Black Teen Murder Rate Increases 39% in Six Years

Why is this political? Let me count the ways.

In 2007 Michigan had a referendum on the ballot which gave an advantage to minorities and which I worked for and supported for 10 months. The inner city schools in Detroit are so bad that in my estimation we needed to give those kids all the extra help we could muster to make up for the adults who couldn't get the job done. In October the Crisis magazine, the NAACP official publication, included a story about teenagers who were involved in driveby shootings and other forms of outright murder.

The gist of the story was that many innocents were being hurt, that the problem was caused by Republicans not supporting gun control, was exacerbated by the gun running along I-95 from the south where guns were readily available to the major east coast metropolitan areas and then compounded by the hunting element in the New England states making a secondary source of easy procurement.

What to do about it? Counsel the young people about the negative effect on future jobs if they had a felony on their records was one remedy. A glaring omission was evidenced by no mention of the fact that it is wrong to take a life. The only place in the article where "wrong" was even mentioned was at the end of a trial resulting in finding the young man who shot a girl who became a paraplegic was when she was asked if she had anything to say was when she said "He done me wrong." At that point I decided that if they didn't even recognize an important part of cause and effect, I just couldn't support more of the same. Some tough love was called for.

Now we see a study indicating a 39% rise in murders of black teenagers between 2001 and 2006. I realize that the economy had taken over the headlines from just before and since the election, but I don't remember any earlier campaign promise which would make us think the Dems consider this a problem which might be rectified by naming a Gun Czar or Cabinet level Black Youth Safety position. (If they want to be politically correct, we can call it Youth Safety so self esteem is not an issue.)

Since Mr. Obama is so staunchly pro-abortion perhaps one could conclude that life in general is of little value to him, but I refuse to believe that. I believe that he has been caught up in the Democrat mantra of freedom of choice (euphemism for abortion) that he has no graceful way of standing up for life without alienating a good share of his base.

Other than prayer I see only one avenue to save these kids. We all need to keep nagging folks to listen to Bill Cosby who is one of the few who seem to get it. Keep your eyes open and write a letter to the editor now and then. Compliments if deserved, shame if not.

See ya