Most Kansas City homicide victims are Black men. But that’s far from the whole story | Opinion

Police data suggests: Kansas City has a Black homicide problem. And guns are a major reason why. We can’t be afraid to have this tough, uncomfortable conversation in the Black community. Young Black men are dying at an alarming rate.

But we can’t forget to challenge our assumptions and biases about Black youth. We have to be careful with tropes and stereotypes.

I was reminded of this at an event earlier this month in Kansas City. Some self-reflection followed.

When Rosilyn Temple, founder and program director of KC Mothers in Charge, declared at a recent panel on gun violence that Kansas City has a Black on Black crime problem, fellow panelists and audience members shot down the statement. But was she wrong?

“We have a Black on Black problem in our community,” Temple said at a roundtable discussion on art and gun violence earlier this month at 21c Museum Hotel. She was joined by members of the Kansas City Artists Coalition, a group of creatives using art to address societal issues in and around Kansas City.

Later, I asked Temple what were some of the solutions to Black on Black crime in Kansas City, and how the tough conversation we need can be had. The question-and-answer did not go without challenges. And rightfully so.

“The community has to take responsibility,” Temple said. “It’s a community problem.”

If you look at the number of homicide victims in Kansas City, and the race of the suspects, Black males in this city account for the majority of these deaths. In most cases, guns were used, according to police data. There is no sugarcoating that fact.

Of the 131 homicide victims to date, 98 of them were Black men and women, according to Kansas City police data. Of cases with a known perpetrator, a Black male was suspected in 59% of homicides cases.

Black men ages 18 to 24 commit 23% of Kansas City homicides. What are we doing to protect or encourage this group?

We must take Omaha’s lead and continue to invest in youth programming, job opportunities and violence prevention strategies.

“The data shows, Black on Black” Temple said.

But does it really? We have to be careful with our words, said Henrika McCoy, an associate professor at the Steve Hicks School of Social Work at the University of Texas at Austin.

No demographic is immune from intraracial violence, McCoy said. She isn’t wrong.

“We kill people we have close proximity to,” she told me. “Of course (the Black homicide rate) is an issue. But every group has this. Federal statistics show that.”

Co-panelists at the art event said the phrase “Black on Black crime” is used by white people to justify white supremacy and systemic issues with race. Some activists in the Black community may repeat the talking point to call out crime, sociologists said.

I cringed at my own question when I listened to the playback of a recording I took that night.

Thankfully, an elder, Glenn North, poet laureate of the historic 18th & Vine Jazz District, was there to check me. He and others took offense to the term.

“Do you think Black people are inherently violent?” asked North, a panelist and member of the Artists Coalition.

“No,” I replied.

Crime follows poverty, not skin color

No race owns a monopoly on crime. In 2019, of all adults arrested in the United States, 69.4% of them were white, while 26.6% were Black and 4% were of other races, according to a summary of crime statistics from the FBI.

In the moment, I understood where Temple, the mother of a slain child, stood. A Black man killed Temple’s son, she told the audience during the discussion’s opening remarks. In 2009, my son was shot and killed by a young Black man.

How could we not be biased or jaded? No one could blame either of us. Even in grief, I had to remind myself and others: As a whole, Black males are no more prone to violence than any of their counterparts of different races.

Much like in many cities across the nation, killings here were mostly in the city’s more distressed ZIP codes. Poverty begets violence, which leads to trauma, which surely increases violent crime rates in poor neighborhoods.

By Temple’s account, she has responded to most, if not all, homicide scenes in Kansas City since 2013. One can imagine the toll it takes on her to advocate for the families of homicide victims year after year.

The vast majority of Black Kansas Citians are law-abiding citizens, Temple said.

“We have more good people than bad people in this community,” she said, adding that we must have difficult conversations that could help us all engage in a community-wide approach to ending gun violence.

Law enforcement officials generally know who the bad guys — or shooters — are. Building cases and putting them away here has been trying.

But most crimes are committed by people who have the least access to services and a support system. And that tends to be minority groups, according to McCoy, the UT professor.

“We are not more prone to violence,” she said. “That is the trope of America.”

An unfounded one at that.