Yeah, that sub-head was meant to do what it just did. From cringe to outrage to insult.
This concerns a matter that deserves more than another feel-good, racial “conversation.” It warrants brutal honesty and come-to-Jesus accountability.
In this country too many people, disproportionately black, die murderous deaths. Sometimes at the hands of racist white cops. Sometimes at the hands of black cops who are part of a self-perpetuating system that combines street profiling with adrenalin rushes. But more often at the hands of other blacks, especially gangbangers.
And, now, this just in. Authorities say there were 762 homicides in Chicago in 2016. No other American city is even close. The vast majority of these murders occurred on the city’s South and West sides–predominantly black and gang infested.
Looking for a positive sign in the new year–other than tough talk by the mayor and police chief–that this will change? How about the day “Black Lives Matter” decides to make the Windy City the national epicenter of its movement? A renamed “All Lives Matter” movement would no longer countenance a message that hypocritically implies that black lives SELECTIVELY matter. A counterproductive message that still says that if no cop is involved, it’s just another tragic day in the hood.
No need to go all demonstrative and rhetorical.
Instead, it would say to America: Too many African-Americans die murderous deaths. But it’s more than police overkill. It’s a gun-and-gang culture as well as institutional racism. And it’s hardly an afterthought that 2016 was a brutal year for police officers killed–sometimes executed–in the line of duty.
Everybody has to be at the proverbial table. And the agenda has to be accountability, candor and solution–not blame, reproach and scapegoating.
How’s this for a “BLM” New Year’s resolution? Change the name, retool the message, make a statement in Chicago and rally against gun violence and murder wherever and however it rears its unconscionable presence. It MATTERS that much.