CBS's 60 minutes last night ran a story about snitches in the rap community. This will no doubt get a lot of attention today, with a large focus on the perennial "rap music is bad" mantra which is going to grab the media's focus in the coming months in light of the Virginia tech horror and the Don Imus firing. The basic premise of the article is that in order to have "street cred", one must resist cooperating with the police about anything. The story focuses on the marketing of the "stop snitchin'" credo.
The part which will be overlooked is the real reason why witnesses are refusing to cooperate: a combination of mistrust of police and fear of retaliation. For all of the bravado of the "stop snitchin'" slogan, it's fear and mistrust which keep the average citizen from cooperating with the police and not some misplaced machismo or the favored liberal "brainwashing" theme. If trust can be rebuilt between police and citizens, if criminals who commit crimes can be reliably sent to jail, if police who cooperate with police can be kept safe, then nothing that Busta Rhymes, L'il Kim, or Com'mon can do would matter.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment