All lives, as well as black lives, do matter. However, after all the marches, boisterous demonstrations, and pillaging, is there a clear understanding as to whom black lives actually matter to?
It is apparent black lives do not matter to the thugs and “ganstas” within certain black communities. They are killing each other with no regard to which it is, be it a 9-year-old boy, or an honor student with unfathomable possibilities. These killers march alongside the victims’ families when a life is taken by a white cop, but both victims and killers turn a jaundiced eye as thousands of their own ethnicity are brutally terminated by persons in their communities.
Nationally there have been 323,820 black on black killings in a 35-year period reported by the Bureau of Justice. It’s clear to see that violent communities need better crime control, not more gun control.
America certainly has lost some of the greatest minds that will never be known due to the sorrowful quantities of killings. We certainly have lost people equal to Dr. Ben Carson, Martin Luther King, Bill Gates, Joe Louis, or my personal hero, my mentor, Thomas N. Barnes, Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force, a patient black man who saw something in an 18-year-old white boy that changed my life.
According to the CDC Wonder database the United States has the highest homicide death rate of all other developed countries at 19.6 per 100,000.
However, when the homicides of blacks on blacks are deducted from the equation, the rate drops to 5.2 per 100,000. Counting only white on white homicides further reduces the homicide rate to 2.5 per 100,000.
The Department of Justice figures confirmed these findings of black on black violence with a statistic showing 84.9 percent of all violent crimes are enacted by blacks on blacks. Considering these facts, do black lives really matter to these thugs?
In addition to thugs and guns, there are others that need to be held accountable to the question, do black lives matter? What role do the mothers and transient fathers play regarding responsibility for creating these thugs?
I had been honored to serve on several race relations councils, both in North Carolina KKK country and then again in Newark years after the race riots. Through these associations I was made aware of very disturbing facts causing me to question as to how black lives matter to the supposed patriarchs and matriarchs within pockets of the black community.
Women, under the guise of being labeled as mothers, find no problem having 3 to 11 children knowing full well it is impossible not only to care for them properly but to also raise them to become responsible members of their communities.
Why are black woman having so many children out of wedlock with several men? The appalling answer I was given from members of the council is it is economics.
As these women (mothers) receive government benefits for their births, they then pay the sperm donor a portion of these benefits for each child fathered. Is it possible that some of these “studs” could father up to a hundred children through different woman? Is this an isolated situation or does it predominate throughout the welfare system?
Authorities are aware but what have they done to stem the misuse of welfare money? Is this a great system or what? Do black lives only matter to these breeders and brooders as an economic value?
Lastly, what responsibility do the race baiters have in the salvation of black lives that do matter? One of the strangest phenomenon the Race Relations Council noted was the change in young blacks after the civil rights movement.
Instead of being a force for equality and change, many of these young people demanded reparations. They believed they were owed benefits because of the past suffering of their linage. Where could this idea have originated from?
In March of 1972 during the first Unified National Black Political meeting a young black man made a speech to the group saying, “When will we get paid for the work we have already done?” His name was Jesse Jackson. What work at his young age had he already done?
Yes, there were many before him that suffered, and died – they paid the ultimate price – but to demand reparations from a generation who had not inflicted these sufferings was ludicrous.
Has there been reparation? Has reparation taken the form of billions of dollars in aid and assistance over the last 50 years? Even if not considered reparation, what good have all the payments, schooling, or educational quotas done for the black communities if the preferred method of dealing with life is to pick up a gun? What good have those who long before the 1970s came to aid black itinerates if death is the accepted way of life?
In the Jim Crow South during the early 1900s, black lives and minds mattered to Julius Rosenwald, who was instrumental in building roughly 5,000 schools to help educate black children and their parents. Julius Rosenwald, the co-founder of Sears, donated over $70 million promoting black education and other causes. Some of the better known graduates of these black schools were U.S. Rep John Lewis of Georgia; Maya Angelou, poet; Anita Hill, attorney; and Julian Bonds, civil rights activist.
Today there are still programs where young blacks flourish. In 2012 Tangelo Park Program graduation rate was 100 percent. All children are eligible for scholarships to college or technical schools thanks to Harris Rosen who over the past 21 years has donated over $11 million to fund black students’ educations.
As expected, crime rates have dropped drastically and a great sense of neighborhood pride is shared in the community. Tangelo Park Program can be duplicated throughout the country but it requires the entire black community to get involved in a positive way starting from the day a child is born.
It is a shame that one of the fastest growing social and economic classes of people in the late 1940s and mid 1950s have deteriorated so badly. Ultimately, when “Neighbor” is taken out of the “Hood” the “Neighborhood” is no longer respected or cared about. It becomes “Dog eat Dog,” only about one’s own needs and hedonistic desires.
Isn’t it time the neighborhoods themselves start stepping up to end this horrific death toll of its own people? Isn’t it time for those like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton to stop their hate mongering and instead start berating the killers of so many of their race that will never meet the potential for themselves or our country.
Joel Kinsman
Peachtree City, Ga.
