Brown-on-Black Crime in L.A. - Time to Push Back

There's something that has failed to enter the filibustering of the presidential debates, and all that "we want change" dialog over the last year.

For some reason, urban violence has been OFF the radar. Now, the violence I'm talking about has graduated to hate crimes in some areas, making it that much more significant.

Point is, we've got issues with a Los Angeles-based gang called Florencia 13 that's been terrorizing and killing blacks to claim turf for themselves.
Black Voices posted this AP article about L.A. gang violence at the end of December.

So then, while you've got brothers being victimized in their own neighborhoods by a bunch of thugs who think they are Klan members, where is the political rhetoric on protecting people from this phenomenon that, as it turns out, is not so new?

The Southern Poverty Law Center recently published this excellent report detailing the crime wave, and tracing it back to its source: the Mexican Mafia, a prison-based gang that stretches back more than 50 years. The real kicker is that while the number of Los Angeles gang-killings have plummetted, black folk now have to worry about other people of color blasting on them.

The F13s even had the nerve to post a YouTube video about themselves. Maybe it would tell people how to recognize them, maybe it would provide some understanding of who they are. It's well produced, too, but punks like that get no free promos here.

F the F13. I'm not anti-Mexican, or anti-anything else, but I am most certainly Pro-Black.

Maybe it's a by-product of blacks beginning to change their living standards in Los Angeles and in other places, reverting from the thug life and embracing free market economic progress, while groups of immigrants come in and where impoverished will join a gang or crime organization to enjoy the strength in their numbers. It is almost certainly an issue of demographics where black populations are dwindling in some areas and populations of Latinos increasing.

Again, the phenomenon is not new. This has been going on with gangbangers since the 1700s. But it's time to push back, baby. Just as in the Civil Rights days, black folk have the right to protect themselves from any racial intrusions and that message should hit home with Gov. Arnold Schwazenegger, Mayor Antonio Villagarosa, and L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca. It didn't take much to spark the L.A. riot of 1992.

How do we prevent this? Community leaders from gang interventionists to grassroots organizers from both communities should come together to ward off further violence rather than waiting until another black youth is killed or a group of brothers decides to retaliate against the Mexicans.

So, I think while we get excited over presidential candidates calling themselves "agents of change" we need to hold their feet to the fire on one of the most significant problems in the street violence category: hate crimes, especially those committed by immigrant gangs against our people. For real, we've got enough problems with us killing us. We don't need anyone else to help us.