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With the not-guilty verdict in the George Zimmerman trial in the killing of
Trayvon Martin, the ever-present demagogues eager to once more play the race card have come back out
of the woodwork and have once again raised the old time-worn charges of racism, racial profiling,
oppression of blacks, and the rampant murdering of blacks by whites. Lost in all this rhetoric,
innuendo and demagoguery is the inconvenient fact that while the killing of Trayvon is truly
a tragedy, the much greater tragedy lies is the horrendous number of blacks killed on a daily basis
in this country – and the inconvenient truth that most of these killings of blacks are committed by
other blacks – not by white vigilantes or white supremacists.
“Black-on-black crime is a sensitive subject in this increasingly polarized
nation. While covered in academia and occasionally addressed by talking heads on television, some
believe it rarely, if ever, receives the type and depth of attention it deserves. Instead,
critics argue that this national tragedy is usually swept under the rug by powerful interest groups
and individuals more concerned with elevating their own racially-driven agendas than addressing the
real issues at hand. The Trayvon Martin case is only the most recent example of this grim hypocrisy.
“Indeed, statistics support a very different narrative than the one usually
offered by ‘race hustlers,’ . . . who routinely portray an America where members of the Black Community
are selectively targeted and brutalized by white racists.
“A 2007 special report released by the Bureau of Justice Statistics,
reveals that approximately 8,000 — and, in certain years, as many as 9,000 {and more recently, 10,000}
African Americans are
murdered annually in the United States. This chilling figure is accompanied by another equally
sobering fact, that 93% of these murders are in fact perpetrated by other blacks. The analysis,
supported by FBI records, finds that in 2005 alone, for example, African Americans accounted for
49% of all homicide victims in the US — again, almost exclusively at the hands of other African Americans.
- - -
“In response to President Obama’s decision to raise the profile of the Trayvon
Martin case, {the} president of the Urban League of Greater Miami, recently told The Daily
Caller that the ‘the outrage should be about us killing each other, about black-on-black crime.’
- - -
“Recently, The Blaze featured a report on Rep. Corrine Brown, who, after
professing in an interview to care about ‘all the children’ who fall victim to murder, could not
remember the name of a little girl from her district who was murdered and then dumped into a Georgia
landfill. While Brown fumbled to find the words, she ultimately could not recall Somer Thompson’s name.
She did, however, have much to say about racial profiling and how Trayvon Martin was selectively
targeted for his race. For some reason, Brown and others who have followed suit in this case have
failed to address or acknowledge the epidemic of murders occurring within their very own communities.
“But Brown is not alone. Not by any stretch. Which begs the questions: where is
the outrage from prominent members of the African-American community? Where are the words of condemnation
and sorrow from Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, or Rev. Al Sharpton, over the fact that members of their own
communities are summarily executing each other? Critics believe that acknowledging the unfortunate,
irrefutable statistical truth negates the left’s narrative about a Black Community selectively exploited
and targeted by white racists. Some might also argue that fanning the flames of racial discontent,
especially in an election year, serves a useful and powerful campaign purpose.
“Thus far, hundreds of thousands of African Americans have been slaughtered at
the hands of each other since the dawn of the Civil Rights movement. Is this the realization of
Dr. King’s Community of Man?” (Ref. 1)
While the killing of any teenager, white or black, is deplorable, far more
deplorable are the daily killings of young and old members of the black communities in many of
America’s large cities. And, these killings are rarely committed by members of the white community.
These murders are blacks killing blacks. Where is the real outrage? Where is the call to action to
stop these thousands of killings each year? Instead, we have the professional agitators and the real
racists railing against a non-black killing a person of color in what a jury has decided was a matter
of self-defense. With this attitude, the real problem of blacks killing blacks is being swept under the
rug and this will preclude a solution being found to this very real problem. It’s much easier to deny the
truth, scream racism, than
to face the ugly truth and work to once-and-for-all solve the problem. It’s up to the Black Community
and their liberal supporters to ignore the race-baiting of the true hate-mongers, to look at the
facts, and to take action to solve the real problem – not the imaginary problem being foisted upon them.
It should be apparent to any open-minded person that a large segment of the
Black community in the United States is mired in poverty, crime, and drug dependence. The inconvenient
truth is that much of this failure is self-inflicted. Further, the attempts by American society to help,
in general, have been misguided and are proving to be nothing but abject failures. Let’s ignore the
rhetoric and lies being thrown about. Let’s face reality.
“Minorities are involved in more violent crimes than whites, both as offenders
and victims. Young black American males are eight times more likely to commit homicides than young white
males and eleven times more likely to be arrested for robbery. Homicide was the leading cause of death
for black males between fifteen and twenty-four years of age. - - -
“The impact of crime on minority communities is major, both economically and
psychologically. . . . Unemployment rates are generally higher, as are crime rates. These factors
contribute to what has been labeled the ‘subculture of violence’ in poor communities.”
(Ref. 2).
Someone once said: “Keep your eye on the prize!” George Zimmerman and
Trayvon Martin are not the Prize! The prize, in this case, is a way to stop the annual killing
of thousands of Blacks (more than 10,000 in 1995[3].
George Zimmerman may or may not have killed Trayvon Martin in self-defense. An apparently unbiased jury
has decided that he did. But, whether or not he did should no longer be the focus. It is a
distraction from the much larger issue of how to stop 10,000 blacks from being killed each and every year
– most of them by other blacks.[3]. This is the
real prize – and this is the prize that should be far more important to the Black community and their
supporters than the shooting, justified or not, of one black teenager, as tragic as his death may be.
Those who are spreading the venom of racism and demand the punishment
of George Zimmerman - even after his acquittal - are no friends of the Black community. They
distract the Black community and their supporters from attacking and solving the real problem.
While they rant and rave and stir up racial animosity, thousands more of young Blacks are being killed
each year. These professional hate-mongers keep the pot of racial hatred boiling. Their divisive actions
direct attention away from the real issues and waste the energies of the Black community and their
well-intentioned, but blissfully ignorant supporters. Vilifying George Zimmerman does nothing to
prevent the annual slaughter of thousands of other Black youths. We all need to ignore and condemn
those trouble-making vultures who are always in need of a cause – and, in this case, that cause in disunity and
race-based animosity.
The nature of this problem was discussed in 2005, when CBS discussed
a Justice Department report that presented the following facts:
“Nearly half of the nation's murder victims in 2005 were black, and the
number of black men who were slain is on the rise.
“A majority of the black murder victims were relatively young — between 17
and 29 . . .
“The department's Bureau of Justice Statistics report offers a snapshot
of racial disparities among violent crime victims. Black people represented an estimated
13 percent of the U.S. population in 2005, the latest data available, but were the victims of
49 percent of all murders and 15 percent of rapes, assaults and other nonfatal violent crimes
nationwide. [Emphasis mine]
“Most of the black murder victims — 93 percent — were killed by
other black people, the study found. About 85 percent of white victims were slain by other white
people. [Emphasis mine]
- - -
“- - - more than half of black murder victims — 51 percent — were in their
late teens and twenties. - - - “ (Ref. 3)
If the condition of Blacks in America is to improve, how do we, as a nation,
and Blacks, as a community, attack this, the ral problem? Some of the answers to this fundamental
question are addressed in An Inconvenient Truth[4].
But, there is one certainty – the answer to this question is not to be found in the rabble-rousing
instigation of hatred and animosity toward the alleged (but acquitted) killer of Trayvon Martin! It
is not to be found in deflecting focus away from the real problems facing America’s Black community
and by misdirecting attention to the false and irrelevant charge of racist America being a contributing
factor to the killing of Trayvon Martin!
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References:
- ‘Race Wars’ Part 1: The Shocking Data on Black-on-Black Crime, Tiffany Gabbay,
The Blaze, 9 April 2012.
- Race and Ethnicity - Violence In Minority Communities,
http://law.jrank.org/pages/12134/Race-Ethnicity-Violence-in-minority-communities.htmlhttp://law.jrank.org/pages/12134/Race-Ethnicity-Violence-in-minority-communities.html,
Accessed 17 July 2013.
- Feds: 49% Of Murder Victims Are Black Men, Associated Press, CBS News,
11 February 2009.
- An Inconvenient Truth, David Burton, www.sonofeliyahu.com; Article 136,
3 August 2012.
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