BLACK VICTIMS OF BLACK THUGS ESCAPE NOTICE

By JOSEPH H. BROWN

A small number of serious habitual offenders commit most of the
violent crimes in America. It takes only a small group to hold entire
communities hostage to their criminal ways.

Such was the case of South Florida's Boobie Boys gang. Last week 11
gang leaders were convicted of smuggling tons of cocaine into the
United States and killing dozens of people. Miami-Dade police claim
that with gang members in custody, murder rates have fallen by
one-third to one-half on their old turf - Miami's Liberty City, Carol
City, Overtown and Brownsville neighborhoods.

But their influence wasn't limited to the Miami-Dade area. They likely
did some killing elsewhere as they established their turf while
building a drug empire that smuggled nearly 5 tons of cocaine from
Panama and the Bahamas and delivered to 25 Florida cities and 12
states since 1990. The gang's favorite method of attack was the
drive-by shooting, and its members were blamed for 35 murders and
wounding more than 100 people.

How could this go on for so long? Where was the outrage at the carnage
and drug-ruined lives these thugs perpetrated on so many
communities?

The answer, I believe, lies in the fact that this was a black gang
dealing drugs and murdering people in black communities.
Black-on-black violence simply doesn't touch a sensitive chord in our
society - not even with black Americans.

WE ALL KNOW that if all those black murder victims had been shot by
the Ku Klux Klan or the police, there would have been massive
demonstrations in the street. There would have been people calling for
federal investigations and screaming for the immediate imprisonment
and execution of the perpetrators. There might have even been
widespread civil unrest.

So what is all this silence I hear? It speaks volumes about our
attitudes toward black-on-black violence. Many phone calls, letters
and e-mails I've received from blacks over the years asserted that
drugs and guns are so prevalent in the inner city because of a massive
conspiracy to destroy black America.

OK, let's assume there is a conspiracy against blacks. Let's even
assume the government is behind it. We don't control a lot of things,
but we can sure control putting drugs up our noses or sticking a gun
in someone's face. And no one can convince me that those thugs out
there are all being controlled by some omnipotent, omnipresent white
men making them do things they don't want to do.

That's dangerous thinking - a plantation mentality that puts control
of your life in someone else's hands. That's saying we can't end the
epidemics of drugs and violence in our streets unless someone else
says we can. I say it's all nonsense and a convenient excuse for not
accepting responsibility for the conditions in many of our
communities.

SURE, WE'RE SUPPOSED to get upset over incidents like the
truck-dragging death of a black man by white racists in Texas a few
years ago and the shooting of Amadou Diallo, an African immigrant, by
New York City police officers last year.

But if you find it hard to get equally mad when you see or hear news
reports about a black child being blown away in a gang cross-fire or
some black woman murdered for her purse or a black man robbed and shot
as he's using a public telephone, then you have a problem.

It's past time we got active against the criminals in our midst and
rid our communities of these nightriders in blackface.