Community must respond to black-on-black crime deadliest

Many of us who grew up in black communities in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s now constantly have to look over our shoulders when visiting.

When I call my childhood home on any given day, it is not unusual for my sister to tell me that another young black man has been gunned down by his father, uncle, cousin, friend, enemy or a total stranger. The reasons are most often connected to drugs.  I imagine that many people in the Charlottesville area experience that same fear because of our escalating violence.

Yes, crime is a problem in my childhood home, Hartford, Conn., and in my present home. Charlottesville; and, yes, in both places as well as in black communities throughout the United States it stems from black teens not being anchored by a positive identity.

In this century, black-on-black crime is the most insidious killer of black people, especially black men. This disease has taken years to manifest itself, and it will take years to eliminate.

According to federal crime statistics, homicide is the leading cause of death among African-American males ages 15 to 34. These figures also indicate that between 1976 and 2004, 94 percent of black murder victims were killed by black offenders.

All we can say about the most recent local victims, Aziz Booth and Joshua Ma-gruder, is that they were “sweet kids.” In Charlottesville all of the recent murder victims and those arrested for the murders are black.

What can be done to stop this madness? The first reality the black community must face is that this is our problem. Others can help, but we must do the heavy lifting.

Many observers both inside and outside the community think that black-on-black crime is an outgrowth of two huge problems affecting black America — the high rate of out-of-wedlock births, and gangs.

The police chief of St. Paul, Minn., recently stated something that we already know: “There are generations of African-Americans who haven’t had two parents to show them the way, so therefore their maturity has been stunted.” As a result, he says, “there’s an overabundance of young men who are un- or underemployed, who have criminal histories, and who rely on chemicals to deal with psychological or emotional pain, and young women who are unequipped to be mothers, wives or even girlfriends.”

What is to be done?

First, we must admit that the most valuable sources of help, hope and power lie in ourselves and our common histories.

Second, there’s a need for some form of large-scale public intervention to ensure access to basic social goods — housing, food, health care, education, child care and jobs. I agree with Dr. Cornell West, the scholar from Princeton University, who has stated on numerous occasions that black parents today don’t have what we had in the ’50s and ’60s, buffers against “the demons of hopelessness, meaninglessness, and lovelessness. These buffers consisted of cultural structures of meaning and feeling that created and sustained communities. This armor constituted ways of life and struggles that embodied values of service and sacrifice, love and care, discipline and excellence” (“Race Matters”).

There are too many guns in Charlottesville and not enough jobs. Are there enough safe places for kids to come after school?

We need to come forward and help mobilize the community, to be willing to fight for the lives of our youth and our community, willing to take unpopular positions, to take political risks. The community leaders are here: They are at State Farm and other major corporations; they are at the University of Virginia, in both the faculty and staff; they are in all of our churches; they are in our fraternities and sororities, and other service organizations. They are our ordinary citizens.

Too many people have come to Charlottesville and hidden for years, afraid they will be asked to make a commitment. Too many choose to remain hidden and anonymous.
When will we say, “Enough is enough”?

M. Rick Turner is president of the local chapter of the NAACP.