Black Teen Violence and the Silence of the Liberals

Where there are no police, no fathers, or no respect for authority, we can expect bad things to happen. There’s a new video making the online rounds of 100-plus teenagers running across a Memphis, Tenn. plaza randomly attacking shoppers and employees of a Kroger grocery store. The attackers on camera are all black.

“Hold on, they got a white dude!” yells the giggling black female who videotaped the scene. A white teenage male who worked at the Kroger store was severely injured in this vicious attack. A witness said that the teens were playing a game called “Point them out, knock them out.” This is where someone points to an innocent victim and either knocks that person out or starts a fight with him or her. Nothing justifies the lawlessness or the racial dimension that local media try to conceal.

Memphis is Tennessee’s most violent city. Its population is 63 percent black and 27 percent white. Its violent crime rate is 146 percent higher than it is in other cities around the state, and along with its violence, Memphis has a police problem. It is rapidly losing policemen: so far in 2014 the city has lost more than 100 officers. In Memphis, and I suspect in other cities as well, the problem is not police brutality. The issue is lawlessness and disrespect for all forms of authority.

It’s sad when young men lose their lives. There have been many lives lost in black communities. We have idleness and a lack of concern about the violent culture, which together spawn lawlessness.

The black youth problem extends across the nation. The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports have determined that in 2008, black youths, who at the time constituted 16 percent of the youth population in America, accounted for 52 percent of the violent crime arrests, 58 percent of the homicides, and 67 percent of the robberies. White youth surpass blacks only in liquor law violations. The black community in America has a problem that will never be solved by grandstanding politicians and opportunistic civil rights leaders. What is needed is tough love from community insiders who fear God and can see as well as nourish the untapped potential that in all men and women.