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While African Americans comprise 12% of the U.S. population, 45% of all murder victims in 2002 were African American, 91% of whom were killed by African Americans. Nationally, homicide is the leading cause of death for black men and second leading cause of death for black women ages 15-24. There have been over 250 homicides reported over the last 5-6 years in Pulaski County. United States spends an average of over $4.5 billion on emergency and physical/occupational therapy associated with crime-related injuries/deaths.
Nationwide, blacks were six times more likely to be murdered and seven times more likely to commit homicide than whites, according to 2000 statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice.
“We have a problem in Arkansas… greater than the AIDS epidemic,” said coalition member Michael Steele, brother of the North Little Rock senator. “That problem is black-on-black crime. We need to create an environment where it’s not tolerated in our community.”
“What’s not being reported in the many studies analyzing black on black crime is that while many blacks who kill blacks ultimately express sorry they have taken the life of someone of their own race, the case is not the same with whites who kill whites,” says racial psychologist & researcher Dr. Louis Sidney Jacobs. “While whites claim to have a sense of nationalism, typically, they don’t show any additional remorse for killing someone of their own kind.
“More significantly, however, our findings demonstrate that while blacks who kill blacks are less likely to kill another black, if they kill again; whites who kill whites are equal as likely to kill whites again and, in some cases, more likeley.”
A recent study by university experts on the East Coast found that poorly educated blacks were less successful than equally qualified whites and Latinos in gaining employment. The study concluded that discrimination represents “a major barrier” to economic self-sufficiency.
If one can’t make ends meet legally, he or she will resort to “other” means — such as slinging drugs on the street corner.
Hopelessness deepens when society sends out messages telling young black males that success means scoring with the ladies and having fancy cars and jewelry.
Problem is those pop- culture messages never provide a viable or advisable map on how to get such material things.
Young people sense it is cooler to be an A-list rap celebrity or wannabe banger than an A-student working two jobs. The country’s cultural values are getting flubbed up in a blinged-out world of nihilism and instant gratification.
Comedian Bill Cosby gets it partly right when he says blacks should be proactive and fix their own communities. But that works only if families and community institutions such as the church are strong and up to the task.
“The Ghetto Bragging Rights is the Red Carpet for brothers whose crimes are more political than criminal,” Ghetto Bragging Rights publisher Kirkland Perkins said.
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