The fear is universal. The grief that follows is nothing short of expected, if not primitive. The subsequent emotion of tragedy and crime is identical in every neighborhood in America.
But the national reaction is culturally myopic and historically discriminative. Even in 2013. Which means that when 19 people, including two children, are shot and injured at a public event in New Orleans, we’ll still be talking about how to prevent mass shootings in Aurora and Newtown.
And while Chicago grapples with another 40 shootings and 20 deaths in the span of a weekend, we’re conditioned to wonder instead about the three lives that were lost in the Boston Marathon.
While my approach to these tragedies is not to categorize them from petty to calamity, we have to wonder why or how we’ve become so insensitive to crimes when they happen in certain parts of our country.
Boston. We’re following every minute. Chicago. Not so much. Manhattan. It’s national news. New Orleans. Just another day in the hood.
This isn’t a secret. This isn’t a novel idea. This article has even been written dozens of times. But when nearly 20 people are sprayed with a barrage of bullets in a matter of minutes and the media instead spends half of their everyday coverage on Jodi Arias’ obvious crime and dancing dogs, something is terribly wrong.
I could write another thousand words on the classism, racism and socioeconomic factors which have always rendered particular wards in New Orleans or blocks in Chicago irrelevant.
But we’ve been oversaturated with the obvious. And it’s clearly not making any difference.
Maybe the reason why a mass shooting in New Orleans is deemed inconsequential also has to do with the fact that those who control the media…or the catered to…can’t imagine that a young, gang-affiliated male would enter their cushioned lives and open fire.
An Islamic terrorist, however, is totally feasible. And even though the odds of being blown away by two pressure-cooker bombs are significantly slimmer than being unintentionally shot by gunfire in front of your home, these are the fears that are thrust down our throats. The fears they want us to have.
Fearing little black boys shooting each other does nothing for our government’s agenda. Not now, anyway.
It must also be noted that in a city like New Orleans, that never recovered from the destruction of Katrina, and that literally has been torn apart at the seams, crime is so prevalent and expected that it’s almost become acceptable.
And when the local media abandons the people that they are supposed to keep informed, how is the nation supposed to follow?
There are a myriad of problems that cause the silence of these stories. And it’s not something that will soon be changed. But we must stop compartmentalizing these crimes, because no grief is heavier than another.
Nineteen people were shot. Nineteen. How many did it have to be before the nation took notice?
I don’t really want to know that answer.
Christina Coleman is the News and Politics Editor at GlobalGrind and a Howard University Alumna. Prior to this she was a science writer. That explains her NASA obsession. She crushes on Anthony Bourdain. Nothing explains that.
