Why is that whenever there’s an incident where a young black man gets murdered
by a white police officer, there is this outrage in the black community? But this same
feeling of grievance isn’t present by the significant number of young black men
murdered by other black men. The fact is, statistically the number one cause of death for young black men in America is murder, and the number one perpetrators in these murders are other black men.
Now I’m not exonerating a white cop that kills an innocent young black man, but I
believe that their needs to be the same amount of passionate outrage for the thousands of black youth’s that die on the streets of Chicago, Detroit, or New Orleans by other black youth’s every year.
I understand the background of these crimes are disenfranchisement and lack of
Opportunities; that lead’s many young men of color to crime. With very
little hope for the future and lack of scope of what is out there for them.
So as anyone who is reading this blog might realize I’m addressing the recent events
in Ferguson, Missouri. I don’t need to give anyone a summary of the event’s that went on this small city these past few months(as anyone who doesn’t live under a rock should already know), Ferguson is going through political unrest. Massive amounts of protesting and rioting. Police serving as these crowds adversaries’ in this tragic tale of community anger towards what they deem as injustice, for an innocent youth.
African Americans need to take more responsibility in our neighborhoods, more supervision and insight in our children lives. There is no reason me as a black man should feel safer in a white neighborhood then I do in a black neighborhood.
Constantly we are bombarded with the rhetoric that we should fear the police, but is it the police that is the reason many black communities are parallels to war zones, those not different from the ones you would find in Syria, Gaza, or the Congo. The neighboring city is St Louis, a predominately black city, that has a considerable homicide rate (ranked number 3 in America and 45th in the world). Is just another example of how many blacks ignore problems of violence’s blighting the black community every day.
Now when it comes to the police, I believe they should be held responsible. Critics to this blog post will reply that cops are public servants and should be held to higher standard than some black gang-banger. And to this criticism, I’m in complete agreement. Cops are given a great deal of power. They are allowed to carry firearms in public and under certain circumstances are granted the right to take an individual’s liberty and life. To quote a famous fictional wise man “with great power comes great responsibly”, police officers have a responsibility to protect and serve the community that pays their salary. Many times as I walk through my neighborhood of Jamaica, Queens I see cops accost black men for no other reason but that they are gathered together in a particular area. Wondering to myself if this was a white neighborhood, with white males, would the police be so attentive towards this group’s actions are would they just go on with their duties? My instincts steer me towards the latter.
Da Joanis Project 