By Mansfield Frazier
The easy availability of guns, our continuing nonsensical war on drugs, and a scarcity of employment opportunities that disproportionately affects minority males have created a perfect storm, one which is putting Cleveland on track to have a record-breaking body count by year’s end.
The soaring murder rate is causing an unprecedented number of press conferences, blistering editorials, and finger-pointing accusations by local politicos … none of which, by the way, will serve to bring about a cessation to the senseless gun violence plaguing our city, absent the implementation of some commonsense solutions.
Neither will the murder rate yield to hand wringing by faith-based organizations (no matter how well meaning the aggregate members of the clergy happen to be; surprise! Those wrecking the mayhem on our streets are not church goers nor of a particularly religious bent), nor will the violence yield to demonstrations by narcissistic community activists who show up after every killing like clockwork, nationalist flags flying — hungry for their 15 seconds of face time in front of the TV cameras — as weeping mothers and angst-ridden teenagers create memorials of balloons and teddy bears that, after the first rain, turn into bedraggled mud-soaked messes, which no longer honor the dead, but instead reflect the tragic sadness of it all.
The occasional year when there is a downturn in Cleveland’s murder rate (which, when this phenomenon occurs, is really no more than a statistical anomaly) tends to lull us into a false sense that something has magically changed within the city sans us actually doing anything of substance, and hope once again beats within our collective chest that the number of killings will remain low, and, ideally, continue to fall.
But, alas, we’re only dreaming. It’s past time for a reality check, confronting some hard truths.
As much as it pains me to admit it, the National Rifle Association is correct when it posits that “guns don’t kill people” … no, it’s those nasty bullets that are fired from the guns that do the damage, but fighting with the very powerful gun lobby to limit handgun sales — while seemingly a logical move — makes no practical sense. In today’s America, as the courts are currently constituted, it’s virtually impossible to win such battles, and even if the laws were changed tomorrow banning all gun sales, there are already so many weapons in private hands throughout the land the only thing that would be accomplished would be to increase their value on the black market. It would literally take decades — if not a century or more — to see any decrease in deaths via limiting gun sales.
This is not to say efforts to limit and control gun sales shouldn’t continue (how about a high insurance premium on guns as someone recently suggested, not that thugs would pay, even if their guns were registered) — they should; but my concern is that we’ll spin our wheels pursuing the virtually undoable and fail to focus on efforts that have a better chance of working, in both the short and long term.
When are we instead going to start asking, “Why are these young black and brown men blowing each other away with such alacrity?” Could it be that we are afraid of the answers, which would challenge society to come up with real answers to that question?
The level of thug violence we’re currently witnessing in Cleveland (as well as other cities around the country) has been a long, long time in the making — and no matter how much we Americans simply love pop, instantaneous solutions and cures … none will be forthcoming. We’re going to have to ride out this beast, this storm of gun-related violence for the foreseeable future, and the sooner we make up our minds to this ugly fact of urban life the sooner we’ll be able to begin focusing on real, workable, clear-headed, long-term solutions to the problem. Band-aids are not going to stem the bleeding.
Avoiding certain realities is what has gotten us into this mess in the first place, and thinking that the same old “get tough” rhetoric and targeting of certain high crime neighborhoods for an increase in police presence is going to achieve the results we as a society desire is beyond foolish … it’s downright pollyannaish. We’re never going to “police” our way out of the problem, unless we’re willing to pay the price of placing a cop on every corner, and even that probably would not work, crime would simply move to the middle of the block.
Nor will this recently increased call on the part of authorities for citizens to step up and aid police by providing information when a shooting occurs solve the problem, and here’s why: By the time that call goes out, the victim is already dead. Citizens are being asked to help solve murders, which really doesn’t prevent murders.
I suppose law enforcement logic is, “If citizens help us apprehend the killers, the shootings will stop.” With that kind of fuzzy, wistful thinking on the part of the experts, is it any wonder we’re on a record-setting pace for murders this year?
Know this: If every one of the perpetrators in the 51 murders so far this year (it’s a sure bet that by the time you read this the number will be higher) had been taken into custody, prosecuted and sentenced, it does not follow that such a reality would prevent another thug from busting a cap in the ass of whichever dude that beats him on a petty drug deal gone awry.
On the mean streets of America’s inner cities, young people with no other way to get their hands on money so they can purchase the symbols of success Madison Avenue and ghetto culture convinces them they must have — iPhones, Air Jordan’s and 26 inch rims for their whips — are going to rob, steal and sell drugs … and even kill when they feel it’s necessary, and damn the consequences. What scares the hell out of good, law-abiding folk — going to prison, maybe even to death row — does not faze these gun-toting thugs one bit. Not one.
Of course this leads some folks to the specious conclusion of “Gee, there must be something intrinsically wrong with those people.” But no, there’s nothing wrong with them … something was done to them — going back hundreds and hundreds of years, and continuing to this very day, a diabolical system that created an underclass and assures that a large segment of the population remains mired in it. And until we come to grips with the past and rectify our systemic transgressions against people of color we’re going to continue to have a segment of society plagued by crime, violence and degradation.
From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.com.
2 Responses to “MANSFIELD: Some Hard Truths”
Mansfield Frazier
No, Mr. Jordan, it’s how “evil” the system some white supported for hundreds of years was; as for IQ, every study shows that brains are evenly distributed throughout populations, regardless of race. The results of programs like the Harlem Children’s Zone proves that, when given the same start in life in terms of education, blacks do the same as whites.
Interesting to note that Mr. Jordan attends a university … and still clings to outmoded and discredited notions.
Griot Y-VON
What is your IQ Mr. Jordan?