The Narratives are all over the place on the shooting. Here’s yet another at the NY Times
ON Wednesday night, while my son watched TV, I logged on to Facebook to check my friends’ updates. Immediately I saw a post about a shooting at Emanuel A.M.E., a historic black church in downtown Charleston that is a stone’s throw from my office at the College of Charleston. I made my son turn from his show to the news coverage. We stayed up and discussed what had happened. I prayed that I didn’t know anyone who had died, but I did.
Today Charleston, nicknamed the Holy City, is in mourning. We are still dealing with last month’s shooting of an unarmed black man in a northern suburb, and in the hours since this latest shooting, many of us in the African-American community were left asking: Is there any sanctuary left?
Five years ago, my ex-husband and I jumped at the chance to leave the violence of Chicago’s South Side to forge a life in a safer, culturally rich community. In hopes of a better life, we eagerly joined the numbers of other African-Americans “returning†south in a wave of reverse migration.
And for a while things were good. But then Trayvon Martin was gunned down in Florida, and almost instantly black people seemed to be under attack. Then came the police shootings of Michael Brown, Tamir Rice and Walter Scott — just a few miles away, in North Charleston — revealing the threat of violence we face every day. And this month we saw the footage of teenagers being manhandled by the police in Texas and Ohio.
Interesting. Everything’s Super Bad. Of course, Charleston has a crime index of 25, meaning that it is safer than 25% of US cities. There is just a 1 in 568 chance of being a victim of a violent crime, with just 1.86 violent crimes per 1,000. The national rate is 3.8. Property crime is right around the national median.
Chicago has a crime index of 11. The chance of being a victim of a violent crime is 1 in 111, with a rate of 9.0 per 1,000. Property crime is 8 points over the national average.
For me, last night’s events signal several visceral truths. One, that we African-Americans have no sanctuary. Charleston is a wonderful city, but in some very real ways, my children are no safer here than they were in Chicago.
No, they are very much safer in Charleston. It is less of a liberal city, one which believes in law and order, and, let’s face it, one which has not achieved majority-minority status yet.
This daily threat of terror does not exist within a vacuum. It looms within the growing prison-industrial state, against the backdrop of school-reform debates, our slow movement toward gun reform and the political maneuvers by Republicans to make it increasingly more difficult for poor people and minorities to vote. The reality that our civil rights are under attack is just as heavy as our fear for our lives.
Do you know what is a threat? 50% of the violent crime is perpetrated by a race that represents just under 14% of the population.
That means committing ourselves, as the black community, to fixing the systemic barriers — in education, employment and housing — to black upward mobility that make it virtually impossible for poor African-American children to ever catch up with their white counterparts.
Then teach your kids to take learning seriously, rather than thinking “that’s white”. Teach them respect. Teach them to avoid violence. Teach them about family. Tell them to put away the hardcore rap which extols violence and treating women like whores. Teach them about working hard, rather than being on the government dole. Most violence against Blacks is perpetrated by Blacks, what is termed “Black in origin” crime. Teach them that rioting, looting, and violence in their own neighborhoods is a great way to make sure no one wants to ever invest in the community. Eric Holder stated that we can’t be cowards when it comes to discussing race. Blacks need to take the initiative to clean their own house, rather than just blamestorming. Personally, I refuse to take any blame anymore.
I think that the reason for nuts like this coming out of the closet can be laid at the door step of our great president. He has done more to cause racist tension than any previous leader and when that happens, the people like this killer begin to act out. Hillary is right behind him in guilt as well.
I’ll bet that her explanations for why her husband left her are as entertainingly rooted in her alternate reality as her “no sanctuary” BS. She’s probably passing those standards of rational thought to her afroculture students at Charleston College. They’ll be using those skills to to fight the injustice of having to pay off their student loans without fungible job skills. There are just no sanctuaries any more from paying your debts.
Oh, and, Happy Juneteenth to all those blacks who are ancestors to slaves 150 years ago today.
Our esteemed host wrote:
Part of this is a result of the multiculturalist swill that the left so embrace; all cultures are worthwhile and valid. Well, no, sorry, but cultures shape productivity and economics and individual and family success, and some cultures are far more successful at those things than others. An inner city black culture that tells young males that working hard and doing well in school is “acting white,” and is discouraged, is a culture which makes its people poorer, because high school dropouts earn less, in the aggregate, than people who finish school. The hard truth is that “acting white” is acting in a manner which gives you a better chance for economic success.
An argument could be made that we need to encourage black and white kids to act Jewish or act Asian, to really improve success rates.
The typist at a right-wing white supremacist blog types:
dave: It’s Obama’s fault! So the election of a Black president is enough to make a right-wing white supremacist grab a gun and shoot 9 unarmed innocents?
When will the moderate right-wing white supremacists condemn the terrorism of the extremist right-wing white supremacists?
In criminal defense the defense tactic of last resort when you have nothing else is
BLAME THE VICTIM
Teach do you see the faults you have listed as perhaps being denetically based? Do you think that blacks don’t teach their kids to take learning seriously because of something inherent in their DNA?
Maybe if all those “blacks” had been sent to white elitist prep schools like you, they would act differently do you think that public monies should be spent on that so that they too could have all the
priviledges that you were given ?
The church shooter Roof is now being housed right next to the Charleston cop who shot an unarmed man.
When the radical right race baits with talk of EBT cards being used to buy crab legs and guns are easy to come by then the results are predictable.
Teach you sound like you would agree with a lot of what Dylann Roof wrote in his manifesto before the massacre
Blacks are violent and stupid and lazy. About the only thing you left out was the part about raping white women.
Blamestorming IS bad……. when blacks do it.
You refuse to take blame ? why Teach because you have personally done so much to help those ungrateful blacks ?
How about sending one to that prep you went to ? Do you think that might help at least one?
jeff,
I am afraid that you are once again putting words in my mouth. I am beginning to think you can’t read. Obama has been the most divisive leader ever in racial policy. He is the reason for blacks hatred spiking in recent months. If you don’t see this, then you are not looking at the news.
dave,
You’re a proud white supremacist neoconfederate. Of course you think it’s all the Negro President’s fault!