Enough is Enough! I'm a Black woman living in New York City and I'm tired of reading the same sad news: more unnecessary death attributed to gun violence. Let me also say this: I am proud of the NYPD. Some of them are very good friends of mine and every day they risk life and limb, mostly while you and I are safely locked away in the comforts of our homes, to protect us from those who would seek to do us harm.
Over the weekend there were multiple shootings all over the city most of them in notoriously bad neighborhoods-a few occurred at the Labor Day parade. Ironically, another incident occurred at the parade where a Black city councilman was allegedly roughed up by cops for walking in a frozen zone and one of the staffers punched a police captain in the face.
According to Public Advocate Bill DeBlasio, "...police may have looked at Jumaane, who is young...with dreadlocks, and not believed he is a Council member."
Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries commented further that the incident was "further evidence of the siege mentality the NYPD has unleashed against black men in New York City."
Siege mentality! Really? Isn't the city "under siege" when residents don't (or can't) leave their homes for fear of catching a stray bullet from the gun of some young, cowardly fools who have nothing better to do with their lives but destroy others? These cowards are the first to run after their "tough deed" rather than take onus for their crime, like a true "bad man" would do. Yes, these are the same morons who, should they ever get stopped by police, or eventually caught and arrested-blame the system, blame racism, or their most likely target; the NYPD. They blame everyone but themselves.
Jeffries' statement is ironic. Sadly, if it wasn't for those "bad apples," (like the criminals who showed up at the parade with their illegal guns, or perhaps someone who would punch a police captain in the face) who ruin it for law-abiding citizens like myself, or law-makers like Jumaane Williams some of us wouldn't have to worry about being stopped and frisked at all because we wouldn't fit the profile.
Enough is enough. Racism is the disease yes, but there are certainly other symptoms. When do we address those?
Where do these shootings occur? Hardly on the Upper West or Upper East Side! There is a serious crisis in poor, Black and Latino communities with drugs, guns and gangs.
I accept the controversy this issue raises but I'm fine with that because I'm sick of opening the paper to find another gun related death or where the victim and the perpetrator are Black-usually from the same neighborhood. It adds insult to injury when you happen to belong to the race of the alleged perpetrators as if there weren't enough things a young Black woman has to worry about.
Let the NYPD continue to stop and frisk-if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. Do not misunderstand me: I'm not saying there isn’t a racist cop out there who can and will abuse his or her power-but unfortunately that’s another case of those "bad apples." I suffer with the bad apples syndrome as well and it's exhausting to keep trying to prove your one of the "good ones."
So maybe one of those talking heads decrying the Stop and Frisk system can explain to me how a policy in place to prevent crime is to blame for what is actually going on in the streets among young Blacks and Latinos today? How can the NYPD stop crime in high crime areas where the very population they are trying to protect also happens to be the community of the perpetrators? Why do we blame racism for this fact: more "brothers" shoot "brothers" than any other race?
I conclude with this: I have the right to take a walk, sit on my stoop, jump up at a Labor Day parade in New York City without risking my life, but I won’t until there is an end to all of this gun violence.
