Violence, Does It Ever Stop? [Editorial]

After writing that heartbreaking story about 16-year-old Fred Couch losing his life in Chicago, the only question that kept racing through my mind was,

Does it ever stop?

By it, I mean violence.

The society we live in today has become so violent that we have become desensitized to the magnitude of this tumultuous world we live in.

We cannot fathom the hurt or the pain that these victims of violence feel but even worse, we cannot fathom the pain felt by the families they left behind.

As a writer I find myself writing about violence everyday and while it’s disturbing and immediately grabs my attention as a story that needs to be told, within hours the effect is gone and I’m numb to the instance making it an afterthought.

Whether it’s the Derrion Albert beating….

“After he hit the concrete, a gang of them just came over and started stomping him in the head and started beating him,” said an anonymous eyewitness to the tragedy. “It was over for him.”

Or the Spelman student killed by a stray bullet on the campus of Clark Atlanta University….

“Spelman student Jasmine Lynn was hit in the chest by a stray bullet while walking with friends to the neighboring campus of Clark Atlanta University.”

Or the story of the 21-year-old mother that beat and killed her two month old on Christmas Eve…

“21-year-old Charlotte Wyatt of Detroit is facing murder charges after police claim she beat and killed her 2 month old baby on Christmas Eve…”

The question still remains:

Does it ever stop?

When I read the Fred Couch story I knew I had to put it up because I couldn’t believe that another kid from the same high school where Derrion Albert was viciously stomped and beaten had perished.

Another little Black boy in Chicago who lost his life for nothing is gone and there isn’t a thing we can do about it.

What you didn’t read in that Fred Couch story was the boy’s extensive rap sheet.

From what I’m told, Fred had numerous run-ins with the law including aggravated assault of a police officer, unlawful use of a weapon, possession of a stolen vehicle and possible gang affiliation….all this for a boy who was just a sophomore in High School.

To top it all off, the boy knows the pain of violence all too well since his father was shot to death in 1993.

My point in saying that is this,

There is a cycle of violence going on that’s becoming almost too much to bear.

In particular the cycle is affecting our young Black men who I look at today and see are so lost.

Yes, we could go down that tangent and do the typical finger pointing at rap music but truthfully if these men had guidance they would be able to tell the difference between music and reality, instead of blurring the lines like so many of them do.

Don’t be like CNN News correspondent Rick Sanchez and label the people responsible for Derrion’s death as “unsalvageable.”

“I think there are people out there who could very well be unsalvageable, and maybe we as a society need to start treating them as if they are just that, unsalvageable.”

Instead ask this question, “What can I do to help?”  “How can we save these children?”

These children need guidance and fast.

So who’s going to step in and help….and what can we do to rectify this situation?

I can’t stand the thought of writing about this violence anymore…..