Victor McElhaney. Say his identify. We ought to all know his identify. Say his identify: Victor McElhaney…
He was not a statistic. Not simply one other headline quickly to be discarded from reminiscence amid the so-called breaking information on the morning after. Not simply one other younger black male slain.
OPINION
Not a anonymous, faceless murdered brother claimed by the homicidal swell that leaves far too many black moms to wail.
Say his identify: Victor McElhaney…
He was not a son of Chicago however a son of Oakland, California. And but, we must always all know his identify.
Victor, 21, was fatally shot in Los Angeles on March 10, throughout a theft exterior a liquor retailer close to the campus of the University of Southern California, the place he was learning jazz percussion. His mom, Lynette Gibson McElhaney, an Oakland metropolis councilwoman, is a longtime outspoken activist in opposition to violence.
It was throughout a go to just a few years in the past to my good friend Pastor Zachary E. Carey’s True Vine Ministries, the place the McElhaney’s are members, and the place Victor grew up enjoying drums, that I witnessed firsthand their fervor and combat. I stood with the church on the town’s streets the place they’ve marched every Saturday for years to carry consideration to the scourge known as homicide.
And but, right here we’re. No clear and simple options. No finish in sight. Only a path of blood and tears, and mindless slayings that steal even sons of promise by an evil that’s no respecter of individuals and that runs rampant significantly in black communities, and the place Chicago stands as a microcosm of a bigger sorrow.
We raise our eyes to the hills as they run with a river of tears. From whence cometh our assist?
It won’t come from politicians and various poverty pimps whose allegiance is to the powers that be. It won’t come from the church, which has misplaced her prophetic zeal, her voice and function. Not from some coming Messiah, or by prayer alone. Not by sitting on our fingers.
The tally of African Americans murdered throughout the U.S. from 1976 to 2017 alone proves that. That quantity, in line with the FBI: 343,780. More than thrice the capability of Michigan Stadium, the nation’s largest. Eighty-three p.c, or 285,164, black males.
Say his identify: Victor McElhaney…
Victor doesn’t should be from Chicago for me to get that “we” have misplaced this son.
I don’t should stay in Washington, D.C., or New York, in East St. Louis, Gary, or New Orleans to grasp that we’re all on this collectively. That “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
America doesn’t have a homicide drawback. America — black and white America — has a coronary heart drawback. A coronary heart whose arteries are diseased and calcified with disregard, dispassion and chilly callousness with regards to black lives.
Our communities are in disaster. And but, the cavalry ain’t coming.
Therefore, the devoted remnant of neighborhood troopers should combat on, working to create a cultural paradigm shift in our hearts and minds; educating a brand new technology nearly in utero battle decision and the sanctity of human life.
We should dismantle the tradition of misogyny and self-hate — from songs to the dehumanizing phrases we name one another — whereas persevering with to resign the homicide of black lives at black fingers as vehemently as we do black lives taken by white fingers.
And we should humanize our loss. Let us say their names. For if this many canines had been slaughtered, America would declare a state of emergency.
Say his identify: Victor McElhaney. He was flesh and blood, and coronary heart and soul. He was America’s son. Say his identify.
Email: Author@johnwfountain.com
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