Why Don't Black People Protest 'Black-on-Black Violence'?

[jaxx]

Why Don't Black People Protest 'Black-on-Black Violence'?
By Ta-Nehisi Coates

Apr 2 2012, 8:50 AM ET

Juan Williams offers a meme that we are seeing repeated in response to the widespread protests around Trayvon Martin:

Quote: But what about all the other young black murder victims? Nationally, nearly half of all murder victims are black. And the overwhelming majority of those black people are killed by other black people. Where is the march for them?

This is an interesting question. It's also one that Juan Williams, who's been writing about race for almost three decades, should be able to answer. Moreover, Williams is an award-winning journalist. Should he not know the answer, it would suit him to do his job and find out.



<..> I came up in the era of Self-Destruction. I wrote a book largely about violence in black communities. The majority of my public experiences today are about addressing violence in black communities. I can not tell you how scared black parents are for their kids, and whatever modest success of my book experienced, most of it hinged on the great worry that black mothers feel for their sons.

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/arch...y0.twitter

Glad to see Ta-Nehisi Coates speaking out on this. The media always points to black on black crime when trying to scapegoat white on black crime. Do they think people don't know what is going on?

[Still a Democrat]

It never ceases to amaze me how obtuse and tone deaf the right is on all things racial.

[suzie]

Having worked in a prosecutor's office, I think that it's a legitimate question, why the average prosecutor is willing to plea bargain for a manslaughter conviction for a 20 year old African American kid who kills another kid for a 3 year sentence. The kid would likely do 1 1/2 years.

If he'd killed a white kid, they'd be asking for at least life.

Part of the rationale is that it's simply more difficult to obtain a lengthier conviction for a black on black crime. Part of it is that it doesn't matter to the prosecutors because 1) they're white or 2) they're not getting the publicity as in other trials.

Since I'm not African American, I can't say what the black community should do. But targeting prosecutors, making them put genuine bad guys, instead of druggies, away for a long time would seem a way to diminish some of the violence in black communities.

However, that shouldn't be used as an argument to diminish the legitimate outrage over the prosecution of the Martin case.

[sandnsea]

They do. The Million Moms used to be the Million Moms against gun violence in the inner cities. NRA shut that down and the AFA stole it for their bigoted bullshit. And if Obama were to focus on the inner city in any high profile way - well we all know how that would go. Just because an accusation is made - it doesn't make it true.

[NJMaverick]

directly related to the article. However I wanted to talk about this right wing talking point. The point of the protests are not the murder committed by George, rather it's the failure of the justice system to bring him to justice. Of course any or all murders are heinous. However the reason people are up in arms is a white man who was also a racist got away with cold blooded murder against an innocent black teen.

[jaxx]

(04-02-2012 11:20 AM)NJMaverick Wrote:  directly related to the article. However I wanted to talk about this right wing talking point. The point of the protests are not the murder committed by George, rather it's the failure of the justice system to bring him to justice. Of course any or all murders are heinous. However the reason people are up in arms is a white man who was also a racist got away with cold blooded murder against an innocent black teen.

That is all anyone is asking for....justice.

[Brewman_Jax]

Juan Williams is a long-time lawn-jockey, so he's busy giving cover to his rabid racist masters. He doesn't care about the answer, but he's there to continue the RW meme.

I've noticed in cases like this how so many white people follow the racist meme and become concern trolls. Where's that concern when black people bring up actual discrimination and the unfairness of the system. Those "concerned" white people get quiet in a hurry. Where's the concern for "white on white" crime or "asian on asian" crime. It's only "black on black" crime and only when white people feel uncomfortable because some egregious happened because of race.

The protests are because the justice system has failed miserably again, rather, it hasn't. Justice is usually meted out to the underclass while the overclass gets away, as usual. People of color make up about 80% of the prison population, while being only about 25% of the total population. That's no accident, that is deliberate.

[suzie]

One thing that I've seen among Democrats over years, especially white Democrats, has been a disregard for the importance of local officials. The offices of Sheriff and District Attorney have more importance than almost any other that we vote for--because they're so powerful in any given community. A lot of Democratic time has been taken up arguing about national issues and forgetting that we have to get folks elected locally that are on our side.

Your "liberal Democrats" often find the best candidates for these positions to be insufficiently ideologically pure. My impression, however, is that the black community has continued to understand the importance of Sheriffs, DAs and elected Chiefs of Police. Because the effect on that community is more visible to its members.

Since most cases will be prosecuted locally, we need to get back to a focus on these positions.

For me, one of the greatest qualities that Barack Obama brought to the table as President was a campaign organization ability that could help win elections. My personal view has been that there's a lot of racist backlash among Republican against Obama among the base.

But I think there's an enormous anti-Obama Republican effort at the upper levels of the GOP because they recognize that his campaign outfit has the ability to just win elections, and they're terrified that Democrats could begin to take back the reins of government at the local level.