As an African American reader in the San Francisco Bay Area, the mainstream media often reminds me of a statement W. E. B. DuBois wrote in 1879:

"It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One feels his two-ness, - an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder."

For example, many African-American youth may feel powerless and angry as they watch mainstream media stereotype them as pathologically violent. Youth from societies throughout the world feel misunderstood, however, this stereotype further burdens African American youth. A retired law enforcement officer (an African-American man) recently told me, that through his career, he had seen a different system of justice for African Americans and white Americans.

According to the retired officer, when an African American was killed, officers didn’t really expect to solve the murder. The murder was not taken seriously. This angered many young African Americans because they saw nothing done when their family and friends were killed. They saw no reason to cooperate with police in solving the murder. Since they believed nothing would happen to the murderer, they believed that if they cooperated with the police, the murderer would just come back and kill them or a member of their family.

Such silence often emboldened the neighborhood criminals and gangs. Law-abiding citizens learned to fear these youth and avoid any confrontation with them. This group makes up a very small minority of African-American youth, but they receive disproportionate amount of power and media attention.

“Well-meaning” media interference from outsiders may help empower the criminal element in the black communities in the Bay Area. Well-meaning activists have fought for “compassion” for criminals (i.e., “prisoners’ rights”) - further marginalizing the victims of black-on-black crime.

For example, truants caused a lot of the crime in the city of Richmond, so the city passed an ordinance to keep students off the streets during school hours. Yet the ACLU had a white spokesman attack the ordinance on television. In order to stem homicides in North Oakland, a community group requested Oakland propose an injunction against gangs in that area. The ACLU attacked the injunction in the media.  In both cases, critics in mainstream media talked about “racial profiling” of African Americans.

Should these outsiders determine whether or not “racial profiling” is worse than being killed or intimidated by gangbangers? One afternoon, an innocent woman in San Francisco suddenly lost two sons and her husband because a gang member mistook them for rival gang members. Her husband and sons were not gang members; they were coming home from a family gathering. Would most of the law-abiding African Americans living in Richmond and North Oakland chose racial profiling over such a fate?

Recently, there has been a lot of media coverage of Bay Area African-American youth’s attacking Chinese senior citizens. I don’t believe that Asians are being targeted. I believe they reflect difference experiences. African-American seniors have heard stories through word-of-mouth about the few unruly gangs and/or individual terrorizing their neighborhoods - but the mainstream media vilifies and demoralizes the whole black community. African-American seniors have learned not to rely on law enforcement. They have learned through years of experience not to be out alone at night. They learned to be wary of volatile, unknown youth. They would not confront them. They do not expect the police to protect them.

Many of the Chinese seniors coming to African-American communities seem not to share that experience. In San Francisco’s Bayview, an elderly Chinese woman was attacked as stood at the bus stop alone in the evening. In Oakland, a Chinese man was attacked after he confronted two volatile young men.

In contrast to public responses to black-on-black crime, the attacks on the Chinese seniors led to political and media outrage. Many labeled the attacks “hate crimes” - thus racializing, not individualizing, the attackers. This outrage confirmed the belief in black communities that black lives aren’t valued - angering many of the African Americans that I have spoken to about this issue.

But those attacks highlight the reality that many African-American youth have not learned to respect their elders; those youth likely will not benefit from the wisdom of their elders. This could become more devastating than the AIDS/HIV crisis in Black America since those youth will become seniors if they live long enough.

The controversy also highlights stereotyping by the mainstream media: When a young black man commits a crime, the mainstream media often treats it as a racial matter. When a white man commits a crime, the media treat it as an individual act.

It’s unfortunate that it takes the killing of another group to humanize the killing of African Americans. African American communities are entitled to full protections as Americans.

From its beginning, “Negroes” helped create America. Crispus Attucks, an African American, was the first casualty of the Revolutionary War. African Americans provided vital labor through slavery. The Civil Rights Movement removed barriers for immigrants of color; it is a model many political groups (mis)use today. 

“Negroes” are all-Americans.