Omerta, the Mafia’s time-honored code of silence is alive and well and residing within the black community of Toronto. The facts that shootings occur on an almost daily basis in Toronto, that the vast majority the victims are young black men and that following a shooting no witnesses admit to having seen anything are indicative of a major problem within the black community as well as Toronto as a whole.
There are many reasons why no one will come forward to identify the perpetrators, but three such reasons seem to predominate. The first is the fear of reprisals from the shooters or their cohorts if evidence is given; the second is a misguided belief that the police could care less what happens in their neighborhood, so why bother with the risk that testifying brings; the third is an aversion to ratting out members of one’s community to "the Man".
as is usually the case, perception is reality. Individuals who are afraid of making a witness statement for fear of reprisals feel that the police are incapable of protecting them from reprisals against their person or family members. One would have to agree that they have a point, given that arrests in this country generally result in a light slap on the wrist, no matter how heinous the crime. This isn’t just a problem having to do with the efficacy of the police. The broader problem is that our judges don’t seem to think that violent criminals need to spend a lot more time behind bars and our lawmakers lack the political will to mandate tougher sentencing guidelines.
additionally, there is an entire class of left-lib NDPers who can come up with perfectly good reasons why it’s society’s fault that young black men are killing each other in wholesale quantities. I seem to recall that it has something to do with "root causes" and that the solution to this ever-growing problem is that society provide more free goodies to encourage these people from killing each other.
How pathetic is it that we live in a society that is incapable of solving a problem as pressing as gun crime? It would appear that the only answer our political class can come up with is to do more of the same of what they’re doing now, which is not very much except posture, lay the blame on someone else, like the americans, or try to convince us to not worry and be happy as crime statistics are down. Be that as it may, it’s pretty difficult to convince me that our city is safer now than ever. Talk to me when we can go two weeks without a shooting.
Best we seem to be able to do is to wallow in our conceit that as Canadians we are morally superior and because there is more gun crime in the U.S., we don’t really need to do anything about own gun crime. For a long time now I have had the distinct impression that Canadian society is like something out of a Brügel painting or an Ingmar Bergman film. It’s the blind leading the sighted, as those who can see do not trust their eyes and would much rather trust those who promise them an easy explanation for the awful things that are out there.
as a result we blame crime on poverty; we blame violence on a lack of education; we blame ourselves for the actions of people whom we studiously avoid because they scare us.
If crime is the result of poverty (which I highly doubt), then what’s being done to engender a work ethic that will help poor people pull themselves out of poverty? If violence is the result of a lack of education, why are we wasting time trying to teach youngsters self esteem, rather than educational basics that bring self-esteem with them?
Instead we encourage people not to work by ramming welfare down their throats and we keep dumbing down the school curriculum because of the misguided notion that kids are quitting because it’s too difficult.
It’s time we took responsibility for what happens in our cities by holding our politicians’ feet to the fire and demanding that they stop making lame excuses and do what’s necessary to put a stop to the violence.