Kill Black on Black Crime

Do you remember a visibly shaken Rodney King saying, "Can we all get along?" on the third day of the 1992 Los Angeles riots? Judging from a report released by the Justice Department it is evident that we haven't figured out how to live together yet. The report, entitled Black Victims of Violent Crime, documents a four-year plateau in the rate of violent victimization among Blacks, starting in 2001, after nearly a decade of decline. It offers no reasons for the trend. Some of the key findings in the report:

• Blacks made up only about 13 percent of the U.S. population, however, they were the victims of 49 percent of all homicides
• Between 2001-2005, violent crime rates for Blacks were higher than for whites, Asians and Hispanics.
• One quarter of violence against Blacks was committed by people under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
• Violence against Blacks is overwhelmingly intraracial -- about 80 percent of non-fatal assaults and 93 of murders were Black-on-Black.
• Violence against whites is overwhelmingly intraracial -- Eighty-five percent of white murder victims were slain by other whites.

An AfroSpear blogger, Field Negro is concerned enough about the number of murders in his hometown that he is tracking them on his blog. There is actually a website called Kill Black on Black Crime that strives to prevent violence by strengthening and empowering families, communities, and neighborhoods by encouraging community pride and involvement. The African American Political Pundit thinks it may be time for AfroSpear members to increase the conversation about Black on Black crime.

Villagers, we have work to do. Perhaps we can begin to work towards solutions on this issue by taking Maya Angelou's simple pledge to rescue our young people:

"Young women, young men of color, we add our voices to the voices of your ancestors who speak to you over ancient seas and across impossible mountain tops.

Come up from the gloom of national neglect, you have already been paid for. Come out of the shadow of irrational prejudice, you owe no racial debt to history. The blood of our bodies and the prayers of our souls have brought you a future free from shame and bright beyond the telling of it.

We pledge ourselves and our resources to seek for you clean and well furnished schools, safe and non-threatening streets, employment which makes use of your talents, but does not degrade your dignity.

You are the best we have. You are ALL we have. You are what we have become.

We pledge you our whole hearts from this day forward."

Well Villagers ... what do you think about the Justice Department report or the other issues shown above?