Earl Ofari Hutchinson

New America Media, Commmentary, Earl Ofari Hutchinson, Posted: Aug 20, 2007

When Newark Mayor Cory Booker learned that the alleged shooters in the execution killing of three black college students were illegal immigrants, he did the responsible thing.

He did not finger point a porous border and lax law enforcement for allegedly letting so many supposed violent prone illegal immigrants slip into the country as the cause of the killings. Booker said, and did, the right thing as a responsible public official, and in this case a black elected official, who did not want to arouse public passions any more than they already were over the murders. He certainly did not want to inflame the fragile tensions between black and Latinos any more than they already are.

But others have not exercised the same restraint. Some black talk show hosts and black writers have burned up Internet sites, and sent of floods of emails (this writer got several) with outlandish and reckless charges that the killings were part of a concerted plot by Latino gangs to target African-Americans for murder and mayhem.

Leading immigration reform foes from Center for Immigration Studies to Bill O’Reilly also claimed that state and federal officials are so fear being branded racist that they have turned a blind eye to waves of illegal immigrants who supposedly have unleashed a violent crime wave across the country.

This issue comes up in my line of work quite often and it raises some important questions regarding both individual and community accountability. I don't feel that rap artists are to blame on this one. In my view they are just pointing out the realities of the situation and artistically reflecting that a real threat to individual life exists if one decides to come forward with information. I say, don't kill the messengers. In my mind a more important question comes up: how can our government practically implement ways to ensure safety and security if one decides to come forward with information?

To Snitch, or Not To Snitch

NAM, Commentary, Earl Ofari Hutchinson , Posted: Aug 09, 2007

Editor’s Note: Black on black murder rates are off the charts, capped by the recent killing of three students in New Jersey, but there are few witnesses willing to testify. The lack of witnesses helps increase the spiral of violence in poor black neighborhoods, notes NAM editor Earl Ofari Hutchinson. Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book, The Latino Challenge to Black America: Towards a Conversation between African-Americans and Hispanics (Middle Passage Press and Hispanic Economics New York), published in English and Spanish, will be out in October.

A few days after veteran black reporter and editor Chauncey Bailey was gunned down on the streets of Oakland, Calif., Oakland City Councilmember Desley Brooks made a heartfelt and impassioned plea for anyone who knew anything about a killing in the city to come forth. She wasn’t talking about the murder of Bailey. A 19-year-old reportedly confessed to that. She was talking about the more than half-dozen killings that occurred in the days immediately after the Bailey killing. The victims were black and the assailants almost certainly were also black.