A rchive Date
[ 23-02-2005 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
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[http://www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Madawo_Innocent/2007/07/26/4369196.html
Our community's scourge
By INNOCENT MADAWO
Thu, July 26, 2007
A 15-year-old gets shot dead at school, an 11-year-old meets the same fate at a cousin's birthday party and another 15-year-old kills himself and two young girls as he flees in a stolen car. What about the 16-year-old girl stabbed to death by another teenager in a parking lot just feet from her Hamilton home?
This is just the tip of the iceberg in these senseless deaths and the common factor is these are black kids, killed by black kids, within their own neighbourhoods.
I know you know all this and I also know you know that affected communities have representative groups and community leaders.
Why are these community groups and their leaders so quiet when children are dropping dead every week as if there is an incurable plague?
Where is the anger that we always display when one of us is discriminated against? Where is the fire I saw on display at Queen' Park on May 15 when Canadian immigration officials barred New Black Panther Party leader, Malik Zulu Shabazz from coming to address a Black Youth Taking Action (BYTA) rally against the Safe Schools Act?
Why is it that it takes us mere minutes to call for boycotts and all sorts of redress when there is even the faintest hint at discrimination against our community and yet when our own youths kill their own young brothers and sisters we invoke an unwritten code of silence?
Are we used to our children killing each other so much that we don't care anymore? Are our communities so controlled by gangsters that the death of innocent children does not move us anymore?
After every killing the police literally have to plead for information on the killer(s). Why should this be the case in a civilized society?
I wonder what leaders of the Coalition of African Canadian Organizations and other black groups thought when they saw Ephraim Brown's picture splashed on the front page of the Toronto Sun.
The point, ladies and gentlemen, is that this is the most urgent community problem. Stop whatever petitions and advocacies you are doing and look at Ephraim's eyes. If they do not move you to do something, maybe his sister, Amanda Taylor's words could move you.
"Enough is enough. These kids won't stop dying, and it really has to stop with my brother," said Taylor.
It could indeed stop with him if the black community stops burying its collective head in the sand like ostriches in the hot African desert.
A lot of our black leaders are quick to invoke such leaders as Martin Luther King, Marcus Garvey, Nelson Mandela and more. These men and women "tamed" hardcore racists, slave masters and mass killers.
The problem we have at hand is of our own children being killed by our own children. How can we expect you, black leaders, to organize a lasting emancipation of our kind when you cannot organize to stamp out this wanton violence in our midst?
I suppose some will argue that the problem is much bigger than the killing of some kids. Let me dispel that notion before it is even raised. Yes, as a people we have numerous problems with The Man, but should we blame The Man for wayward youths who go shooting in neighbourhoods indiscriminately?
Should we blame The Man when these youths go into hiding amongst us and we pretend not to know where they are?
This is a community scourge that needs to be controlled by the community. If any of our leaders are worth their positions, they should step up and lead us out of this vicious circle.
Madawo is a former Zimbabwean journalist living in Toronto.
Have a letter for the editor? E-mail it to torsun.editor@sunmedia.ca
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