Last month, 31-year-old Loukucha Joseph was left for dead after she was shot and run over by a car driven by unknown assailants near NE 149th Street and Sixth Avenue. Two weeks later, just a couple of blocks from where Joseph died, unknown suspects in a white car fatally shot an unarmed teenage boy and two other people.
Before we point the finger at white officers, we need to hold ourselves accountable when it comes to black-on-black violence.
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On July 8, 20-year-old Marquise Warren — a former high-school basketball star — was shot and killed outside his house while he was taking out the garbage. More than two weeks since he bled out trying to crawl back to his front door, Miami-Dade Police homicide detectives are no closer to catching his murderer.
Despite this rash of homicides, there have been no marches or demonstrations by Miami's black community demanding the killers be brought to justice.
Even when David Queen, the son of longtime Miami black activist Tangela Sears, was murdered in Tallahassee in May, there was no public protest to proclaim that his black life mattered. The only time African-Americans get riled up over one of us losing our lives to gun violence is when a white cop pulls the trigger.
Before we point the finger at white officers, we need to hold ourselves accountable when it comes to black-on-black violence. The no-snitching culture applies to thugs killing thugs, but not when innocent young blacks with promising futures are the victims.
Often, people in the neighborhood don't rat out the guy who shot up somebody's front porch because they know him. But when their grandmother's house gets sprayed by bullets, they bitch about the police not doing their job. But the cops can't solve murders if witnesses don't come forward.
Though it's nice to see groups like the Dream Defenders shutting down I-95 during Art Basel to protest police shootings, community organizations need to also concentrate on black-on-black crime to gain real credibility. When a young black man is killed by another young black man, activists should go door-to-door seeking information that can help homicide detectives find the criminals.
If African-Americans want our pain and struggles to be taken seriously by outsiders, we need to take responsibility for what we do to one another.
Follow Luke on Twitter: @unclelukereal1.
