Whose Responsibility Is It Anyway?: On the Brutal & Inexplicable Death of Derrion Albert

Earlier this week, I awoke to find my wife standing directly in front of the television with a look of abject terror on her face. Both her hands were clasped to either side of her face, and in the dimness of the room, I could make out her slowly mouthing, “Oh, my God!,” drawing out and extending the pronunciation of each word.

I could not see the video, but from the bed, I could plainly hear the audio. Even after pulling the covers over my head as if to hide from the sound, I could hear the audio. Long after the television was turned off and I was in my car headed to work, I could hear the audio.

Maybe it’s the sound of a group of teenagers beating another teenager to death that has affected me so deeply. Perhaps it was the shrieks of on-lookers, the shouts of encouragement from both instigators and participants, the blare of car horns trying to shock the teenagers back to their senses, I just don’t know.

But I wasn’t going to say anything. I wasn’t going to write about it all. However, over the last day or so, this post has been writing and re-writing itself in my head. Each time I mentally disposed of a draft, it would soon return, subconsciously revised and edited and awaiting publication.

And the question that keeps returning to my mind is “Whose responsibility is this?”. Let me rephrase this question. Those teenagers, those children, running amok in the street seemingly intoxicated by the violence taking place around them, seemingly under the spell of an inexplicable bloodlust, “Whose responsibility are they?”.

I posed this question before I number of friends and colleagues, and the answer was almost invariably the same. The answer usually began with “Those people…” and was framed in term of “Them [you supply the racial epithet].” But rarely did I hear the answer framed in terms of “we” or “us.” And these were all African Americans—black folk.

For some time now, I have been cognizant of the wide and ever growing chasm between classes within the African American community; the lower socio-economic class seems to devalue all those things the other class deems worthwhile and necessary, while the middle to upper socio-economic class seems to devalue them because of it. But, while you can take umbrage at adult foolishness, children are a completely different story.

Keep in mind, those were our children out there in that street whether we want to admit it or not. Though we may not know them, though we may not be able to claim a sanguineous kinship, a blood relationship, I believe that they still belong to us.

But I ask you again for your opinion: “Whose responsibility are they?”

And I keep hearing people say, “Those folk need to raise their children” or “Black folk need to raise their kids,” and I do not disagree with this one bit. But, in the same instance, in some segments of the African American community, you have a generation of parents, who were never raised themselves, attempting to raise another generation. You have a generation of parents who were never taught how to conduct themselves, how to think critically and rationally, passing on what they know about conducting themselves and thinking critically and rationally.

But in reality, what do they have to offer the younger generation? They need remedial instruction themselves. And more often than not, just merely providing the daily necessities--food, clothing, shelter--takes them outside the home so often and for so long, they have little time to offer their children. Who will teach this younger generation how to conduct themselves, how to use their minds and talents to their greatest advantage?

Whose responsibility is this?

You have whole families stuck in a perpetual cycle, a never ending narrative, of poverty and ignorance for whom the chaos and privation and struggle of the inner city ghetto are the driving plot elements; this is their reality, and they know no other.

I sure many want to do better, many hope to do better, but simply know of no way out. But who will offer them a counter-narrative, a glimpse at an alternate reality? Who will be the one to step up and offer hope to the hopeless, enlightenment to the unenlightened?

Whose responsibility is this?

Previously, I have mentioned Henry Louis Gates’ conjecture that perhaps crisis was desirable because only when we are faced with crisis do we make the difficult decisions necessary. Only crisis will force the necessary players out of the darkness into the light. Only crisis will force the timid to summon the courage to take a stand. A teenager has been beaten to death in the street; if this is not crisis, what is?

Or maybe we should just wait until the violence spreads out of the inner city into the suburbs. Maybe we should wait until one of my children or one of your children is senselessly beaten to death in the street before we finally declare a crisis and take action.

However, we seem to be stuck trying to decide, just whose responsibility it is.

My blog brother RiPPa of The Intersection of Madness and Reality has also chosen today to turn a critical and discerning eye on the this incident and its root causes. [Click here to read his post, "Understanding the Culture of Violence in America."]