"Black-on-Black Crime/Violence"

The Commercial Appeal released a piece earlier this month on a forum held at LeMoyne-Owens College to discuss the usage and impact of the phrase ‘black on black crime’. This forum was in response to recent shootings in the South Memphis area. David Wilson was the first to use the term “black-on-black violence” in the 1970s in reference to the growth in violent crimes occurring in the United States. Wilson’s critique on crime created more support for mass incarceration efforts and promoting the imprisonment of African Americans. Wilson, himself, does not see Black people as the issue, but he makes the mistake of racializing the issue.

Wilson recognizes the socio economic impact on people of color that can lead into higher concentration of violence in some areas, but still uses race to be the defining terminology.  “Violence is ‘multi-interpretable’, and a term better suited for framing public policy would point to the real roots of violent crime, such as dysfunctional labor markets for low-income young people and inequality, Wilson said.” (McKenzie 2017). Wilson is addressing the disparities in communities of color due to economic constraint and social inequality in this quote from the 1980s. However by associating violent behavior and the Black community, it becomes a reflection of the community and their ideals. These perceptions will reinforce negative stereotypes of African American and their communities. We already see a history of associating African Americans and aggression. Black people are marked as ‘others’ because they are continuously depicted as savages and uncivilized. With a lengthy history of otherness, people of color are forced into homogenous communities of ‘their own’.

Crime of this nature focuses on the relationships formed within communities because African Americans are acting as both perpetrators and victims. This causes crime to feel like an ‘in house’ problem, and concentrating crime into smaller areas and neighborhoods. There is an assumption that Memphis, as a whole is sweeping the crime and violence. It is one of the first impressions and warnings of the Memphis. We can accredit this assumption to the way in which we talk about crime on news and other media sources.

Source:

McKenzie, Kevin. "Official believes it's time to shelve phrase 'black-on-black crime'." Commercial Appeal, The (Memphis, TN), 17 Apr. 2017, 1, Appeal, News, p. B1. NewsBank, infoweb.newsbank.com/resources/doc/nb/news/163D2523EBC57990?p=AWNB. Accessed 28 Apr. 2017.