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Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 5293
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, April 21, 2007 - 03:14 am: | 
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Pittsburgh's black paper tallies 'attacks on us by us'
By Sandra Tolliver
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Pittsburgh's black newspaper, which reaches households in neighborhoods where gun violence happens often, is keeping a running tally of people killed in the city and county -- to send a harsh message.
The message is as layered as the problem is complex, says New Pittsburgh Courier publisher Rod Doss. But the dominant point is clear in the project's title: "Under Attack by Us."
The weekly newspaper's last count, published April 4, listed 30 homicide victims through March 31 -- 24 of them black people, and 22 of those, men. Most were killed by black men.
"It's looking internally at what's going on in our communities, and trying to get a handle on the fact that we no longer can point fingers elsewhere and put blame elsewhere. These are attacks on us by us," Doss said.
"We need to be just as outraged over these statistics as we would if it were a white policeman who shot a black man Downtown."
A brazen Downtown shooting during morning rush hour Thursday magnifies the problem by reinforcing old stereotypes that black people should be feared, he said. The victim, shot seven times, is black; he survived. Police said the shooter was a black man with dreadlocks.
"It's intimidating to many people to go Downtown and see black people," Doss said. "The harsh reality is, people are afraid of black people because of their appearance, the gangster attire, the language they use, the vulgarisms. All it takes is one or two to brushstroke everybody else. One bad encounter sets a tone."
"Quite honestly, it's a bold step on the Courier's part. It's like the media being criticized for counting the deaths in the war, but that brings it home. It hurts, it hurts deeply, but it brings it home when you see it every day," said Esther Bush, president and CEO of the Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh.
"It is an issue, and it's time that we focus on the black male as a society and understand the things that society has put in place systemically that have impacted the black male," she said.
The newspaper, which has a circulation of about 10,000 and a digital edition on its Web site, wants readers to realize the homicide victims are people, not just statistics kept by the Medical Examiner's Office.
But why they are dying is a more important message, Doss said. The solution, he believes, is to change the culture. Businesses -- and jobs that come with them -- won't locate in predominantly black neighborhoods if drug deals and gun violence are prevalent, he said.
"The culture has to change. The attitude about the community has to change. There's got to be greater pride in a community. We've got to look at how to rebuild a community, and not destroy a community.
"I have no patience for lack of will to change and improve circumstances."
Young people especially are at risk because many are growing up in families without positive male role models, and in a permissive society where people have become devalued, Doss said.
Oddly, some young people he talks to are "very protective of what they see going on with their generation," he said.
"I'm not sure what that is, but it's almost like that built-in tolerance for what goes on. Somewhere along the way, the lines were blurred about what was right and what was wrong, and we haven't gotten past that."
The New Pittsburgh Courier is one of 200 black newspapers in America. Published since 1910, its peak circulation was 450,000 in the 1940s and '50s as a national newspaper, The Pittsburgh Courier.
Sandra Tolliver can be reached at stolliver@tribweb.com or (412) 320-7840.
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_503864.html |
Yukio
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 2305
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, April 21, 2007 - 03:46 am: |
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i really can't appreciate this article. one must know when to something is about "race" and when something is not...
this is about a community, that is poor, and where there is crime...in all poor communities, crimes is usually rampant, and it is always committed by people of the same group!
Why? Because people tend to prefer to live among their own, and so the crime they commit is among their own....jews were the same way, the irish, italians, anglos...all dem damn westerns are white one white crime, NO?
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Chrishayden
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 4192
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, April 21, 2007 - 10:30 am: |
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What is happening is what is supposed to happen.
There will always be intercommunal violence it will never stop.
It could be reduced but too many of the factors ramping it up come from vectors or causes outside the community--
What inner city ghetto did Cho (The Virginia Tech killer) come from? These things are acting on all of us.
Historically the inner cities have been the killing grounds. Sadly, all I can tell anybody is that if they are able they should just move.
And Negroes who don't live there should quit wringing their hands over what is going on down there. If they gave a damn they'd never have left.
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Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 5294
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, April 21, 2007 - 06:01 pm: |
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There's too much ignorance among the Black elite. There’s no other culture where they could get away with being this ignorant. The Black masses better wake up.… They're about to be taken out by a bunch of dummies. That's right, who needs the KKK. (What a waste of Affirmative Action funds.)
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