Why won’t we stop killing
each other?
By John W. Fountain
Black
lives matter?
What
about young black men slain by young black men? Or is it only black males slain
by white men?
When
will local and national protests begin for the senseless killing of Demario
Bailey, 15, shot dead a week ago Saturday by would-be robbers? His four alleged
killers look just like him: young, male and black.
Surely
they must have seen news of protests in response to grand jury decisions to not
indict white police officers for killing Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and Eric
Garner in New York. Surely, they must have caught wind of protestors’ chants:
“Black
lives matter!”
“I
can’t breathe.”
Surely
they must have noticed Demario’s chocolate skin and brown eyes. Realized that he
was unmistakably their “brother.”
And
yet, Demario’s killers showed no regard for his life as he walked with his twin
brother Demacio to a high school basketball practice. They shot him apparently in
a robbery for his new jacket. In cold blood, in broad daylight, four days
before his 16th birthday, 12 days before Christmas.
He
died out on the cold street. Demario could not breathe.
Black
lives matter?
“To
who?” I keep wondering. “To us—African Americans?”
Then
someone please tell me why we won’t stop killing each other?
Or
why too many of us simply don’t respect black life. Why the music to which we
bob and twerk denigrates black life. Wreaks of pathology and fatalism,
punctuated by music videos with shirtless thugs, pointing guns or squeezing
trigger fingers.
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The sad truth: That my black sons, nephews,
grandson, brother, uncles,
my grandfather and I have more to fear
from certain black males than certain white cops.
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We
say black life matters but sing: “…My hitta, my hitta… Most likely I'mma die
with my finger on the trigger.”
We
say black life matters. But the children sing: “Let a (n-word) try me, I'mma get
his whole (expletive) family…”
We
sing: “Bang bang…”
Black lives matter. So urban radio stations launch “anti-violence”
campaigns, pausing to discuss the “crisis.” Then the talking stops. And the
murder music spins on.
We
keep raising killers. Fail too often as parents, teachers and preachers to
instill in our young the fundamental principal of self-respect. Or the Golden
Rule. Or the Sixth Commandment.
We
help perpetuate thug life. Dress our baby boys in earrings, sagging pants,
fitted caps and expensive sneakers then wonder why shorty wanna be a thug.
Black
lives matter. But which ones?
The
lives of poor black ghetto children? Or the lives of middle-class black
suburban children? The lives of young black superstar athletes, stellar
students or the squeaky clean?
But
we justify the killing of “thugs”?
I “get” the marches. I do. Racism in America is real. The
history of police brutality by white cops against black men—and women—is a deplorable
fact of life that must now end. I’m only suggesting that we deal with the whole
truth.
That as African
Americans, “we” will march en masse over one of us slain by someone who is not
black. And yet, collectively we sit eerily silent over hundreds of thousands of
us obliterated from this mortal world by someone black like us. It is a numbing
truth backed by cold hard facts: From 1980 through 2008, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice, nine out
of every 10 black victims were killed by blacks.
The
sad truth: That my black sons, nephews, grandson, brother, uncles, my grandfather
and I have more to fear from certain black males than certain white cops.
Marches
are fine. But I keep wondering: What are “we” going to do?
All
lives matter. And it is to our great detriment—and to Demario’s—that his
killers simply didn’t get that.
But do we?
But do we?