Editorial
At Last – Respite for Black Children
Manhattan, NY | December 19, 2012
According to the New York Times, each morning at about 5:30 a.m., Chicago’s mayor, Rahm Emmanuel, receives an email from the Chicago Police Department listing crimes committed the previous night. The man who served as first chief of staff to the nation’s first black president has to grapple with the fact that by the end of 2012, his [and the president’s] home town will be tainted with the gun-related violent deaths of more than 450 souls – mostly young black ones.
But perhaps relief is on its way in 2013 and beyond for Mr. Emmanuel, his city and countless black parents and communities. A few hundred miles south-east of one of the biggest cities in the US – in a small Connecticut community of Newtown – a ‘mentally challenged’ man started his day by shooting his mother in her face while she slept. A few minutes later, at a nearby elementary school he himself is rumored to have attended as a child, the gunman shot the security doors down and inside, he proceeded to open fire. It is said that less than 5 minutes later – some reports even say this lasted 2 minutes – 26 people were dead. Adam Lanza then turned the gun on himself, committing the last grave sin he’d ever commit in this life.
Sigh.
After a week’s sabbatical, we did not expect to return with another editorial on indiscriminate death. There’s much too much to write about: Democratic progress in Ghana, Uganda’s anti gay ‘Christmas Present,’ the newly approved Caribbean Community Aid for Trade Strategy, and also, the relevance of the recent release of Lord Taylor of Warwick, Britain’s first black Tory peer from jail.
But the death of any young person is just unacceptable and moves us deeply. Parents should not have to bury their children – whether death is from disease or, in this case, from a carnage that could have been prevented. Our last editorial memorialized the 17-year-old Jordan Davis who, like Trayvon Martin before him, was senselessly gunned down. Today, we are besides ourselves in grief for the 20 children between the ages of 5 and 7; for 6 of their teachers. Yes, we even mourn the gunman who was only 20 years old himself and for his mother – whose corpse is unrecognizable from the numerous shots pumped into her body.
An Interlude
Many black people are rightly incensed that American is questioning the mental status of this killer. They wonder why the same benefit of doubt courtesy is not granted unto black people. One of our readers goes as far as saying it is ‘unacceptable how the mainstream white media continues to make excuses for [a] despicable animal and any other white mass murderer.’ The reader terms Adam Lanza as ‘the man in the mirror’ white people do not want to see.
We completely understand the principle here; and yet, at the same time, we beg to differ. Adam Lanza was medically diagnosed with a mental disability. He did not wear a scarlet letter on the forehead – but many ‘normal’ people could see, right away that he was a little different from them. Simply, one cannot be termed ‘mental’ from a brain scan or because of public opinion. If a clinical psychologist or psychiatrist does not pronounce you ‘unsound,’ then you will not be reported as unsound by the media or even by the law. You will be violent, you will be a criminal and you will be homicidal. Thus, infuriating as it might be, Mr. Lanza imbalanced throughout his days as a high school student: He was put under the purview of the school psychologist and was reportedly on medication for his condition. Nonetheless, while all this was going on, there was just no way to ‘legally and humanely’ to sequester him away for the sake of society’s safety.
On the other hand, many African Americans do not have access to mental health specialists. That does not mean that African Americans do not have mental challenges. As a matter of fact, there’s no doubt that if a health professional were to visit many inner city communities, they’d be inundated with the plethora of nature vs. nurture issues. Black kids deal with death each day. One does not know how this affects them. They also have to deal with either one or both of their parents being irresponsible, on drugs, in jail, or simply unavailable and under educated. There are a wide range of consequences to this that one may even feel helpless. Perhaps, even, many white professional and the mostly white public policy administrators may not want to open a can of worms as an increase of mental challenges – as a result of going into black communities – may ‘mess’ with their orderly statistics and projections.
The Law of the Jungle
On the other hand, one may ask why young black men are not known to commit the scale and kind of indiscriminate murder their white colleagues are known for. To this, we have a half-hearted theory: Darwin concluded that weaker species can survive if they live in isolation. Either you are the fittest one, or you isolate yourself and your environment from any rival, stronger top predator. This phenomenon happens in the black societies that display the most violent of behavior. In Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and Philadelphia inner cities, there’s a chance that the mentally challenged are sequestered by their parents or they are killed if they cannot prove useful to the drug kingpins or the petty criminals. Basically, unlike in white neighborhoods where a ‘weirdo’ may have a chance, it is much harder in the black zones for a whole lot of reasons. Besides, with the amount of law enforcement in the black neighborhoods, the kids who even rise their heads to act up are immediately either sent to juvenile detention facilities or are beaten in to shape by their brethren. But again, much of this, in the absence of indepth research is conjecture garnered for cursory reading, from media presentations and a slight experience with boarding school in Uganda.
Provocateurs
Thus, we come full circle to justification: This most recent gruesome murder of 20 little mostly white boys and girls and their equally white teachers may eventually save the lives of countless black boys and girls in inner cities like Mayor Emmanuel’s Chicago. The truth is that many, MANY young black children lose their precious little lives each day across the US as a result of either a drive-by shooting, just as their parents are killed in a police raid or raids of the criminal kind; and we cannot even start to tell you of the number of black teenagers who go straight to a cold mortuary slab from street corners where they are synonymous with Joseph Kony’s LRA child soldiers. But we can safely assert that while a blue eyed blond child will melt your heart just as quickly as the extended arm of a brown toddler, dead black children are commonplace – widespread enough to make cynics even out of us their own black parents. In the end, we find that nothing causes as much actionable anguish like the death of a white child, let alone 20 beautiful boys and girls.
