Youth Violence Worse Than White Racism

by: REV. DEFOREST B. SOARIES JR.

The recent execution-style murders of three college students in Newark made it crystal clear that America's urban communities are in a crisis of epic proportions. The growing numbers of murdered young people across the nation sounds an alarm that is falling on deaf ears. Shamefully, black and Latino Americans have become desensitized to the No. 1 threat to our existence — youth violence. We are slumbering perilously close to finding our communities and cities in a state that many believe require martial law. Though the headlines say we are outraged, there is little to no corresponding action that demonstrates our outrage. It is time for innovative, strategic, community-based action if we hope to eradicate this disease of violence that is plaguing us.

I am appalled at how our leaders are ultraquick to respond when a white police officer kills a young man of color, but do not respond with the same energy or persistence when young people of color kill each other. Just four months ago, I was flooded with calls and e-mails when Don Imus delivered his racists remarks about the Rutgers women's basketball team.
Black leaders from New Jersey to California were ready to mobilize and respond to his offensive words. The media coverage was nonstop. Where is that vigor now, in the days after three black students' lives were snuffed out at the hands of their peers? Where were our leaders last month when two young men from Franklin were killed within 36 hours of each other? If white racists had done this to our kids, we would launch a national response. The failure of local and national leaders to act is an indictment of our collective integrity.

The body count in our communities reminds us that Iraq is not the only place where we are at war. I am calling for a meeting of religious, political and community leaders to meet with concerned teens to craft a comprehensive response. We are no longer living in the days of social action in response to racial discrimination. Sit-ins, marches and protests will not work. The young people of the civil-rights movement confronted an entirely different animal than young people today. It seems as if our youth are not nearly as involved in the struggle for their future as we would like them to be. Martin Luther King Jr. once recalled the words of one teenage student in the movement. "Dr. King," he said, "I am ready to die if I must." Today our kids are dying, too, but senselessly and at the hands of each other.

The nihilistic culture that has engulfed our youth embraces violence and shuns individual responsibility. They have spent countless hours having this pathology affirmed by electronic entertainment and criminal icons. In many ways, this challenge is a greater threat to the future of black and Latino people in America than white racism. The civil-rights movement had the dismantling of racist laws and structures as its primary objective, and it was successful. However, there is no civil-rights strategy that can be effective in resolving the current crisis of youth violence. We are starting from scratch and must devise a new strategy that addresses our current predicament. This is an epidemic and a crisis. It's time to put our religious faith and our civic concern into action, step from behind our pulpits and desks and onto the battlefield. If we fail to, the only option left is martial law.

The Rev. DeForest B. Soaries Jr. is the senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Lincoln Gardens in Somerset and former New Jersey secretary of state.