A little gun violence story from my neck of the woods. I'll change everyone's names. My friend Grace is seeing a guy (well call him Bill) who got into an argument at a social club. The argument got heated and the other guy pulled a gun and shot Bill. In a room full of people no one was able to identify the shooter when the police got there. This is the usual don't snitch ethos in the tight knit local black community. Grace told me that he got shot, I said that no one would be able to identify the shooter. Grace rolled her eyes and shook her head in conformation. I asked if the anyone had gone after the shooter yet, Grace said "Not yet". I'm sure they will wait till the weekend to try and get this guy. It's pretty much set in stone that someone has to take revenge for Bill getting shot. The black community around here self polices. I didn't know what was going on at the time, but last Wednesday another friend of mine, well call him Mike was in the bar. Mike was agitated, said his son's friend just got shot, no idea that it was Bill who had just been sitting at my bar Superbowl Sunday. Mike kicked his son out of the house, he knew that his son was going to be one of the guys trying to get revenge for Bill and Mike didn't want to get caught in the crossfire. He begged his son to step away but to no avail. I'm guessing that another 1-5 people get shot at or shot in the neighborhood this next month. Fucked up thing is that all these guys are adults with life's to live, jobs to work, families who love them, they are all adults but they will play this deadly game foolish game where one argument leads to an ugly cycle of violence.
Makes me wonder what the argument was about. It's weird to me that it's not even about the argument. People are likely to die for an ill-defined cause. I assume that social stresses predict for types of conflict resolution. It is probably difficult to get people that feel secure and have little stress to partake in violence. For all that they have in their lives, there must be plenty eating at them.
In view of my old house in that neighborhood was a bridge where a young black mother was shot to death by the police. She made some mistakes in that encounter but she made no mistakes that merited a death sentence. The cops made mistakes and ended up putting themselves in a situation of perceived danger. Every year when the memorial for her death gets put up by the local black community you can be sure that every black parent points it out to their kid. "Here's where they shot Kendra, stay away from the cops, don't talk to the cops, don't call the cops." I know of no comparable place where a normal (not crazy or engaged in criminal activity) white person was gunned down for no good reason. If white kids ask about the memorial they probably are told that something tragic happened there years ago and not a whole lot more. What the argument was about and the fact that it was resolved by with a gun I can't explain or justify in any way but the aftermath of the shooting seems to be powerfully tied up in a society and police force that treats Blacks to an alternate form of justice. I've called the police about problems at the bar that involved a black person. When the cops come in one will come to the bar and the other has posted up, hand on her gun over watching my black patrons. That shit doesn't happen when the call has been about a white person. I'm sure stuff like that is the tip of the iceberg and the inequities that everyone of my black patrons form the neighborhood has experienced at the hands of the police would make my blood boil.