Will Black people in Kansas City stop killing each other next year?

Instead of doing one of those year end lists, I'd like to pose this question to anybody who is willing to answer it.

Will Black people in Kansas City stop killing each other next year?

Mind you, this question hasn't been asked by many local media people, local politicians or city officials. The fact that this city's shameful murder rate is mostly Black has been only briefly acknowledged and then explained away.

This year the murder rate has been blamed on a lack of civility, lack of respect, availability of fire arms, rap music and every other kind of vice that is similarly available in other communities where the murder rate isn't nearly as high.

Throughout the year, there have been prayer vigils, candlelight vigils, press conferences and a pointless crime commission that hasn't made one declarative statement as the body count continues to increase.

Jackson County Prosecutor Mike Sanders wants to lock all of the Black people up before they can kill each other but even that isn't really a new idea considering that our prisons are already filled to the brim with Black people. What he has come up with is a brand new shiny, happy PR campaign that proclaims: "The silence is killing us." Yet the tagline refers to encouraging snitching and making sellouts and rats out of people in high crime areas. It's a good plan but honestly, I don't think anybody really expects a few poorly produced ads to do much good.

Ironically, local loudmouth Alonzo Washington came up with the only slogan even close to speaking to the Black Community (I guess) in the vernacular that was appropriate to counter the anti-snitching phenomenon profiled in The Pitch. "Snitch to get rich" was actually pretty clever for being the only effort to honestly deal with local violence from within the Black community.

As the year came to a close PBS poster boy Nick Haines asked if this problem even effects the non-Black people in this city. It's a mean question but if you were to receive an honest answer from most people they would say: No it doesn't really matter how many Black people kill each other as long as they only kill each other.

In fact, the issue is so easily skirted that both Country Club Kay and KCPD Chief Tom Corwin have managed to duck the issue that by all rights should rest on their shoulders. Kay passed the buck on to Alvin Brooks and Corwin stupidly blamed bad schools. For the most part, they got away with these answers.

So the question remains. It's a question (based in generalities/stereotypes but also stats) that only a crackpot, jokey, blog author could get away with asking but I think it's important if only because it's an honest query that nearly everyone in this town seems to overlook because of the frightening implications and insensitive nature.