| One of the most significant problems involving African Americans, and yet one of the least talked about problems
affecting our community is the Teen Homicide Rates. There is literally an epidemic of violence that is ravaging the
African American community, particularly in our larger cities. This epidemic of Teen Violence has been brewing since the eighties, reaching a peak in the mid-nineties. As a physician, I first began to notice teen homicide while doing my family practice residence in Pontiac, Michigan. This city is 40 miles from Detroit, and as I would read the Detroit Free Press on Monday, I noticed that over the weekend there would be 3 or 4 fatal shootings. Frequently the shooter as well as the victim would be teenagers. I repeatedly asked myself what could be in an environment that would facilitate this type of aggressive behavior. On a trip to Chicago during the mid-nineties, while walking in the Midway airport, I glanced at the newspaper stand and the headlines read, "Teen Homicide Set New Record." I said with this kind of headlines, maybe people would look into this. No, it was just a headline. It would not be until white kids started shooting each other at school did the nation stop and say, "we have a gun problem". In our large inner cities where unemployment is rampant, the drug industry seems to predominate. Guns are tools of the drug trade, and drugs and guns are forever linked. Anyone entering the drug industry must realize that they are at risk. As a physician working in an emergency room in Nashville, Tennessee, I came face to face with teen homicide. One Thursday night an incoming ambulance radioed us they were coming in with a gunshot victim. Upon arrival, it was a black male teenager with a white T-shirt, kaki baggy pants, hair in cornrows, and essentially lifeless. The gunshot wound to the chest had caused extensive internal bleeding. That was difficult to witness. However, the next task was something medical school cannot prepare you for, notifying the next of kin that this youth, just old enough to graduate from high school, full of yet undetermined potential, is now dead. This task fell on my shoulders, and I felt uncomfortable moonlighting for extra money and the challenge of the emergency room work. This was not a role I ever dreamed of. As I walked into the small waiting room, there was his mother and three other people. They looked at me as I was looking very serious, unable to find the words to tell them that the young man had just expired. The mother stands up and then collapses onto me and I held her as she slid to the floor and cried. My eyes watered and we both consoled each other. Our emergency room crew for the next forty-five minutes was stunned. That's when I realized that when one teenager is killed, several other lives are torn apart. The mother, the father and girlfriend or boyfriend, all are completely destroyed. To see this disparity graphically, click here. |
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