
The officers involved in the shooting are two whites, two blacks and one Hispanic. This was an equal opportunity execution. One officer, one of the white ones fired 31 of the 50 bullets. He got down on one knee, according to reports, emptied his clip, reloaded and fired again.
Brother officers said he is a good cop who simply lost it and, I guess, panicked. The police have been placed on administrative leave. The prosecutor has decided to present the case to the grand jury.
Al Sharpton is marching, leading the family and friends in protest marches around the hospital.
Fear of black men....
These situations keep happening....Lorenzo Collins, a man armed with a brick, surrounded by eleven uniformed police officers....shot to death. The brick is a threat only until he throws it at one of them. Why did the other officers fire. Execution of an unarmed black man.
Amadou Diallo, holding a wallet in his hand, standing at his door....dies in a hail of bullets from police who thought he had a gun. No threat except he was black.
A man named Carpenter, pulled over by police, who then open fire on him from behind, killing him by firing through his rear window....again....no gun in sight...and since the officers were behind the car, no apparent threat except for the fact that they’d stopped a black man.
Fear of black men.....
There has to be change.
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