The public protest and network TV coverage that greeted Michael Vick at the court house over the mistreatment of dogs dwarfed any recent protest that I can recall over human shooting victims.
[Commentary]
Rev. Jessie Jackson has taken up the illegal gun issue and is organizing a National Day of Outrage on August 28. I’m glad to see a national figure with his megaphone on this issue; we need him and many more. He needs our support and he really needs media coverage.
I contend that gun violence in the Black community is robbing some communities of its more successful residents-those who can flee do.
Moreover, the loss of more economically successful residents combined with the higher insurance and security cost of operating in high crime areas has made some communities nonviable as locations for businesses except for fortified liquor stores, pawn shops and the like.
If the KKK perpetrated this gun violence in the Black community, a furious fury and outrage would reverberate from pulpit to barbershop and the collective expressions of outrage would be off the Richter Scale. Frankly, the outrage should be no less when the forces are seemingly from within the community or of a more complex nature; the community is equally traumatized and terrorized by wanton murder no matter the source.
The local media is quick to report the initial murders but does little in terms of identifying the sources of the guns or those who actively work to allow the illegal gun flow to continue. In the national media it’s as if the 100,000 people that have died from gun violence since Sept. 11, 2001 don’t matter; it is not even reported unless it’s more than four deaths in an single incident or it’s a potential police stand-off or hostage situation with live footage for broadcast media.
One get could get the impression that there is very little in the way of citizen outrage or law enforcement concern with our gun deaths because neither group gets very much media attention; even the efforts of the mayors of our largest cities to stem the carnage in their streets is given scant and infrequent coverage.
On the other hand, at times our national media gives us minute by minute reports of nearly every utterance from the Bush Whitehouse on threats from some guy in a cave while the 100,000 people that have died practically on our doorstep, are yesterday’s news – if at all.
Even a casual connecting of the dots on the volume of monthly gun deaths should be a cause of community and national alarm and shame. You’d think the topic would merit at least as much attention as a dog fighting sponsoring NFL quarterback. The public protest and network TV coverage that greeted Michael Vick at the court house over the mistreatment of dogs dwarfed any recent protest that I can recall over human shooting victims.
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