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It’s not that Renisha’s life matters more.
Even as Al Sharpton and John Conyers issued statements and activists descended on Dearborn Heights to protest the lack of an arrest in the Nov. 2 killing of 19-year-old Renisha McBride, social media forums throbbed with outrage at their outrage.
How, some wonder, could congressmen and civil-rights leaders single out McBride’s death in a quiet, leafy suburb even as streets all over the city were running red with the blood of children, students, pregnant women and bystanders both innocent and not so?
Why, some ask angrily, would demonstrators spend hours massing in Dearborn Heights to demand the arrest of a homeowner who fatally shot McBride even as Detroit police still search for the killer of Tiané Brown, the go-getter law student found dead Oct. 30 near the Packard Plant?
Why, others want to know, would anyone march in the suburbs when only a day before 10 people had been wounded — three of them mortally — by gunmen who turned an east-side barbershop into a slaughterhouse? When three people were found executed in a home on the west side early Friday? When a 1-year-old was struggling to stay alive after being shot in the face?
Roots of Anger
To many, the anger seems misplaced, as if the outrage somehow suggests that McBride’s death is different because it occurred in a suburb, that it's being played up only because she apparently was killed by a white person
But that’s just not true.
The difference between McBride’s death and the victims of Detroit’s recent bloody spate isn’t in where their bodies fell or what their assailants looked like. The protests aren’t because black life suddenly somehow becomes more valuable when ended by a white hand in the suburbs, if that's the case here.
Rather, they stem from anger over a system that suggests the exact opposite: That black life too often is viewed as less meaningful when a white person takes it.
In Detroit, no hastily retained defense attorneys make excuses for the scumbags who shot up Al’s Barber Shop. Neighbors won't come out of their homes to praise the character of whatever piece of crap murdered Tiané Brown. And nobody will cry about a “rush to judgment” whenever cops get their hands on the filth who sprayed a house party and shot a 1-year-old baby in the face.
Not Mutually Exclusive
When black people shoot black people, the wheels of justice kick in to overdrive: People are arrested. People are convicted. People are sent to jail. And if they aren’t, it’s not because the cops and prosecutors ain’t trying, trust me.
The frequency of murder in Detroit, especially among black folks, is absolutely heartbreaking — and yes, we always have an obligation to do more.
Yes, we should agitate for more jobs to ease the crushing desperation that poverty breeds. Yes, we should fight for better schools so that our young men and women don’t come of age with dead-end futures. Yes, we need to do better about working with law enforcement to bring to justice those who would kill our children, our expectant mothers, our brightest minds and even the homies off the block shooting dice in back rooms.
Renisha McBride, a 19-year-old Detroiter, died Oct. 2 in Dearborn Heights. (Photo from Fox 2 News)
But people of conscience should not forget about the Renisha McBrides either, should not pretend as though mourning those killed in Detroit and agitating for justice in her death are mutually exclusive.
McBride’s death — and the subsequent inquiry — should indeed be cause for worry. The unnamed man who told police his .12-gauge shotgun fired accidentally hasn’t been arrested. The police continue to investigate, but many believe without proper urgency. And the prosecutor’s office hasn’t made a public statement.
While I’m not really interested in comparing McBride’s death with the killing of Trayvon Martin, fears that a lack of official dispatch will hamper the case -- as happened last year in Sanford, Fla., -- strike me as very legitimate.
Critical Questions
And there is plenty to investigate here:
- Why would the homeowner suspect she was trying to rob him when the poor woman was likely just knocking on his door?
- When did he call 9-1-1? (His lawyer tells Huffington Post he did so that night, without specifying whether it was before the gunfire.)
- Most importantly, since when do we take claims that a gun “accidentally discharged” as possible reason enough to excuse killing an innocent young woman? (Aiyana Stanley-Jones’ family would probably like to know the answer.)
Guns don’t fire themselves. People pull the trigger. So “accidentally” or not, this man shot and killed a young woman standing on his porch.
He’s within his rights to claim innocence — but McBride’s life ought to be valuable enough find the truth in criminal court.
Protesters weren’t trying to tell Dearborn Heights cops or anyone else that Renisha McBride’s life should matter more than those killed in Detroit. But rather that it should matter, period.
