Real Life Real Faith Men of Faith March Issue | Page 13

Fast forward to present day and the inner cities are still plagued with the same violence , but now it ’ s been relabeled and repackaged as “ Black on Black Crime ”. Now instead of the responsibility of its resolution being the job of law enforcement , the African American community has been left with the hot potato . Many will say that because we are doing the dirt we should be the ones to clean it , but we aren ’ t talking about spilled milk , we are talking about organized crime . When the mafia painted the city of Chicago red no one told the Italian or Irish American community they are responsible with resolving it . No one told them they need to police their own communities . Legally and socially it ’ s a very bad idea to allow communities to take the law and its enforcement into their own hands because people take things personal , even more so if you live right up the street from the last shooting .
Things will get out of hand very quickly as personal vendettas and family feuds would turn the communities into a modern day Tombstone . And even though some of us believe the inner cities has already turned to Tombstone , statistically that ’ s inaccurate . Tombstone still holds the trophy of being one of the most violent cities in U . S . history . So when you combine the problems of a self-policed community with gang violence you will most certainly have genocide on a much larger scale than even Rwanda . Don ’ t believe me , see the case between self-proclaimed neighborhood watchmen Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin . There are millions of Zimmermans out there just waiting to “ police ” their own communities . So why would they suggest the black community do it ? Because they know we are not licensed , trained or equipped to do so and as long as we are held responsible , law enforcement can sit back and watch the fireworks and not be held responsible for things getting worse . It also gives them an excuse to gun down unarmed black people like rabid dogs in the streets because once we allowed gang violence to be associated with our skin color , it made every African American a potential violent “ thug ”. And who isn ’ t afraid of a thug ? Crime has labels such as domestic violence , gang violence , crimes of passion , serial crimes , gun violence , drug crimes , sex crimes , corporate crimes , etc . Only violent crime in the inner cities have been labeled a crime directly associated with a group of people , black people ; and regardless of social and financial status this country now sees us all as threats .
But there is no such thing as black on black crime because if there is such a thing then that would mean people of African descent are inherently violent and our skin color is the trigger . Just think about that for a second … your melanin content determines your threshold for violent behavior . Yeah ... doesn ’ t make any sense spiritually or scientifically . Crime is a result of circumstance , not heritage and it ’ s time for African Americans to change the narrative and hold law enforcement responsible for solving gang violence and stop treating it like a hereditary diseasethat can only be solved with a bullet and an excuse .
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