by John Boch
A whole lot of people have heard about the 9-year-old lured into a back alley and murdered by gang members in Chicago.
It’s everywhere. I even heard what I suspected was a veiled mention of it in small-town church on Sunday myself.
Everyone is talking about it. Well, almost everyone.
Laura Washington at the Sun-Times dares say what a whole lot of America has been thinking for some time now.
OPINION: Laura Washington: Speak up, black leaders, on killings of young blacks
(Chicago Sun-Times) – …Pfleger begging that the “coward” executioner be exposed. McCarthy exhorting gang-banging “mutual combatants” to end the warfare. Emanuel pleading that people in the community have “a moral responsibility” to come forward.
As I watched and listened to it all in TV reports and online narratives, I noticed: The loudest voices calling for an end to the slaughter came from whites.
White voices asking that we save African-American children.
Pfleger, McCarthy and Emanuel are passionate about ending the raging street crime that has turned Chicago neighborhoods into war zones. As they should be.
Where are the black voices?
The same day Tyshawn was murdered, 20-year-old Kaylyn Pryor, an aspiring model, was shot to death just blocks away. A 15-year old boy also was shot. Someone in a car had opened fire, police said.
Thousands of other black children and youths are held hostage to warfare on the South and West sides of Chicago. They cannot walk to the bus stop, cannot play outdoors, cannot step out on the porch without fear of murder, even execution.
They cannot live.
Chicago has become known as the nation’s ground zero of black-on-black warfare. The gangbangers are running our streets. Black lives don’t matter to them.
But where is the black leadership in this town? Where are the moral voices? Where is their outrage? Where are their demands that the slaughter cease?
…Chicago is a city full of accomplished, smart African-American “leaders.” Preachers, politicians, business leaders, educators, union and community activists with power and standing. Charismatic figures, marquee names, time-worn podium thumpers.
They know how to command the microphones, dominate the headlines, get up in our faces. Where are they?
How many more little black boys and girls must die before those “leaders” begin to question — and demand.
Emphasis added. She goes off the rails with a suggested script for them to follow, one that’s been tried and failed plenty of times before.
Here’s a script they can follow:
Why aren’t these war zones being flooded with cops?
Why aren’t these neighborhoods self-policing, with residents working with existing police to identify and remove the trouble-making members of America’s criminal class who are preying upon their fellow blacks?
Why not put millions in tax dollars into crime fighting and gun control?
It doesn’t cost a thing to pick up a phone and call police. All the money in the world won’t fix the black-on-black crime that is so pervasive in many of America’s cities if they residents of those areas won’t stand up, speak out and identify violent criminal predators to police.
As for gun control? Dear Ms. Washington: Gun control is race control, sweetheart. If you didn’t learn history, you’re doomed to repeat it. Gun control makes crime worse as the law-abiding can’t protect and defend their families from violent criminal actors who are often young, fit males in their prime – no match for the very young and the very old or most women. Besides, why is it always someone else’s responsibility to come in and clean up these war zones? Why can’t they do it themselves? Take responsibility and act.
When will black Chicago stop accepting its own self destruction?
Exactly. When will “black Chicago” stop covering up for problematic individuals in its midst merely because they are relatives or fathers of children? When will black Chicago stand up and take responsibility for identifying and speaking out against criminals within their neighborhoods? When will they stop allowing thugs and miscreants to harass, intimidate and victimize the many really good, law-abiding people who still live in “black Chicago”?
When will we admit that black lives don’t matter to us?
When are we going to stop waiting for white people to beg us to change?
We’re already “begging”. Many of us are even offering solutions, including lawful firearms ownership for members of these crime-plagued cities such as Chicago. The glamorization of the “thug” lifestyle must end, as so too the eschewing of a good education among so many. “Snitches get stitches” needs to be replaced with “thugs get slugs”.
Heresy!
If we just had more gun control in Chicago – home to some of the strictest gun control – it would be okay.
Definition of stupid: doing the same thing and expecting a different result.
Her reference to gun control is, I think, a pro forma thing that she is expected to say. Her main point is that Pookie is killing G-Dog day in and day out and nobody says a word, but when Officer Friendly (or, as on Halloween, Citizen White) kills Dindoo Nuffin in the middle of Dindoo’s armed robbery or attempt murder, all the “leaders” jump to the late lamented Dindoo’s defense.
It was actually a brave thing for her to write, and for the Sun-Times to print, considering the present political climate.
There is a classic book, There are no children here, that talks about children growing up in the violence of a Chicago housing unit of several thousand people. There are several major cultural dysfunctions (from a middle class perspective), but one I remember is that there was a playground littered with countless glass shards from bottles that had been thrown there. It was so bad, kids couldn’t play there. I think middle class adults would have cleaned it up, but not these adults. They say they love their kids, but won’t take personal responsibility to protect them. The adults are often too preoccupied with their own demons (drugs, crime, promiscuity) to be good parents. Too easy to just have more kids, I guess.