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The
Amazing Racism
As Buffalo endures another summer of record high temperatures
thanks to global warming, folks back in old Buffalo seem to
be snapping. No one really paid too much attention to a gun
battle on Burgard Place earlier this summer because, as is
so often the case, it involved young black men trying to kill
each other and terrorizing an entire community in the process.
Of
course there was also the story of a major melee of youths
that resulted in the death of one young man in Riverside Park.
Cops could not respond in time to prevent it, since forces
in that district are apparently stretched too thin.
Then,
in the space of one week, a black man was beaten by five whites
in the Seneca-Babcock neighborhood, a man went berserk and
opened fire on a youth center (amazingly, he was not white),
and a group of black teens apparently initiated a knife fight
with a group of whites in Lovejoy.
There
aren’t too many common threads that can be drawn with these
events. In general, these types of violent crime seem to escalate
in summer months – especially in poor neighborhoods. After
the second incident with overt racial overtones, Mayor Masiello
and Buffalo Police Chief Rocco Diina were quick to make public
statements deploring these hate crimes.
When
the violence is black on black, it’s not news. When it’s interracial,
it taps into preexisting fears, and it’s a flashpoint.
The
initial coverage cast the story as the result of old-school
racism, but others have contended, especially about the Lovejoy
incident, that the Bloods, who have been asserting their authority
over certain sections of our concrete jungle for some time
now, are encroaching on other areas, and residents are simply
fighting to retain control of their own neighborhoods. Perhaps
this is the case; we really can’t say. Either way, it seems
like things are deteriorating rapidly in the areas of Buffalo
that don’t feature funky little boutiques and cafes.
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Brief [3]: Bass Priorities
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