Time To Call a Spade a Spade
As you can tell by the headline, this is going to be one of those blog posts. At 1:30 this morning, Indianapolis Metropolitan Police got a call to the 9400 block of East 44th Street. When they got there, they found 19-year old Dwight Moore shot. He died later. During the 4th of July police had to respond to several shootings in the downtown area, once again, young black men, using each other for target practice. If you look at the 52 (est.) murders we’ve had in Indianapolis this year nearly 60 percent are black, although blacks only make up about 28 percent of Marion County’s population. And if you look closely at the assailants, you will find they tend to share the same pigmentation.
Leaving the politics of all this aside, it’s time for some tough love in this town. There is a criminal element in this town that consists primarily of young black men. The recent attacks on the Monon; the perpetrators were young black men. The “Pop It Off Boys” gang; young black men. The most high ridden crime areas of the city, who are the bad guys? Say it it with me, they are usually young black men.
This may be painful, but the truth hurts. What’s really sad about all this is the city is hosting one of the leading historically black fraternities in town this week, Kappa Alpha Psi. There is something wrong when in one part of town we celebrate achievement, academics and perseverance in the face of adversity and at times open rand hostile racism meanwhile, a 19-year old who should have been applying to get into the fraternity has his life snuffed out by gunfire. There is also something even more wrong when people will read this column and get mad at me and call me a “sellout” or an “Uncle Tom” because I was the guy who was brave enough to tell truth.
Indianapolis, you have a problem. Your problem is young, black men who are out of control and com. It’s time to step up and start making examples out of people. Decent citizens black and white should not have to live in fear of urban terrorists. The elderly man who marched for civil rights in the 1950s and 60s should not have to live in fear because some Robin Hoodlum doesn’t know how to honor the social contract. Young people who are trying to do the right thing, shouldn’t have to live in fear because a bunch of cast extras from a Spike Lee film don’t know how to behave. And I shouldn’t have to write blog posts like this because young black men act like social predators and terrorize the very neighborhoods they live in.
It’s time to step up people and call a spade a spade. And for those of you who want to complain about why I’m not talking about Casey Anthony, I want you to know that as soon as she shoots someone on the Monon Trail, I’ll will.
