Chicago Shootings, Racist Talking Points
Notes From The Beat — June 26
It’s been another busy stretch, so today’s edition is just a Question of the Week.
Also, I’ll be taking a short break from the newsletter over the next couple of weeks. I’ll be back with a full roundup on July 24. Thank you to everyone who’s been reading, sharing, and subscribing. I appreciate the support more than you know.
See you then!
Question of the Week
I’m going to get a little controversial with this one.
There was a mass shooting in Chicago last weekend. No one was killed, but at least 12 people were shot after an SUV pulled up to a crowd on the South Side and two people fired from the car. Overall, that weekend, eight people were killed across the city, and dozens were injured. As usual, the news coverage largely stopped there. But we’re in peak gun violence season, so sometimes these incidents draw reactions from prominent people. Trump posted about it on Truth Social.
But then there were several high-profile Black commentators who weighed in. I’m going to hold off on naming them here, but they were trafficking in those same racist talking points used about gun violence in the Black community. “Why are we okay with this?” “Why does no one speak out about this?” “Where is the outrage?”
As someone deeply embedded in this topic, it’s hard not to get frustrated when I see these talking points repeated, but I get especially fed up when I see prominent Black men talk like racist white people. Most of these guys claim to come from these same communities. Yet they’re somehow unaware of the hundreds of Black people in these communities fighting against gun violence day and night, without so much as a thank you or a pat on the back. They’re also way out of their depth. Few of them seem aware that the Trump administration cut billions in funding for violence prevention groups. Chicago was directly impacted by this. Even a simple Google search would have shown them that. But that takes some effort.
So here’s my question:
Why are some prominent Black men so comfortable sharing racist opinions about gun violence in the Black community?