Black-on-Black crime must be made a thing of the past

Wake up, everybody.

There is a widespread malignancy that is enthralling entirely too much of some areas in the Black community -- guns, drugs and gangs. It's fight-back time against Black-on-Black crime. The obliteration of this social ill in the Black community has been in existence for a long time. Not just in Chicago, but nationwide, and it should continue, here and elsewhere.

In Chicago, according to police department statistics, since the first of the year, there have been 450 homicides in the city -- many of them gang-related -- which are down appreciably from the record set a couple of years ago and the 488 reached at this time last year. Yet, the numbers still are breathtakingly shocking and obscene and it is about time that the citizenry take note, wake up and seize the time to employ more action. The Chicago numbers are similar but just as obscene in other urban environs.

We, individually and as a people, must employ more leadership and dignity to counter the negative forces of society, as many have done or sought to do.

Talk to your sons and daughters and others who may be involved in the genocidal activities of drugs, gangbanging and other ventures that malign our dignity, not to mention our lives and our good ways of life.

We must do more than just mourn the senseless deaths and insane shootings of innocents over drugs, gangs and what organization does or does not "run" this or that part of town.

We MUST bear down and bring our communities back to their proper places and self-esteem, self-regard and pride of times past.

It is time for adults of all persuasions, political, community and church leaders -- as the Chicago Defender has advocated in the past and will continue to do so in the future -- to use influence, common sense and profundity to bear down and take back our streets from the thuggish minions who would choke the creativity and progress of our people.

The community is and should remain fed up with drugs, crime and the perpetrators of such activities. It's fight-back time and we applaud the efforts of such leaders as our aldermen and community leaders who have mounted street patrols near schools to deter crime against our youth and give the safe passage to and from school.

Another good example is St. Sabina activist, Father Michael L. Pfleger, who recently unveiled another tactic against guns and crime -- eye-catching billboards at key South Side intersections that also urge Congress and the White House to pass tougher and stiffer gun laws.

But this is not just a St. Sabina issue. It is an issue that affects us all. People must employ peer and personal pressure to cleanse our streets of drugs, guns and the negativity of gangbangers. As another well-known man of the cloth is often fond of saying: "Nobody can save us from us but us."

We must do more than gather at the site of shootings in their aftermath and lay flowers and memorials.

West Side, South Side all around town, it's time to take back the streets! Let us make our neighborhoods safer, more amenable and more attractive to all.

Stop the killing and shooting.

Wake up everybody -- it's time to start a new way.

Article copyright Sengstacke Enterprises, Inc.