Gunfire taking toll on local black teens

My letter concerns the Miami-Dade killings fields that have plagued this community. Mainly, the killing of young black men in their communities.

Does anyone care? Are the grieving mothers the only ones who do?

Who will step up and help: The president, Congress, governors, mayors, states attorneys, police chiefs, the courts, the correctional system, the school system, fathers?

The proverb says: “It takes a village to raise a child.” Where is our village? Everyone is quick to point out the issues and the causal affects that are intertwined with the underserved and socio-economically depressed areas of our cities: poverty, lack of jobs, lack of education and motivation, not to exclude the obvious underground economy of illegal drug and guns.

But no one has the courage and commitment to say: No more. We are going to change this no matter the cost, because it is the right thing to do for our youth and our future.

If someone were to stand up and propose a plan that would turn this around, the naysayers would be quick to find fault with it and a hundred reasons why it would not work, instead of helping to make it work. They would say it’s too costly and we do not have the resources and so on.

But, it’s OK to continue to incarcerate thousands of young black men for killing other young black men at a tremendous cost to the taxpayer and the lives of these individuals and their families.

And, it is fine to spend billions of dollars and American lives, at war and then spend additional billions in aiding to rebuild those same countries, and it’s OK to donate billions of dollars in military equipment to these other countries. But what about United States? Why is everyone so contemptuous about creating programs that will benefit these young men and indirectly help all of us?

This can be done, it’s not that difficult.

This story was originally published December 29, 2015 at 10:11 PM with the headline "Gunfire taking toll on local black teens."