By John W. Fountain
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| Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream. The mass murder of African Americans by African Americans was not a part of that dream. |
Imagine Soldier Field beyond capacity, brimming with 63,879
young African-American men, ages 18 to 24—more than U.S. losses in the entire
Vietnam conflict. Imagine
the University of Michigan’s football stadium—the largest in the U.S.—filled to
its limit of 109,901 with black men, age 25 and older. Now add 28,223 more—together
totaling more than U.S. deaths in World War I.
Picture two UIC Pavillions packed with12,658 Trayvon
Martins—black boys, ages 14 to 17—nearly twice the number of U.S. lives lost in
Iraq and Afghanistan. Now
picture all of them dead. The national tally of black males 14 and older murdered
in America over a 30-year period from 1976 through 2005, according to U.S.
Bureau of Justice statistics: 214,661. The
numbers tell only part of the story of this largely urban war, where the
victims bare an uncanny resemblance to their killers. A war of brother against
brother, filled with wanton and automatic gunfire, even in the light of day, on
neighborhood streets, where little boys make mud pies, schoolgirls jump rope, where
the innocent are caught in the crossfire, where the spirit of murder blows like
the wind.
______________________
For every Trayvon Martin killed by someone not black,
nine other blacks were murdered by someone black.
______________________
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Two boys hoist basketballs in honor of Tyshawn Lee, 9, as his
casket rests in a hearse after his funeral in November at St. Sabina
Catholic Church. Tyshawn was slain in an alley by men, police said,
in a gang-related retaliation over incidents with Tyshawn's father.
|
It
is, so far, a ceaseless war in which guns are often the weapon of choice, and
the finger on the trigger of the gun pointed at a black male is most often
another black male’s.
The
numbers alone are enough to make me cry—to wonder why—we as African Americans
will march en masse over one slain by someone who is not black, and yet sit silent
over the hundreds of thousands of us obliterated from this mortal world by
someone black like us, like me. It is a numbing truth borne out by hard facts:
From 1980 through 2008, 93 percent of black victims were killed
by blacks. Translation:
For every Trayvon Martin killed by someone not black, nine other blacks were
murdered by someone black.
In
2005, we—blacks—accounted for 13 percent of the U.S. population but 49 percent
of all homicides. The
numbers are staggering, the loss incomprehensible.
Add
to the tally of black males 14 and older slain across the country from 1976 to
2005, another 29,335 (slain from 2006 to 2010), and their national body count
rises to 243,996, representing 82 percent of all black homicides for that
35-year period. What also becomes clear is this: We too often have raised
killers. And this war is claiming our sons.
But that’s still not the end of the
story. Add to that number 51,892 black females ages 14 and older, plus five
whose gender was not identifiable, and the total, not counting children, is 295,893—more
than the combined U.S. losses of World War I, the Vietnam, Korean and
Mexican-American Wars, the War of 1812 and the American Revolutionary War.
Isn’t the blood of these sons and daughters no less American?
Two hundred ninety-five thousand eight hundred
ninety-three…
Imagine the United Center, Wrigley Field, U.S.
Cellular Field and Soldier Field nearly all filled simultaneously with black
boy, girls, men and women. Now imagine that twice over. Now imagine them all
dead.
As far as I can see, that’s at least 295,893
reasons to cry. And it is cause enough for reticent churches, for communities,
for lackadaisical leaders, for all people—no matter our race, color or creed—to
find the collective will and the moral resolve to stamp out this human rights
atrocity occurring right under our noses.
Just imagine the human carnage and the toll to
us all if we don’t. I can’t. I won’t.