A war zone in the middle of Los Angeles
I'm kicking myself for missing Jill Leovy's discussion at Zocalo the other night. From the reviews at LA Noir (an excellent, excellent Web site) and the New Yorker (you know, that old rag), it sounds like the Homicide Report creator had a lot of thought provoking things to say.
From the New Yorker:
"The homicide rate in L.A. County for black men in their twenties, in 2007—considered a “miracle year” for its low toll—was an estimated hundred seventy-six deaths per hundred thousand. 'That approaches a war-zone death rate,' Leovy said. And yet, she said, 'the state mounts the least vigorous response at the storm center of the homicide problem.'"
I actually dug Mr. Blackmoore's take on it more, because he gives it a much more personal reflection. Here's a sample of what he had to say:
" What about me? Do I care? The simple fact that I'm asking this question points me toward yes, but I don't think it's that simple.
These murders aren't in my neighborhood. They're not among my friends and family. My chances of being killed, even in Los Angeles, which, let's be honest, isn't the den of murder and sin the Mid-West would like you to think, is remarkably low. Our overall murder rates are not that much higher than the rest of the nation and, in fact, are lower than they've been in more than twenty years. If you only look at the murder rates of whites it actually starts to look a lot like Europe.
I don't live in a "bad neighborhood". I have a full time job that allows me to own my own home. I can split hairs on my ethnicity all I want, but the fact remains that I'm as white as the next guy. My life hasn't been touched by murder and violence in years and I make a point of keeping it that way.
What am I really doing to help solve the problem? Obviously, I can't go be Batman and beat the crap out of the bad guys. That wouldn't solve the problem, anyway.
But is talking about it here enough? Is there more I can do? Should do? Want to do?"
[snip]
"So in writing this I think I've come up with my answer. Yeah, I do care. I don't know who reads this but I do it anyway. And it's not just to poke fun at idiot criminals and call for their heads (which, I know, not helping). If it can broaden the discussion even a little bit or help then I've done something positive.
And I can't hope for much else."
Posts like that are why I linked to him when I set this blog up (and, I suppose, to HR, as well). I have no idea who he is, what he does, anything beyond the blog that Jason turned me onto and a few emails back and forth, but I think he does some great work. Usually, it's just funnier takes on the crime news that we've got to play a little bit more straightly, but I really dig the introspection in the piece.
The same goes for Ms. Leovy's work. I read it religiously when I was contributing to It's a Crime and, though she's sharing more of the blog load now, I still greatly enjoy it. She's a talented writer who's paid her dues at The Times, and could probably get a much cushier assignment than tracking down dead people everyday, yet, like Mr. Blackmoore, she leaves her comfortable world to examine a very uncomfortable topic.
I hold no illusions that my work is on their level, but I found myself agreeing with the LA Noir post wholeheartedly. Like Mr. Blackmoore, my life is good, calm and easy. No one I know has ever been murdered, I have no family members in jail, the closest thing we've had to a major crime on my block was a string of purse snatchings. And like him, I find myself drawn to these stories.
One of my editors calls them "cheap crime" pieces. A woman told me the other day that she won't read the newspaper unless it has positive news. And I get that, to some extent. It's more fun to read about weed vending machines than it is about Grape Streeters going to war. And, given the choice, I'd rather write the happy story than the bummer one, too.
But you've got to tell those bad stories and tell them well. Otherwise, those of us in our nice, safe, comfy neighborhoods forget how good we have it and that not everyone's so lucky. And pretty soon, we stop caring altogether. Then, we're really in trouble.
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