Today's Words of Wisdom from Mr. Crouch....

The following excerpt is from one of my favorite columnists, Stanley Crouch. His latest analysis appears to encapsulate the current political apathy that our presidential hopefuls have toward urban blight and crime. This is a subject that Afronerd attempts to ring home with our radio listeners and readers-the death toll is just too high (and rising) to ignore or to drum up racial excuses in hopes that the dysfunctionalism will dissipate. Perhaps I have it wrong....let's hear your thoughts. Why do you think liberals and conservatives alike (the presidential candidates, specifically) are not highlighting these issues?

Courtesy of the New York Daily News:

Pols are tiptoeing around killing fields


Monday, August 13th 2007, 4:00 AM

We have now developed an urban badlands which is national and troubling because of the incredible numbers of people who are murdered or suffer the physical and psychological effects of violent crime. Our presidential candidates are quick on the draw when asked about the war on terror or homeland security, but the American people have not heard a peep from them about the concrete killing fields of our cities. Perhaps, because so many of the perpetrators and the victims are "people of color," the donkeys don't want to be seen as bleeding hearts while the elephants are afraid of being called racists.

In the 19th century, murderous cowboys, rustlers and bank or train robbers had neither the arms nor the occasions presented to them that could have resulted in the kinds of carnage we now take for granted. The mob wars of the 20th century left numbers of dead that would be pointed to with pride by a mayor today as proof of how much better things have gotten.

Addressing a dilemma tantamount to terrorism, a few months ago Ben Stein wrote in the conservative American Spectator that, "In the five and a half years since Sept. 11, 2001, there have been roughly 40,000 killings by gangs and gang members in this United States of America, mostly in the African-American and Hispanic sections of large cities." In his book, "The Devil and Dave Chappelle," William Jelani Cobb writes: "Between 1976 and 2004, African-Americans, who are 13% of the population, constituted nearly 47% of the homicide cases in the United States."

Besides all of the human costs of these murders, the burden is estimated by the World Health Organization to cost an annual $300 billion. That amounts to about 150 weeks in Iraq, or three years.

For more of the Stanley Crouch article, click on the link below:

Pols are tiptoeing around killing fields