You really need to read this, 24k. A dose of reality could do you some good. Read the entire article and learn something.
CNN) -- It's happening again.
Moments after the jury in the "loud music trial" returned with its verdict against Michael Dunn -- guilty on three counts of attempted murder and a mistrial on charges of murdering teenager Jordan Davis -- a rash of commentaries began popping up.
Writers are now expressing the kind of trepidation and angst that would have us believe that black children are not safe because a white man is lurking around every corner, waiting to shoot down a young man minding his own business.
One of the first to weigh in was The Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates, who equated Davis' murder to the selling away of slave children, a daily occurrence in the antebellum South.
Yolanda Young
"Jordan Davis had a mother and a father. It did not save him," Coates wrote. "Trayvon Martin had a mother and a father. They could not save him. My son has a father and mother. We cannot protect him from our country, which is our aegis and our assailant.
We cannot protect our children because racism in America is not merely a belief system but a heritage, and the inability of black parents to protect their children is an ancient tradition."
Such histrionics create an irrational, unproductive fear for those mainly interested in driving up news ratings, tilting elections and increasing donations to special interest groups.
Indeed, John Roman, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute's Justice Policy Center, found (PDF) that of the 53,019 homicides from 2005 through 2010, white-on-black homicides accounted for only 3.9%, while black-on-white homicides were 8.77%. White-on-white and black-on-black homicides accounted for 44.14% and 43.18%, respectively.
Still, this narrative has been in high drive since the public first learned how Trayvon Martin was killed by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman. In the two years since, black parents have added "beware white gunman" to the long list warnings they issue to their black sons.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/20/opinion/young-white-dunn-boogeyman/