But other than lamentation, outrage and a feeling of utter helplessness, what can I offer as a balm for the kind of unspeakable tragedy that occurred on Tuesday? And how does that serve the traumatized people who are closest to this violence?
There is no more grotesque lie than claiming that blacks don’t care about the violence in their own communities. Each tear-soaked vigil is a study of their grief, pain, and palpable anger.
“I’m pissed off. I’m crazy,” Hill’s cousin, Rev. Donte McCutchen, said at the vigil on Tuesday.
But too often the murder of African Americans by their own hands is viewed less as an American problem to be addressed with determination and compassion than as an affront to the majority community that blacks must resolve. Or a practical tool to change the subject of unjustified and disproportionate police violence against black people.
Perhaps that logic would fly if the same people who rant about “black-on-black crimes” were equally vocal about eliminating institutional racism, the accumulated toll of which has contributed to destructive behavior in our community. But blacks were also historically expected to fix racism.
The answers are difficult and complex, and include poverty, reduced mobility and breakdowns in family, school and social services.