By 
Black on Black Crimes and Murders
By Xavier Jackson
Age 14
Hello, my name is Xavier and I would like to talk about Black on Black crimes. Have you ever thought about how serious Black on Black crimes is? They are so common, that Cleveland homicide rates went up by 55 percent compared to last year. Isn’t that crazy? Do you know what else is crazy? Ninety to ninety-five percent of Black men are killed by other Black men. Insane right? Seeing these statistics has made me come up with the following question. How can we be outraged about the police killing us when we are killing us at such high rates too?
An example of this crime that I found is a 17-year-old girl, just graduated high school, was shot by three girls in Akron right next to her grandmother. And to top it off, she was not the one who was supposed to get shot in the first place. Just imagine, minding your own business, fresh from graduation and you get killed, by your very own kind, right next to your grandmother. For no known reason at all. I’m not saying police brutality should be ignored but how can we be mad at them if we haven’t fixed this ourselves? We are doing almost the same thing they are, one innocent life after another. I believe the same way we stick together to protest and riot police, should be the same way when it comes to a regular day in the life. There should be no need to have to kill each other when we have bigger things to worry about.
I find that we need to get rid of Black on Black crimes first because, even though police brutality is very wrong, we are doing the same things they are – taking innocent lives for no reason and at a faster rate. It feels very hypocritical to me and it needs to be stopped.
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