Kansas City Ralph Yarl Shooting Aftermath: What Have We Learned???

We notice that the news cycle is mostly finished with a northland teen shooting that served as yet another tragic moment in local history. 

It's too small . . . However . . . This apt political comic reference was going to be our lead image given the fickle American attention span that's already more concerned with Taylor Swift's love life: 

Thankfully, the outset of the drama has concluded without anybody getting killed.

However, as a postscript, it's important to ask . . .

WHAT HAS THE RALPH YARL SHOOTING TAUGHT KANSAS CITY???

From the activist perspective . . . 

It's important to get out there FIRST and social media provides the perfect forum to stir outrage and garner support. Speed is key and a well-crafted message is likely to garner traction amongst young people when a racially-charged topic is in play. 

Still . . . 

Local TV news powers the discussion and two or three events/protests staged before the evening updates are essential to move the discussion forward. 

For our far right pals . . . 

We notice Twitter trolling might provide giggles and now that Elon Musk is in charge, there's less chance of confronting a ban. On this topic we were disappointed that the best the trolls came up with is hoping that "jiggling on a front door handle" might provide justifiable cause for shooting somebody . . . That's weak sauce but also good enough to fool so many gullible online denizens. 

Politicos profited by jumping on the bandwagon . . . 

Elected leaders in Kansas City doubled down on racially divisive rhetoric with no fear that their words would confront any challenge from constituents or opponents.  The reality is that "the conversation on race" is a loser for just about any who strays from the mainstream narrative.

The elderly and frail dude was branded a racist without much evidence and anyone who refused to concede that point was either casually dismissed OR also branded a racist.

However . . . Here's the perspective that interests us most . . . 

There are both conservative and progressives who have rightfully called out the selective outrage and hope to highlight the historic local homicide rate which continues to threaten Kansas City. 

We feel like this argument has the most merit because it hopes to address and hopefully curb human suffering regardless of political gain or imagined demographic loyalty. 

Even better . . . There's data to back it up. 

And so . . . Whilst emotional and racially charged screeds are starting to fizzle and move on to the next dernier cri . . . TKC thinks that the more important debate involves an ongoing & deadly local crisis that hasn't merited the same kind of national coverage . . . Check-it:

Kansas City’s black-white homicide disparity is typical. In 2022, blacks made up 60% of homicide victims, though they are 26.5% of the population. Whites were 22% of homicide victims, though they make up 60% of the Kansas City population. A black Kansas City resident was six times more likely to be killed in 2022 than a white Kansas City resident. So far this year, blacks make up 75% of homicide victims.

The toll on black children has been particularly acute.

In the first nine months of 2020, 13 black children were killed in shootings in Kansas City. Those child victims included 1-year-old Tyron Patton, killed when someone riddled the car in which he was riding with bullets, and 4-year-old LeGend Taliferro, fatally shot while sleeping in his father’s apartment.

No Black Lives Matter activist showed up to “say their names.”

Their deaths were of no interest to the race advocates because their killers were black. In 2022, 10 children aged 17 and younger were killed in Kansas City, also without racial protest, because those children were not killed by whites and thus did not matter from a racial p.r. perspective.

The maudlin dirge that blacks are victims of lethal white supremacy is ludicrous, in Kansas City and every other American metropolis.

Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com link . . .

Ralph Yarl GoFundMe Surpasses $3.3 Million in Just 3 Days: 'He Has a Long Road Ahead'

A fundraiser set up on behalf of Ralph Yarl has raised more than $3.3 million to go toward his "medical bills and therapy." Ralph's aunt, Faith Spoonmore, set up a GoFundMe over the weekend to benefit the 16-year-old musician, who was shot on April 13 after mistakenly going to the wrong house to pick up his twin brothers from a playdate.

Was Ralph Yarl's shooter just afraid of Black people? That's the elephant in the room | Opinion

Besides the fact that it should never have happened and we feel sorry for Ralph Yarl, and think his shooter should be punished, the bottom line is that the accused man appears to be afraid of Black people. This is the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about.

Media's 'existing while black' coverage of crime merely twists facts and worsens racial divide in US

The shooting of a teenager in Kansas City, Mo., has added "knocking on the door while black" and "existing while black" to the list of activities that allegedly put blacks at daily risk of their lives in white supremacist America. Meanwhile, the actual configuration of interracial violence is assiduously ignored.

Developing . . .