White Noise

From Sarah Hoye:

“Statistics suggest that as a young, black man, you have a greater chance of being shot and killed in Philadelphia than you would have if you were a soldier serving in the conflicts in Afghanistan or Iraq,” Charles said. “That’s absurd to me.”…

So where’s the nation’s outrage?

Daily, inner-city gun violence has become “white noise,” said Chuck Williams, founding director of Center for the Prevention of School-Aged Violence at Drexel University.

“At this point it’s like, ‘Oh, another six people got shot and killed over a week in a poor black community. Business as usual,'” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “So America says, if the urban communities don’t care enough about it, then why should we?”

Williams hopes that will change in the wake of the mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.

“If this (Newtown) is not enough for all of us to come together and say that something needs to be done, I don’t know what is,” he said. “Our kids are dying and they’re leaving us way too soon, and we have the power to do something about that if we so choose.”