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(Update, Monday, 12:50 p.m.: Two dissenting tweets from today are at the end.)
Nolan Finley's latest opinion column has a big, bright bull's-eye likely to be the target of sharp reactions. (Yes, again.)
Sunday's topic is the national Black Lives Matter movement. The Detroit News editorial page editor's views are blunt and provocative:
From the way we shrug off the everyday killing in Detroit, it’s hard to make the case that all black lives matter.
Over the past year, roughly 300 Detroiters were murdered. They weren’t all gang bangers and drug dealers.
Finley's jumping-off point is a fatal stabbing Wednesday afternoon on a Detroit bus of a 50-year-old grandmother: He notes "how quickly the story faded, replaced by news of the next set of murders in a city where even the most heinous crimes fight for a headline.
If only the bus lady had been killed by a cop.
Maybe then her black life would have mattered enough for us to more fully explore the significance of its loss, and to gin up some anger about how casually it was taken.
Noland Finley: "If only the bus lady had been killed by a cop. Maybe then her black life would have mattered enough for us to . . . gin up some anger."
The News' columnist cites three 2015 street gunfire deaths in Detroit of two teens and a grandmother before adding:
Yet the only protest marches I remember were those that came after Terrance Kellom was killed by a customs officer in a shooting ruled justified by the Wayne County prosecutor.
Why didn’t those other black lives matter as much as Kellom’s? Why did the black life of a 21-year-old killed when someone sprayed bullets into a crowd of 300 at a June block party matter so little that not a single witness came forward?
Nearly 400 readers comment with varied views under the online article. Eric C. Williams, an assistant professor at WSU Law School, posts:
I'm always a bit annoyed when civilian-on-civilian violence makes it way into discussions of police brutality. It's particularly annoying when civilian violence -- or at least the apparent lack of attention paid to it -- is cited to undermine the black lives matter message.
In truth, there are a lot of local and national efforts aimed at addressing criminal violence in black communities. Stop the Violence marches are a regular occurrence, as are speeches by leaders from Farrakhan to Cornell Brooks.
These efforts aren't noticed by the media and many white observers because it doesn't involve them. They aren't being blamed or implicated in any way, so it's easy to ignore.
Another reader, Detroit artist Kelly Guillory, raises a similar point as she addresses six public tweets to the columnist. Here are two:
.@NolanFinleyDN The second thing is, the outrage you ask for, that HAS been present in Detroit--it doesn't get covered by media.
— K. Guillory (@kgpaints) August 30, 2015
.@NolanFinleyDN It's evident in neighborhood patrols and people who vow to "take back our streets". Also the phrase -
— K. Guillory (@kgpaints) August 30, 2015
Update: Social media reactions continue Monday and include these comments, which The News retweeted:
@DetNewsOpinion @detroitnews Black people shouldn't have to choose between civil rights and black on black crime we can fight both
— Crystal Lattimore (@clattimore25) August 31, 2015
@DetNewsOpinion @NolanFinleyDN Malik Shabazz has shut down drug houses. The late Angelo Henderson used his bully pulpit to fight crime.
— Detroit Politics (@DetroitPolitics) August 31, 2015
