Homicides kill communities as a whole

Many minority communities are so crime-ridden that many folks who live within them feel like prisoners.

Many minority communities throughout the country today are so crime-ridden that many folks who live within them are feeling like prisoners in their own homes.

For example, they are afraid to walk to the corner store at dawn and some even have reservations about sitting on their front porches at dusk.

Indeed, their quality of life is at issue.

This problem transcends into the thinking of those who do not live in these areas in such a way that they are (at the very least) reluctant to go into these neighborhoods.

In fact, they don’t go — period.

Now, naturally, this has a negative impact on the economy, particularly as it relates to urban America. It’s not rocket science. I read the New Haven Register article dated Aug. 5, titled “Prayer march set in answer to violence in Hill section,” and I have something to say: Peace marches, prayer marches and stop-the-violence rallies do nothing to reduce the number of homicides we are witnessing.

Let’s look at some very important, objective data.

Despite all these marches in cities across America — New Haven, Hartford, Bridgeport, New York, Baltimore, Washington, Chicago, Jacksonville, Los Angeles and Ferguson, just to name a few — we (by and large) observe no reduction in the number of homicides in said places. In fact, there is an up-tick. In New Haven, for instance, there have been 11 homicides this year compared to 13 all of last year.

In Hartford, there have been 21 compared to 19 all of last year.

And similarly, in Bridgeport, we are talking 11 right now compared to 12 all of last year. In Baltimore, 215 compared to 211 all of last year.

For the most part, this trend has been constant since the 1970s.

And so, this narrative reminds me of both Soren Kierkegaard and Albert Einstein.

Kierkegaard said, “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”

Einstein said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

All that said, I believe we as blacks need to elevate the conversation in dealing with the crisis of homicides in our communities and the decline of the moral fabric that is front and center, beyond the various marches and rallies.

This conversation should expand to, but not be limited to, discourse on capital punishment, an incentive program that would encourage people to get and stay married, and most importantly, taking full responsibility for what does or does not happen in our communities at some point despite the presence of racism and the like. Make lemonade.

In the final analysis, we need to feel safe and secure in our own communities, we need to remove the fear many have of living in them, and we need to make it make sense for businesses to invest in them.

The fact is, homicides kill communities as a whole.