In addressing the shooting deaths of three women in Dorchester last weekend, the Rev. Jeffrey Brown, executive director of the Ten Point Coalition, said at a community meeting Wednesday night, “We need a cultural game changer.” The next day at another community meeting, he exhorted, “A line has been crossed!”
For many, the killing of three women at once is unprecedented. But Brown’s words were themselves a tragedy because nothing thus far has truly changed the game. The cycle of gun tragedy is the cobra that will not die, from 12-year-old Darlene Tiffany Moore in 1988 to 9-year-old Eric Shepard and honors student Louis Brown in the 1990s, from 10-year-old Trina Persad in 2002 to the 2010 Mattapan massacre that claimed a toddler. Now, once again, there are community meetings calling for unity and courage, rallies against violence, and nightwalks telling perpetrators who owns the streets.
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High Five!
i was watching a show on TV the other night, do not know which show. They were interviewing a black man running for office. I confess that I do not know what state he was from. They showed an add that his opponent was running with the black man hitting two different white women on the head with something, a hammer, I think. They interviewed a member of the NAACP and he did not feel that this was a portrayal of a stereotype, black man beating on white woman. I found out later in the program that apparently the man running for office was a conservative. Until the NAACP pulls it's collective head out of the sand and looks around to find solutions for and by EVERYONE, there will be no change. They lost my support when politics trumped reality.
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Let me introduce you to my big friend, the 700-pound gorilla. His name is Prohibition.
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Slack got it right! Until we end the prohibition on drugs, we will continue to have gang-related murders. Read US history during the alcohol prohibition era. In Boston Harbor it wasn't unusual to find a string of bodies floating. Gangs are entreprenuerial. They control turf and they control people (remember Whitey?). Take the profit out of the distribution of drugs and you end the gangs and the violence. It's simple really. Unfortunately, we don't have any politicians with the courage to to speak out.
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It is the NRA's fault that the black community has no family structure or leaders? That they stand by while kids get shot? That they vote Democratic every time yet unemployment is 14+%?
Let me see if I can very briefly AND coherently explain why Jackson's column left me. . . irritated. [NEW PARAGRAPH] As a South End resident, I get to see poor inner city residents in action regularly. I can't help but notice a certain "thugginess" in the mindset of an appreciable number. "F***," "S***," and the N-word are basically every other word in (loud) conversation, for example -- especially among teens and young adults. I wonder what sort of home life or role modeling would leave people assuming "trash" talk is par for the course. I also wonder if the "trash" talk is symptomatic of a more general anomie. If so, no wonder violence is such a problem in inner city areas. [NEW PARAGRAPH] When I read columns like Jackson's which point the finger at EXTERNAL sources for inner city violence, I feel I'm only getting half the loaf. Where is the emphasis -- or even question -- about what inner city residents could be doing all by themselves to improve their lot? For starters, could parents just put more emphasis on teaching their kids to use "cleaner" language? There's no need for a law or money to do that. [NOTE: I make a symmetric argument when conservative commentators try to place ALL blame for inner city problems on the residents themselves. That's a different half-loaf irritant.]
A child's guiding light should be his parents. How many black kids have two totally involved parents? Not many when you consider that about 70% of black babies are born to unwed mothers. So, as the child gets older, the gang becomes his parents, with deadly consequences.
This is a direct result of the collapse of the Black family. Brought to you by the Welfare state and the apologists who blame everything under the sun except a failure of personal responsibility. Look in the mirror Liberals.
1. Guns don't kill people ... 2. The second. Amendment is already a joke. 3. Only honest people follow laws - Stop trying to blame others and look at the problem
Thanks Derrick, for helping to turn up the heat under the gun lobby aka National Rifle Association. A favorite defense of the status quo is to invoke the Second Amendment. If necessary, we can amend it. Remind the conservatives; it has been done before in some notable cases, Like the abolition of slavery or like the 18th, which was repealed a generation later. Our Constitution was not handed down from the Mountain. It is a flexible instrument. It was written by men who shot muzzle-loaders to kill Indians. Times are changing. Now we use weapons unimaginable by the Founders, and we shoot children in their schoolrooms. Enough, already.