Confront L.A. ‘Black Civil War’ Head-On

As the war with Iraq comes to a close, Los Angeles’ black leadership has to focus on another war, much deadlier and much closer to home: the black civil war.

Black-on-black killings are an epidemic. Last year, for the fifth year in a row, 40% of Los Angeles’ homicide victims were African American, even though blacks make up just 11% of the city’s population.

I am 38, part of a generation of black men who are more likely than any other demographic group to be murdered in this city -- four times more likely than Latino men, 18 more times than young white men.

We may be shot at not because we are in gangs but just because we are living our lives, standing in front of our houses or churches or getting into cars, as 22-year-old National Football League prospect Dennis Weathersby was in Duarte on Sunday. Mercifully, he is expected to recover fully.

Others are not so lucky. In Los Angeles County, murder rates among blacks are consistently higher than among other groups -- in 2000, 177 black men ages 15 to 34 were homicide victims per 100,000 population, as opposed to 40 Latinos and 10 whites.

Police Chief William J. Bratton charged into town with innovative goals and tough talk. He compared street gangs with terrorists and the Mafia. Some black leaders were upset, assuming that the LAPD would return to the days of former Chief Daryl F. Gates and the chokehold.

But I have attended too many funerals for family members and friends. I welcome Bratton. His tough talk is needed to wake up a sleeping black leadership.

Now we need tough action, by the police and by black community leaders. We have to challenge, encourage and support community residents to take back the streets from gang members.

We need to break the black code of silence among witnesses who won’t step forward because they fear that they will be next on the gang members’ hit list. But if they don’t cooperate with law enforcement, they or their loved ones may be the next victims anyway.

The new LAPD has attempted to form a partnership with black community leaders to make the streets of Los Angeles safer. Some black leaders have been receptive. Others have whined about perceived slights, about not being properly invited to meetings, while residents in their areas continue to be killed in the streets.

Last month, 13-year-old Joseph Arthur Swift was murdered, apparently by gang members, as he came out of church. The community responded with outrage and a suspect has been arrested.

There have been several shootings and murders since then in South Los Angeles. But none have drawn the organized response that the Swift murder did. There has to be an organized community effort with law enforcement each time someone is shot.

Martin Luther King Jr., Medgar Evers and many others sacrificed their lives in the civil rights movement. Thanks to them, our young people can live, work and eat where they want to. But blacks can’t enjoy these simple liberties when they fear for their lives. Or are dead.

Los Angeles’ black leadership today faces other tests, other questions. Can you stop petty quarrels with one another long enough to help save your own people’s lives? Can we all rise to the challenge to protect our families and community?

Our leaders must confront the black civil war head-on. It is the most complex and dangerous one we may face, ever. We knew what the Ku Klux Klan and Bull Conner looked like. But in this war, the enemy looks like us. We can’t afford to lose.

Najee Ali is national director of Project Islamic HOPE, a civil rights group based in Los Angeles. Web site: www.projectislamichope.org.