The outspoken host of ESPN’s “First Take” and “The Stephen A. Smith Show” podcast is fed up with black-on-black crime and the silence that surrounds it. This week Smith said during his eponymous podcast that he “had no choice” but to talk about it. Lamenting the high number of shootings in Chicago over the long Memorial Day Weekend, Smith had a question for the black community: “When are we going to look at ourselves when it comes to black people being killed in the streets of America?”
Smith is right to be angry. Over the long holiday weekend, fifty-three Americans were indeed shot in Chicago alone. According to ABC7 Chicago, “the shooting victims range in age from 2 to 77 years old, representing every part of the city” despite efforts made by politicians and community organizations. After the weekend carnage, feckless Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson issued this statement:
The violence our city experienced this weekend is intolerable. It produced pain and trauma that devastated communities across Chicago, and my heart breaks for everyone affected. That’s why as mayor, I am committed to leveraging every single resource at our disposal to protect every single life in our city. This holiday weekend, thousands of police officers, first responders, city workers, business leaders, organizers, faith leaders, and violence interrupters tirelessly dedicated themselves to keeping Chicago safe. I offer my deep gratitude to all those involved. We have much more work to do, but the work performed by these individuals this weekend is the foundation for how we will ultimately secure safety together.
But as Smith pointed out, this weekend wasn’t the first time these shootings have happened and Chicago isn’t the only city, either. “It’s been happening year after year after year,” said Smith. “Chicago, St. Louis, Baltimore, the list goes on and on.” And as Smith pointed out, clearly it’s time to look to the black community itself to solve this devasting and violent problem.
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Smith says it’s time to ask the black community why it isn’t angry enough to protest and riot over the unending shootings and black-on-black violence. “If one black person was killed by the police,” Smith said, “we’d raise holy hell, and in some cases, there’d be riots in the streets.”
But this isn’t about the police, is it? It’s about blacks killing blacks. So why the silence? When will black Americans recognize black Americans are killing each other on America’s streets without blaming the police, Smith asked:
And d*mn it, I’m not here to sit up…and blame anybody for that because I’m tired of the nonsense that we’ve seen going on in the streets aimed at black Americans. That’s not where I’m going.
What I’m saying is, where’s the due diligence when it comes to putting a spotlight on what we’re doing to each other? Because this sh*t is p***ing me off. Fifty-three lives. Fifty-three! In one weekend!
Where’s the noise at? Where’s the protests? Where’s mainstream media talking about that? Where is it? That’s what I want to know. [Emphasis added]
When will the black community see that it is killing itself on our nation’s streets and take responsibility for it in order to stop it? That’s an excellent question, and as a black man in the media, Smith is extremely brave to ask it. “Let me tell you something,” Smith concluded. “Nothing else matters if we’re dead. Nothing else matters if we’re killing each other.”
Yes, black lives matter. And American lives matter. But we can’t forget that all lives must take responsibility for their lives in order to matter. And in the end, aimless protests and destructive riots don’t bring real change like sunlight and responsibility do.
WATCH the entire “Stephen A. Smith Show” podcast here.
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