The no snitch culture and the black on black murder rate

Bob Herbert:

...

But the press is still very color conscious in the way it goes about covering murder. Editors may not be asking, “What color is that victim?” But, on some level, they’re still thinking it.

Which is why we’ve heard so little about an awful story out of Chicago. Some three dozen public school students have been murdered since the school year began, most of them shot to death. These children and teenagers have been killed in a wide variety of settings and situations — while riding a city bus, playing in parks, sitting in the back seats of cars, in gang disputes, in robberies, in the crossfire of sidewalk shootouts.

It’s an immense and continuing tragedy. But these were nearly all African-American or Latino kids, so the coverage has been scant.

...

A closer look at how and why the news media covers some of these stories is overdue. I’d like to see more coverage, not less, of murderous violence in the U.S. But I’d like that coverage to be much broader, more meaningful and less sensationalized.

It’s important to give readers and viewers some insight into the real lives of murder victims like Ms. Justin-Jinich, a talented student whose promise was extinguished in an act of madness, because it helps us to understand the absolute horror of murder and why we need to do much more to stop it.

But why overlook the humanity of so many others because of their ethnic background or economic circumstances? Surely the slaughter of dozens of Chicago schoolchildren is worthy of wide national coverage. CNN has covered the story, but there has been precious little coverage elsewhere.

The killings during this school year are an acceleration of the slaughter of previous years. Back in 2007, I got a letter from a woman named Rita Sallie, whose 13-year-old daughter, Schanna Gayden, was shot to death in a Chicago playground by a thug who was aiming at someone else.

...

I have had several posts on the appalling black on black murder rate. Young black men are killing other young black men at a rate higher than soldiers are being killed in our two wars. Their lack of respect for each others lives is a massive failure. Solving those crimes is made even more difficult by the no snitch culture which makes it easier for murderers to get away with their crimes in certain neighborhoods. We need to find a way to get greater respect for the rule of law early in the lives of these people before they become perps and victims. The Chicago killings are the story of the failure of the no snitch culture.