Rudy “Did someone say 9/11?” Giuliani is the latest cranky voice on the right railing against the lack of outrage in the black community over black-on-black homicide. Instead, black people reserve all their ire for the vanishingly rare instances of white-cop-on-black-kid crime. They presumably do this because of their penchant for victimhood and their degenerate, wanton disregard for getting their own house in order.
Rudy, Rudy, Rudy.
Can you get it through your thick skull that these events are a “thing” because the violence in question is committed by law enforcement officers expressing our government’s monopoly on the legitimate use of violence and not neighborhood thugs?
Can you get it through your thick skull that protesting and rallying against the actions of police officers works because they are subject to political pressure, whereas dealing with local gang violence requires a different form of response and level of engagement?
Can you stop pretending that local community activists and clergymen–not to mention members of these communities themselves–just sit around all day looking at the “black-on-black” homicide rates in their neighborhoods and say, “Dat’s coo, dat’s coo?”
Can you get it through your thick skull that it’s possible for a given community to be concerned about more than one thing at once, and to express those concerns differently?
If not, then will you STFU about Islamic terrorism and re-focus your outrage on the much more deadly scourge of American-on-American violence?
It’s always easier to complain about bad things that happen to us than to focus on the bad things we do to ourselves. The former cries to the heavens about change others should make. The latter about change we should make ourselves.
I don’t suppose you will get it thru your skull that it is possible to be concerned with more than one social issue at a time, and to express that concern even if it is not politically correct.
Could I have a cite that Giuliani ever said this, or were you making things up?
From which I infer that he clearly does not believe that black communities show sufficient outrage, or show it in the right way, concerning black-on-black homicide rates. Whether Giuliani was accusing blacks of showing no concern or merely insufficient concern is subject to interpretation.
That’s not the issue. Giuliani is saying undue attention is being paid to black-on-black crime versus white cop violence against blacks. He says, “I would like to see the attention paid to that that you are paying to this.” I welcome Giuliani’s concern for black-on-black crime. I don’t welcome his implicit notion that the price of admission for black people to protest perceived unjustified violence by white cops against black people is that they first have to show a requisite amount of concern about black-on-black violence, otherwise they’re hypocrites whose motives have to be called into question (hence, his question, “Why aren’t you protesting [black-on-black homicide]?”).
If you need to hear this fairly obvious point from a conservative point of view for it to register, read what Charles Cooke has to say.
Perhaps the point is that if black on black crime/killings ever did fall then the likelihood is that cop on black killings would also fall. That the latter set of crimes are not completely independent of the former.
The thing is some of these people giving undue attention to cop on black killings are hypocrites. Thats what community and political leaders do, they play politics. Politics attracts more than your fair share of shysters. Some politicians play fairly and in a distinguished manner, some are hypocrites, some are nasty sob’s. None of this is of course limited to one community. Almost the entire political culture(in the US and abroad) contain dubious means & tactics.
I don’t object to acknowledgment and discussion of the facts of black-on-black crime in general and what to do about the problem. Blacks, whites, liberals, conservatives are all equally welcome to discuss the issue, in my book.
What I object to is:
shutting down discussion of one issue (alleged unjustified uses of violence by white cops against blacks) by bringing in a logically separate issue (black-on-black violence), and implying that in order to legitimately gripe about issue #1 you have to show the requisite level of outrage about issue #2; and
the insulting and factually incorrect suggestion that black leaders and black people in general are indifferent to black-on-black crime levels because it doesn’t cohere with their narrative of racial oppression and victimhood.
“Black on black crime” is a meaningless concept. If black criminals victimize black victims, the two parties’ blackness is not a factor of causation.
The treatment of black people by cops, on the other hand, is an issue of public concern because the belief is that cops are treating black people on a certain way just because they are black.
Peronally, I don’t really care either. Unless said hypocrite tries to curtail my freedom, says I morally or legally cannot indulge in activity x(I distinguish this from those suggesting I don’t indulge in activity x), or, increases my taxes whilst not paying his/her own then I don’t overly care. I think hypocrisy is one of the most overused condemnations made against people in public life. Still, they are often politically posturing shysters who should be called out.