Black-on-Black Homicide: Who Cares?

Answer: Black people, who speak out on this issue on a regular basis.

This all flows out of incredibly self-serving columns by folks like Rich Lowry, who are seeking to dissipate the outrage over Trayvon Martin's death by insinuating flatly asserting that people only care because Martin's killer was a White Hispanic. That, as a matter of fact, Black people are marching over intracommunity killings doesn't enter into Lowry's analysis at all. For all appearances, he has no idea that these protests exist. Why not? Because Lowry cares about this issue only when necessary to deflect attention from an awkward conversation he doesn't want to have.

Does Lowry attend these protest marches? Does he speak at them? Does he use his influence and clout to ensure they get attention and aren't relegated to the back pages? Does he listen to the policy prescriptions put forward at these marches and then use his clout within conservative circles to get his allies to take a leadership role in making them a reality? No, no, no, and no.

Lowry tells us that these crimes don't matter "unless they happen to fit the right agenda." But perhaps the real problem as Coates puts it, is "pundits who write more than they read, and talk more than they listen, and prefer an easy creationism to a google search."