Gang Violence: Home Grown Terrorism?

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by Tony Brown FaireSpecial to the NNPA from the DallasExaminer

(NNPA) - Immediately after the electionof President Barack Obama, many feltthe country was going in the right directionin terms of racial relations, butattacks of terror and hatred have onlyintensified.

Within 24 hours of his election, Nov. 5,2008, Benjamin Haskell, Michael F.Jacques Jr. and Thomas Gleason Jr., all ofwhom are white, set fire to theMacedonia Church of God In Christ,which is located in Springfield, Mass.According to the Boston Globe, Haskellwas asked by an associate why they setfire to the church. Haskell replied,Because it was a Black church.

A CNN report stated that on the day ofthe election of President Obama, a 55-year-old man by the name of Don Black,former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard,stated that more than 2000 people joinedhis website. Statistics suggest KKK andother hate groups are gaining strengthbecause of the election of PresidentBarack Obama.

The statistics are, in fact, alarming. Itappears that, as President Obama continuesto reach across political, socio-economicand racial divides in the U.S., aswell as around the world, the KKK andother hate groups are mobilizing acrossthe United States.

According to the Southern Poverty LawCenter (SPLC) in the annual Year inHate issue of its magazine, IntelligenceReport, the number of active hate groupsin the United States has risen 54% since2000 not only because of the election ofthe first African-American president, butalso because of continual increases inimmigration and the economic recession.

Recent acts of domestic terrorism,including the bombing of a Starbuckscoffee shop in New York City, the assassinationof a doctor inside a Kansaschurch, the arrest of four men allegedlyplotting to blow up synagogues and shootdown planes, the shooting of two soldiersat an Army center in Arkansas and therecent shooting at the HolocaustMuseum, have placed greater visibilityon the issue of domestic terrorism cases.

But how do the experts define terrorism?And does the violence have to be perpetratedagainst groups with varying politicaland racial backgrounds in order to beconsidered domestic terrorism cases?The definition of who a domestic terroristis seems to vary among local and nationalleaders alike. According to theNational Advisory Committee onCriminal Justice Standards and Goals,non-political terrorism is defined as:Terrorism that is not aimed at politicalpurposes but which exhibits a consciousdesign to create and maintain a highdegree of fear for coercive purposes, butthe end is individual or collective gainrather than the achievement of a politicalobjective. But a 2003 study by JeffreyRecord for the U.S. Army actually quoteda source (Schmid and Jongman 1988)that counted 109 different definitions ofterrorism and covered a total of 22 definitionalelements, making terrorism andwho falls in that category, seemingly hardto define.

If the rising problem of gang violence oncity streets goes unchecked, eventuallygangbangers could be classified asdomestic terrorists, one local activist said.Comparing the recent incidents ofdomestic terrorist cases with gang violenceand Black-on-Black crime in urbanneighborhoods, Rhonda Richmond, programcoordinator of the RoselandCeaseFire, said that while terrorists usuallydont have a specific target when theyshoot people, gang members have a specifictarget. But since the gangs cantshoot straight, as she puts it, gangbangersend up missing their target-costing the life of some innocentbystander just like in other terrorist cases.Recently Ceasefire, held a CommunityPeace March and Bar-B-Que highlightingthe need to end random acts of violenceincluding the recent shooting of 30-year-old Odis Matthews, the father of fivechildren, who was shot and killed twohouses down from his mothers home.The group works with other communitybasedorganizations to promote servicesthat reduce gun violence.

Father Michael Pfleger, pastor of SaintSabina Church, said although violencefrom so called domestic terrorist casesand terror brought on by gangbangers arerooted in the same evil, defining gangbangersas terrorists, really doesnt helpsolve the problem. Getting to the cause ofthe problem is a better approach, he said.

In affluent neighborhoods, gun violenceis not as prevalent because there are systemsin place where quality education,health care and better job opportunitiesare more readily available, he said. Inunderserved communities, its the completeopposite, Pfleger commented.No one wants to change the neglect ofthe infrastructure in poor, inner-cityneighborhoods. When you create badconditions and throw guns around,youre going to see more violence, headded. Until we become a countrywhere every life lost is of equal value and[when we] address this gun proliferationand violent culture in America, weregoing to see things like this happen in oururban cities, he said.

Lesley R. Chinn contributed to thisstory.

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