How do we fight it?
I am talking about the fear that comes from quick, unexplained death on the streets of our inner city. The careless disregard the young, angry shooters show for lives around them as they spray homes and crowds with bullets. We know that the long summer has not yet begun, and the body count has already mounted.
I ask that question in the starkest manner I can in the hopes that we cannot escape a direct answer. I want to know because, too often, the remedy for those who commit crimes, who are black and brown, is simply to throw them in jail. We have been so successful at this that it went commercial, and now we have developed an entire private prison system in America.
The answers to those questions are important because the relationship between black and white America will always define how the world sees America. How we fight the fear will tell all of us just how far we have grown in this often-contentious relationship.
It is important that those of you on the other side of the tracks realize that there is much more fear on this side. Our sons are dying at an unprecedented rate, and our nephews, brothers and fathers are filling up the jails, saddled with the yoke of felon and now have practically zero chance for meaningful employment.
The anger and frustration unleashed in areas with few opportunities and even lower expectations is first felt by those who are close. The rest of you may hear the distant shots and see on the late-night news.
I am the witness, the crying widow, the distraught mother or father. I am often the victim; too often, I am also the victimizer.
So let’s make sure we talk before you decide what to do about the chaos that will surround my village because I have a greater stake in the outcome than you. But we all have a stake in how we define the problem because it determines how we define the solution.
Unknown territory
If we define the problem as a law-enforcement problem we will put our resources in police and prisons and lock up or kill more.
If we define it as a natural result of this country’s nasty racial history, then we will put money in economically building up those distressed communities and healing the broken soles that live there.
How we fight the fear is important because it is those moments when we are the most likely to turn on each other. That is how and when we let the memory of our past taint the possibilities of the present and distort our vision of America’s future.
We are treading on unknown social and historical territory. A previously enslaved racial group gains its freedom and fights through the racist system left in its wake to become this fully productive citizens: This is a story that is being written right now.
Now is the toughest part of that story, when that racist past and current bank-lending policies have left African Americans with a small, anemic business community, high employment and even higher crime rates. These are the dark hours before the dawn, as my community must find a way to build a solid foundation for our survival and growth.
How we respond at this moment — during the Obama administration and Europe on the brink of economic chaos — will define who and what America will be for the 21st century.
We fight the fear by giving everyone an opportunity to succeed and a reason to buy into the American dream.
We fight the fear by opening up lines of communication and realizing that making your and my sides of the tracks safe takes an investment of time, money, sweat and tears that we all must make as Americans.
CHARLIE JAMES has been an African-American-community activist for more than 35 years. He is co-founder of the Martin Luther King Jr. County Institute (mlkci.org). To comment on this column, write to QAMagNews@nwlink.com.