The understandable background for this "movement" is the clear perception that, for both the police and much of the news Media, when a "Black" person is killed or seriously injured in a criminal incident, it is not treated as a big deal. Conversely, let a white teenage girl get raped, a white kid be killed by a stray bullet, or a white guy go missing, it makes all the newspapers, television newscasts, and the local internet news media like a major incident. It "matters."
From what I can see (I read three newspapers a day), this situation is changing in "real time," as the editorial staffs now recognize the double-standard and are now giving a little more "ink" to "Black" victims of, and participants in, gun violence.
But there is a case to be made for the proposition that - at least for the kinds of lethal activity that reach the news media, most "Black" lives DON'T matter.
Look at the newsworthy gun-deaths in cities like Chicago, Washington, New York, and other big cities. Mainly, they are one "black" gang-banger killing another one. Carve out the ones where there are bystander-victims (which have always gotten good news coverage), and you are left with the majority of these deaths are simply the losers in confrontations between one bad guy and another. WGAS? On balance, the world is probably a little bit better place with these people underground and at room temperature. Excuse me if I don't mourn them, and excuse me again if I doubt the Mother's claim that her son had "just found Jesus."
Despite what many believe, every death is not a tragedy, even when the deceased is a relatively young person. If you are a low-level drug dealer or a generic thug at 20 (e.g., Michael Brown), you are NOT going to win a Nobel Prize or grow up to be a "Family Man," raising happy, productive kids in an intact household. It just isn't in the cards. More likely you are going to be spreading death and destruction, sucking up money from the taxpayers in one way or another, and generally being a "cancer" to most of the people you encounter for the rest of your life.
And this has nothing to do with race. If you are involved in street-level drug transactions and turf wars at 20, there's little hope of your being a contributing member of society at 45. It's just that most of this homicidal activity, at this time in history, involves yoots of black African ancestry.
The loss of some lives is significant, and the loss of others may be a micro-tragedy in that person's world of close friends and family, but to the police and to society at large, good riddance. You don't "matter."
Of course, if we legalize drugs for recreational use, maybe all of these gun deaths will go away and it will be a moot point.
From what I can see (I read three newspapers a day), this situation is changing in "real time," as the editorial staffs now recognize the double-standard and are now giving a little more "ink" to "Black" victims of, and participants in, gun violence.
But there is a case to be made for the proposition that - at least for the kinds of lethal activity that reach the news media, most "Black" lives DON'T matter.
Look at the newsworthy gun-deaths in cities like Chicago, Washington, New York, and other big cities. Mainly, they are one "black" gang-banger killing another one. Carve out the ones where there are bystander-victims (which have always gotten good news coverage), and you are left with the majority of these deaths are simply the losers in confrontations between one bad guy and another. WGAS? On balance, the world is probably a little bit better place with these people underground and at room temperature. Excuse me if I don't mourn them, and excuse me again if I doubt the Mother's claim that her son had "just found Jesus."
Despite what many believe, every death is not a tragedy, even when the deceased is a relatively young person. If you are a low-level drug dealer or a generic thug at 20 (e.g., Michael Brown), you are NOT going to win a Nobel Prize or grow up to be a "Family Man," raising happy, productive kids in an intact household. It just isn't in the cards. More likely you are going to be spreading death and destruction, sucking up money from the taxpayers in one way or another, and generally being a "cancer" to most of the people you encounter for the rest of your life.
And this has nothing to do with race. If you are involved in street-level drug transactions and turf wars at 20, there's little hope of your being a contributing member of society at 45. It's just that most of this homicidal activity, at this time in history, involves yoots of black African ancestry.
The loss of some lives is significant, and the loss of others may be a micro-tragedy in that person's world of close friends and family, but to the police and to society at large, good riddance. You don't "matter."
Of course, if we legalize drugs for recreational use, maybe all of these gun deaths will go away and it will be a moot point.
