Shooting Interrupts Shopping!!! Panic among white people who want violence to stay in its proper place (i.e. minority communities)!!!
This town fucking disgusts me.
For a longer time than I want to admit I've linked one crime story after the next . . . Murders, rapes, drive by shootings BUT rarely do the reports of violence in the media get much of a response.
Earlier this month a 2 year-old girl was killed in a drive-by shooting and the story didn't stay in the news for more than a half-a-day.
A little more than a week ago, a double homicide didn't raise an eyebrow among media watchers. The same can be said for most (if not all) of the murders on the Eastside.
But, predictably . . . When violence finally (inevitably) reaches out, into a part of town that isn't perceived to be "deserving" of a death toll . . . Then this whole city comes to a halt.
All of the preliminary reports are in and only a few details and (the always unsatisfying) motive are left to be discovered. On Sunday, a gunman killed two people in the Target store parking lot of the Ward Parkway Shopping Center. The perpetrator in the shooting is also implicated in a South KC homicide of a 67 year-old woman along with shooting a KCPD officer in the arm when he was stopped driving the aforementioned woman's car that was reported stolen. The alleged perpetrator was later killed by the police who confronted the man inside the Target store where two more people were injured in the melee.
So . . . All total . . . 4 people might have been killed directly related to this incident with another 2 injured . . . And I don't want to belittle anyone's suffering here but this sounds like a pretty average Summer weekend on the Eastside yet somehow the same body count never rates all of the panicked faces and LIVE, LATE BREAKING COVERAGE that KC's mall shooting garnered.
And the reason is clear, everybody knows, it doesn't need to be whitewashed and it underlies every assumption media watchers have about tuning into this story: What's clear from the overzealous coverage of the so-called "rampage" is that nobody cares when murders happen in low income neighborhoods, among po'folk or even worse among brown po'folk. It just doesn't rank as news and it's rarely this town's top story.
Even funnier . . . In the back of everyone's mind is a vague connection to the Virginia Tech massacre . . . And while this unfortunate shooting may prove that "Kansas Citians Can Be Just As Crazy As Everyone Else" It's certainly not a national tragedy even if the story did make the news on the BBC in between reports on whatever the Royal brat bastards are up to . . . But I digress.
If only for a second this recent KC shooting might bring arguments about gun control to the table. The day's events inspired a local blogger to proclaim: "I think we should limit gun ownership to one narrowly defined hunting rifle per adult and round up and confiscate everything else." And while that's a nice sentiment, I think I'd feel safer knowing that everybody else turned in their guns before me if that plan were to go into action.
Still, I don't think this issue is really about gun control or high minded ideals about who should have weapons given that this country has spent BILLIONS arming so many foreign nations and their children:
Additionally, no one can say violence shocks media watchers anymore given the level of carnage that the average American citizen can ignore coming from Iraq.
Or the violence Americans seemingly endorse when it's to benefit U.S. interests or those of allies who have little regard for the lives of faraway brown children.
Still, the media blitz regarding the Ward Parkway Shootings and the frenzy that it inspired seems to be nothing more than the same topic that I thought was thoroughly covered after 9/11 . . .
But yet again, the question remains the same: Do you have a right to feel safe in a world/city filled with so much suffering?
Your mileage may vary but I've already made note of the many murders in this town that went overlooked because they didn't hit the white community where they live.
And always, always it strikes me as funny that so many Plaza protesters carry signs for peace and/or justice (ugh) when that concept doesn't really exist merely a few blocks to the East no matter what the outcome of the hopeless cause they're fighting for on the other side of the planet.
3 people dead in a mall shooting won't come close to the inevitable death toll this City will rack up when it comes to young, Black males this summer but that issue didn't even merit more than passing mention during the last mayoral election . . . Truly, more people were interested in potholes or TIFs (especially most of the worthless local political bloggers) rather than anything having to do with what is tantamount to a yearly killing spree in Kansas City.
And now I have to stop because I'm being too cynical . . . Certainly there were bright spots in this tragedy . . . For instance, a local blogger managed to buy some pants in the middle of this thing and once and for all prove that men are better than women at everything (including shopping).
Additionally, talking on a cell phone and drinking overpriced coffee makes Beth Gottstein a hero!!!!!! Really, KC's worst public speaker on the "new" City Council proved that she's willing to listen to her constituents take gunfire over the phone . . . Check it:
Kansas City Councilwoman-elect Beth Gottstein also was at the Starbucks with friends. She had stepped out just before the shooting started. She and other customers were able to get away from the building, but a few of Gottstein’s friends were trapped in the coffee shop. She stayed in contact with them by cell phone throughout the ordeal.Really, heroes were everywhere and even Sharon Sanders Brooks, another incoming councilwoman, was trapped in the TJ Maxx but still bravely proved that nothing could stop her from buying nice, new, plus sized clothes!!! Now that's leadership.
“I was more fearful for the people around me,” Gottstein said.
Anyway, I guess I shouldn't be surprised how this town (over)reacts to a few killings that are on a different side of Troost for a change.
Nobody likes the real world ruining a beautiful Sunday afternoon. Maybe putting a tragedy in perspective is too painful. Take a close enough look at how quickly life can come to an end and it's easy to realize that we don't need to look far for signs of our impending doom. The clock is already ticking. It's pointless to look for death on the end of a candlestick, to go searching for something that has already found us.
posted by Tony Permalink
