Greater Boston Anti-Racism Media Watch

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Janet's comments on 12/2/05 Boston Globe column on youth gun violence

Boston Globe Column Tells Misleading Story on Solutions to Gun Violence among Urban Youth of Color

Although he never mentions the words “race,” or “black,” Brian McGrory writes disparagingly about crime prevention programs for urban youth of color in the opening lines of his column titled “Solution Lies Behind Bars” published in the Boston Globe, December 2, 2005:

“They can start all the midnight basketball leagues they want. They can have outreach programs until they’re blue in the face, create another 50,000 summer jobs in the mailroom of State Street Bank, allow ministers to pitch tents on city streets.”

For McGrory, the solution to the recent increase in urban youth gun violence is simple and one-dimensional:

“But there is nothing that will stop the senseless violence across this city quicker than the simplest solution of all: Put gun-toting punks in jail.”

McGrory makes the either-or argument that the decrease of youth gun violence in Boston in the 1990’s occurred because of police crackdowns rather than outreach programs:

“People like to talk about all the outreach in the 1990’s but most of the success was because authorities put criminals behind bars. This same coordination needs to happen again—immediately.”

* This story misrepresents the strategy developed in the early 1990’s by the BPD that combined tough and targeted law enforcement with innovative community-based programs. It was because this approach was multidimensional and cooperated with the communities it served that it was successful in reducing the youth homicide rate in the 1990’s.

* By suggesting that outreach programs do not work and that the only solution to our current crisis is to “put gun-toting punks in jail,” McGrory supports the stereotype held by many white people in Boston that urban youth of color are irredeemably prone to violence and that public safety in Dorchester, Mattapan, or Roxbury (the only neighborhoods he mentions in his column) can only be achieved through incarcerating youth of color.

* Unstated but underlying Mr. McGrory’s column is the assumption, strongly held by many white people, that the problem of urban youth gun violence is a black problem for which people of color only are accountable. This is, however, a complex, multi-racial problem for all Bostonians, and its solution must also address the growing problem of the lack of diversity in the Boston Police Department’s upper ranks and specialized units, a problem for which our white dominated criminal justice system is accountable. (see Diversity Gap Seen in Police Upper Ranks, (Boston Globe, November 17, 2005).

Read Brian McGrory's column on the Boston Globe website. You must register an account to view all their articles on the web.

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