We’re all responsible
6th August 2018 · 0 Comments
By Edmund W. Lewis
The Louisiana Weekly Editor
I didn’t sleep at all on Saturday night, July 28. I couldn’t. Not after hearing the wails and sobs from those who lost loved ones in the mass shooting that claimed three lives and left seven others wounded.
If for no other reason, I was grateful that I had not become so desensitized to these kinds of violent incidents that I didn’t even give them a second thought.
I was unmistakably shaken and concerned about the future of New Orleans, knowing that what happened that night in the Central City neighborhood could have happened anywhere in New Orleans.
This is where things stand and the conditions under which we are forced to live.
No one is safe or immune to the kind of chaos and violence that erupted that night.
It would be easy to place the blame on a few people in the city but the reality is that all of us are responsible for what happened on July 28.
Elected officials are responsible for not doing everything in their power to address the needs and interests of the most vulnerable families who live in this city and are forced to grapple every day with chronic poverty, economic injustice, underemployment, hopelessness and despair.
Shame on those elected officials whose only commitment is to doing the bidding of their wealthy campaign contributors. We should never forget that we the people have the power to fire them on election day.
The criminal justice system is responsible for treating Black, Brown and poor people differently than it treats other groups of people who live in this city.
The unconstitutional policing, prosecutorial misconduct, and mass incarceration that the most vulnerable among us are subjected to on a regular basis continue to destabilize, criminalize and marginalize poor and working-class families.
The criminal justice system makes no apologizes for its laws, policies and practices which ensure a steady influx of Black, Brown and poor bodies for the continued growth of the prison industrial complex.
Rural parishes seeking to compete with larger urban and suburban parishes for federal resources see the mass incarceration of these individuals as a solution to their need to increase their population numbers without granting constitutional rights to prison inmates.
Education officials have aided the cause of those seeking to exploit, oppress and destabilize vulnerable families by creating schools and school systems that mostly prepare Black, Brown and poor children for lives of servitude in the prison system or as low-wage workers.
They make no apologies for building schools for Black children on former toxic landfills or for forcing Black, Brown and poor children to be exposed to asbestos and lead poisoning. Nor do they do very much to hide the fact that the goal of white dominance of the public school system is control of lucrative public contracts that allow white businesses to pump donations back into the coffers of elected and appointed officials who make it possible for them to leave Black, Brown and poor children behind.
As you know, violence can take many forms: Economic violence, environmental violence, educational violence, legal violence, etc.
All of it tears away at the fabric of American democracy and justice and contributes to the ongoing disintegration of vulnerable families.
Many of us who live in the community either see this and don’t care or have been conditioned and miseducated in a way that allows us to not see it.
It is our duty as members of the village to pay attention to what is going on and speak out against injustice whenever we see it.
We need to hold ourselves and those we elect to represent our interests accountable whenever we see injustice and inequity.
Saying that the violence needs to stop will not end the violence. Nor will wringing our hands, moving to gated communities or putting more law enforcement officers on the street.
Violence is the language of the oppressed and we need to make certain that every family that calls New Orleans home gets the resources it needs to pull itself out of poverty, hopelessness and despair.
That includes hot meals, quality public education, a safe place to live and access to quality health care.
We can’t keep allowing government officials and agencies, educational officials and others to neglect and exploit vulnerable families and act like we don’t see it.
As the adage goes, whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers that you do unto me.
There is much to do to right the wrongs of this city before we can expect to see a change in the city’s violent culture. We didn’t get here overnight and we won’t find our way out of this madness overnight.
But we can find our way out if we all do our part and understand that none of us is safe until all of us are safe.
We can no longer allow white supremacy, greed, ineptitude, apathy and political chicanery to kill the future of this city and its people.
As I have said before in this column, loving ourselves and one another is perhaps the most revolutionary thing we can do as we travel down the road to liberation and self-determination.
Love will give us the courage, resilience, strength, unity and sense of purpose we will need to keep on keeping on when things get tough and our backs are against the wall.
All power to the people.
This article originally published in the August 6, 2018 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
