Getting political mileage

Wish I'd said that!

[Reprinted from Issues & Views July 16, 2001]

About the fact that, since April 11, there have been over 40 shootings in Cincinnati, all instigated by blacks on mostly black victims, Rev. Eugene Rivers declared:

Forty-three shootings is crazy. That's the real issue in Cincinnati, not white cops shooting black kids. The tragedy is it's easier to get black people to go into the streets when it is alleged a white officer shoots a black person than it is to get black people mobilized to stop killing themselves.

Organizations like the NAACP, the Urban League and black churches can no longer take refuge behind the race card when black people are shooting and murdering themselves. Our leadership has to demonstrate that they are leadership by providing direction and solutions.

For some of our leadership, there's a form of political ambulance chasing where you rely on the classic scenario of white cop, black victim, and there's political mileage in that. Tragically, on occasion, that's exploited. Now, if it's a black cop or a black kid who killed another black individual, there's no political mileage, so in a perverse way we almost need a white assailant and a black victim for the political theater.

-- Rev. Eugene Rivers co-chairs the National Ten Point Leadership Foundation in Boston and is a founder of the Boston Ten Point Coalition, a group of churches that work with the police to reduce black-on-black violence among street gangs.

Copyright © 2008 Issues & Views