On Black Violence
by Mel Reeves
"The term ‘black-on-black
violence' is a misnomer. There is no such thing."
There are too many wrong headed ideas circulating when we
talk about crime in our community. Lately there has been a myriad of newspaper
and magazine articles about so-called "black-on-black violence." Let's be
clear, I am not saying violence does not exist in our community, I am saying
there is no such thing as black-on-black violence, there is just violence.
Nationwide, there have been lots of marches and candlelight
vigils bemoaning violence in Black communities. Often, the pitch seems to be:
Instead of focusing on civil rights, we
must concentrate on the real source of black peoples problems - "black
on black violence."
No one can doubt there is an excess of violence in Black
America. The U.S. is a violent place, in general. We all feel the need to deal
with the problem. But, like all
problems, it can only be solved through patient and intelligent analysis. What
lies at the core of the problem?
Misdiagnoses only tend to exacerbate our ability to do deal
with the scourge of violence in a rational manner. The real source of the
mayhem is a lack of will on the part of the US government and its ruling class
to grant real opportunity to all of its citizens. If you think I exaggerate,
just look at the over $700 billion projected to be spent on defense and the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for next fiscal year. They are not sure where all
the money is coming from but they have willed to spend it.
"The real source of the mayhem is a lack of will on the
part of the US government and its ruling class to grant real opportunity to all
of its citizens."
People who do not mean us well and misguided black folks
constantly point to inner city casualties of crime as the source of their own
victimization. Even the term "black-on-black violence" is a misnomer. There is
no such thing - it is a construct. According to David Wilson of the University
of Illinois, the term surfaced in the early 1980's in conjunction with the
policies of the Reagan era, which severely cut the social welfare net.
Ironically our only "black president," Bill Clinton, further damaged the social
safety net.
During the Reagan years, conservative pundits began to hone
in on black youth and the black family as the prime source of "pathology" in
America. It was also during this period that many black conservative writers
began to make their mark, by repeating the same mantra - while the enemies of
black humanity cheered on the attacks. As cuts dug deep into welfare benefits
and social services, more and more articles and books appeared on the subject
of black "criminality." Amos Wilson's, Understanding Black Adolescent Male
Violence became a handbook for understanding the pathology of the urban
black male. All this served to justify the government's abandonment of the
people most in need of services.
Is there too much crime and killing in our inner cities?
Absolutely! According to a study released by the Violence Policy Center, a
gun-control research group, there are 19 black murder victims per 100,000
people compared to five per 100,000 for the general population. In Pennsylvania
the numbers are 30 per 100,000.
"There is no such thing as black violence any more than
there is such a thing as youth violence or Italian violence," writes Mike Males
in his book The Scapegoat Generation, America's War on Adolescents.
Ultimately violence at its source does not originate from the youth or the
perpetrators, but from the conditions of either poverty or racial
stigmatization.
"The oppressed begin to believe and internalize the lie
that they are indeed inferior."
Violence among black folks has lots of causes. Frantz Fanon,
the renowned Martinique-born psychologist, observed the behavior of colonized
Algerians. In his book The Wretched of the Earth, Fanon noted that the
oppressed began to accept the ideas and perspective of their oppressors. They
begin to believe and internalize the lie that they are indeed inferior.
Innovative and revolutionary minded educator Paulo Friere,
in his Pedagogy of the Oppressed, postulated that not only do the
oppressed begin to assimilate the ideas of their oppressors, but begin to see
the oppressor in one another.
The March issue of Essence magazine featured a story
titled "Number One with a Bullet: Inside America's Murder Capital," in which
law enforcement officials gave the following explanations for the increase in
violence: the worsening national economy, a dismal education system and
cutbacks in social services. Other experts cited the "ready availability of
guns and drugs and the relentless glamorization of violence."
Unfortunately, too many find it easy to simply blame the
victims. Without a doubt there needs to be more personal responsibility taken
and more effort by folks in the inner city to improve their lot. Many are
indeed trying, but they desperately need help. But if we continue to blame them
and if we are not careful our enemies will begin to see this as proof that
"these" people don't need any help. After all, the popular thinking is: they
are not victims of their environment, but victims of their own moral depravity,
their primitiveness, their impulsiveness, their predisposition to violence,
their genetic proclivities.
I can hear these enemies of black progress asking, Why
should we increase services in the inner city? What's the use, they will say,
since this is how "those people" have always been, it's their culture. Why
should we waste resources on them, like providing the resources needed to
actually educate inner city youth, or spend social service monies, or create
jobs and job training?
"History teaches us that you can ignore people you
demonize."
Many of us have already fallen into the racially rigged
trap, that makes middle class blacks less inclined to reach out to our less
fortunate brothers and sisters who catch some of the same hell we do, but have
less resources, both psychological and material, to fight back and resist their
demonization. History teaches us that you can ignore people you demonize, and
sometimes you can kill them or allow them to be killed, because clearly they
deserve their fate.
Some have described the struggle against violence in our
communities as "the civil rights issue of this era." They may be right, but not
in the way they intend it. We should cease the Stop the Violence marches that
amount to anti-black propaganda - the victimizers aren't listening, anyway.
Instead, we should initiate forums and dialogues to talk about what we can do.
We should form more groups like Men United,
in Philadelphia, where real efforts are being made to keep the peace and
connect young men and women to services.
There is something quite sinister behind many of these
"black-on-black crime" marches and rallies. They keep us from doing anything
concrete and prevent us from aiming our fire where it really belongs: at a
government that continues to allow parts of our country to die before our very
eyes.
Our brothers and sisters living in America's inner cities do
indeed need the help of a movement. But not one that sets them up to be
demonized and dehumanized.
Mel Reeves is an activist living in Miami. He
can be contacted at [email protected].