Minucci’s Not The Problem

So what — he uttered the N-word? Many Blacks, including the youths who were beaten, do also. Minucci did what anyone would have done—protect his, and called the violator everything but a child of God. I am tired of “Stop the Violenceâ€? campaigns, protests, and picket signs. I am tired of marches through neighborhoods aimed at generating strong outrage and emotion with no real results

We need to get real as a people. We need a serious reality check if we think Nicholas Minucci should go to jail for beating Black youths who entered his neighborhood and wanted to rob cars.

So what he uttered the N-word? Many Blacks, including the youths who were beaten, do also. Minucci did what anyone would have done—protect his, and called the violator everything but a child of God. I am tired of “Stop the Violence� campaigns, protests, and picket signs. I am tired of marches through neighborhoods aimed at generating strong outrage and emotion with no real results.

I am tired of people weeping for dead children but not doing anything to protect the ones remaining and living. I am tired of panel discussions by educated, sometimes affluent Black professionals, who talk shop but rarely work there. What will it take to make our young people realize that they can’t continue to hold communities hostage to fear? What will it take for them to stop going to jail, hurting and killing innocents and gang banging to the point where our elderly are afraid to walk their own streets and children in the playground get shot? These are not isolated instances—these happen regularly, and we know it and need to own up to it.

What Minucci did should be checked, but not punished. Anyone with pride in their home and ‘hood would have done the same thing. What do our youths fight over? Territory and respect? What do gangs go ballistic (literally) over? Territory and respect? Why is it that someone else has no right to do the same? Why the uproar?

We cut off our noses to spite our faces. If the youths had gone for some other purpose, this writing would be entirely different. They admittedly went on someone else’s territory to steal. In fact, one of the youths was arrested days later for similar charges, and called the investigators on the original case to help him get off. They were not on their way to choir rehearsal or Cub Scout meetings. They were going to take someone else’s property, which had been worked and paid for. They were going to interrupt someone else’s home and lifestyle.

Black youths are in danger. Male and female. Their morals are out of whack and their sense of responsibility is skewed. They are in jail or on the streets, but few are in school, few have jobs. Don’t blame the system or Minucci. We all have to look in the mirror.

You may not agree with me openly, but deep down, you know I am right. Minucci stepped up and went for his. We would have done the same thing.

Editor’s Note: Many of us at The Black Star News disagree with our columnist Ms. Harris’s  position on this matter.

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