Go Ahead and Ask For Whom the Bell Tolls - It Tolls for Some Black Kid, so Who Cares?

Leave it to Fox 4 news to put the meteoric rise in Kansas City homicides into perspective. According to the compassionate conservatives at Fox,

The homicide statistics show the majority, 76-percent, of the crime victims are black and 44-percent, of the known suspects are also black (44-percent were also unknown.) 57-percent are under 24 years old. Right now the statistics show only one of the crimes is confirmed drug related, but detectives suspect that number is much higher. "Most of them are living at-risk lifestyles," Lockhart said, "involved in narcotics or involved in gang activity. So the average citizen is not going to be impacted by the shootings or most of the violence."

As long as you stay on your side of "the edge", that is.

But what kind of screwed up, insular world is this? I stand a decent chance of not being murdered, so I'm not "not going to be impacted by the shootings or most of the violence"?? My kids have gone to school with some of those victims. My coworkers have given birth to some of those victims. If I pause for just a second before going to a jazz show or a restaurant in a different neighborhood, I have been impacted by the violence. If I have a suburban friend refuse to accompany me, I have been impacted by the violence.

Coincidentally, the poem of the day sent to me from Poemhunter.com today was John Donne's "For Whom the Bell Tolls".

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece
of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by
the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's
death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and
therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for
thee.