We in the African American community talk about police brutality, ignorance and hatred from other races and ethnicities. We preach constantly about the wrongs committed against African American people. However, I would like to address the violence we share amongst one another within our community, aka “Black-on-Black violence”.
On June 24, 2009, the New York Times published an article about homicides in New York City on their website. Attached to the article is a compilation of data disclosing the amount of homicides per year within the five boroughs. In 2009, African Americans represent 59% of victims and 48% of the perpetrators! My eyes welled up with tears as I was studying the data. We sing hymns like “Lift Every Voice and Sing” and “We Shall Overcome”. How can we lift our voices to sing when we are always crying over another death? How can we overcome anything if we keep hurting and killing ourselves? We hold rallies and protests when someone of another race attacks or kills one of our own. We are quick to blame others when they bring violence and bloodshed into our world…as we should. Yet, we are doing this to each other on a daily basis!
I am tired of everyone holding a community forum to get their 15 minutes of fame. I am tired of “Stop the Violence” concerts and basketball games that, ironically, often end in gunfire. It is no secret that guns are sent into the inner city. We are well aware that Berretta and Smith & Wesson do not have corporate headquarters or factories on Gun Hill Road or Nostrand Avenue (if they did, perhaps the New York State unemployment rate for African Americans would not be a estimated 9.4% in 2008, compared to the 4.8% and the 6.7% of our Caucasian and Latino counterparts). That is not the issue. As the saying goes: Guns don’t kill people. PEOPLE kill people. What has warped our minds and diseased our souls to provoke us to take someone’s life away from them? Does the African American community suffer from that much hatred, insecurity, and pain that we must murder each other, like it’s nothing? I don’t want to use the term “violence” anymore. We have become numb to the word in our community. Let us call it what it really is: Attempted Self-Annihilation.
Links:
Murder: New York City (Interactive Homicide Map): projects.nytimes.com/crime/homicides/map
2008 Preliminary Data on Employment Status by State and Demographic Group: www.bls.gov/lau/ptable14full2008.pdf
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