Gun Violence: The Disease That Still Plagues The Black Community

Violence breeds violence. This is an age-old adage. Gun violence, in particular, breeds a never-ending stream of violence and has been the sole reason for the destabilization and breaking apart of numerous families from the Black community.

It is true that the turn of the century has brought with it transformation at the micro-level and got rid of many of the evils that persisted in times past. However, in certain cases, these evils followed into this century. For example, gun violence is still a relevant concern among many American states, and it does not seem to be a receding concern. The Black community has experienced the brunt of the impact and effects, so much that it has banded the Black people together in the USA several times under numerous highlighting this issue.

Gun violence is rampant in the Black community

To throw things into perspective, American residents represent only 4.4% of the world’s population but own 42% of the world’s guns. Of this, Black Americans are 10 times more likely to die from gun violence than white Americans, and Black children and teens are 14 times more likely to perish to gun homicide than their Caucasian counterparts. In addition, a shocking 4,084 Black people have been victims of lynching in 73 years, and 93,262 were shot dead. This has been attributed to multiple factors, mostly those being that Black people are more likely to face conditions that encourage and facilitate gun violence. However, ironically, a white man faced with poverty, unemployment, and single-parent households are more likely to commit homicide and possibly other violent crimes than Black men who encounter a similar set of structural impediments.

Statistics say that 80% of Black respondents are of the opinion that gun violence is a serious worry and 57% believe that Americans don’t care about the gun violence that affects communities of colour. Social experience research experiments have revealed that childhood exposure to urban gun violence is the reason for many of these children experiencing negative outcomes as they grow into adults. This violence, which is commonplace near schools, prevents children from having a complete education, seeing that parents keep their children out of fear, schools not being able to effectively impart lessons to the students, and students exhibiting an apparent decrease in intelligence, part in due to being too preoccupied with fear from witnessing a murder to learn and perform well in classrooms.

Reasons for the spread of gun violence

The underlying fact is that gun violence in the Black Community is very closely tied to poverty, racial segregation and inequality, and the rise in police violence.

Poverty: Poverty is a significant factor that has seen a direct relation to gun violence cases. The main reason for this is desperation. People who have been traumatized by violence but do not sufficiently recover are more than likely to inflict violence upon others. This is a psychological phenomenon that has been observed for many years. This is why cases of gun violence are disproportionate depending on the location.

Racial segregation and inequality: Disregarding human life has been a reason enough for homicide. Although it is not that extreme in this day and age, evidence of its traces does exist, and this is bred by innate inequality among people. Inequality due to colour and racial segregation to group the community together is a dangerous combination, especially conducive to the rampant spread of gun violence.

Police violence: As highlighted by the #BlackLivesMatter movement, we are not completely exempt from police brutality even in the 21st century. Violence begets violence, and this is especially in the case of firearms.

Suppose gun violence needs to be isolated and stopped from affecting our community. In that case, we need to recognize the concern and shield our children with concerted efforts and preplanned awareness schemes. However, the most important detail is that we need to stand together. Join us on our community forum as we stand taller when we are together. Let us bring an end to this scourge in our community.

Author

Chris Dawkins

Chief Operating Officer at E-Log Plus

The Ohio University

San Antonio, Texas