CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Thousands of people lose their lives to gun violence every year. It’s a violence that disproportionately impacts minority communities.
According to EveryTown for Gun Safety, Black Americans are 10 times more likely to die by gun homicide than white Americans.
This year so far, in Charlotte there have been 15 homicides. All the victims were Black or Hispanic and more than half of the homicides this year have involved a gun.
The NAACP Charlotte-Mecklenburg County Branch chapter president Corine Mack said the issue is very complex and will take a lot of work to resolve.
“It's destroying entire communities,” Mack said.
According to the Safe North Carolina report from North Carolinians Against Gun Violence, Black, non-Hispanic North Carolinians suffer far more deaths than any other group when it comes to firearm homicides. In 2018, the group made up 67% of the homicides in the state despite making up only 22% of the population.
Mack said everyone should be concerned about the senseless acts of violence neighborhoods experience.
“We all have to buy into how important it is that we change the trajectory of our communities,” Mack said. “All of us have been affected by this. It may not be your child, your nephew, your cousin, your dad or your mother that has been killed. But it still affects that community.”
She said there are many factors that contribute to this violence, and access to resources is one of them.
“Without the resources needed to gain economic equity, you begin to have people now responding in violent ways in anger because to have a lack of… it's a kind of violence in itself,” Mack said.
At the root of the problem, she said, is systematic racism.
“You see Black people disproportionately being harmed. You see Black people, disproportionately being incarcerated, which is the new slavery,” Mack said. “You see Black children in public schools, lacking in education, you hear things like, 'We don't want to teach Black history.' You hear things like, 'Those children are bad.'"
She adds it’s important for lawmakers, state and community leaders to address racial inequities that exist, that includes in housing, healthcare, education and more.
Mack also wants to see communities pour into minority children, and build them up so they know their lives matter.
“The entire community, Black, white, Latino… all need to come together in creating a village that is loving and caring and nurturing for the children," she said. "So they can see themselves differently, and they can respond differently."
Antonio Stevenson, CEO of My Brother’s Second Chance, is working to keep kids off the streets.
“We've seen some really, really good kids make some bad choices,” Stevenson said.
Although his nonprofit is based in Winston-Salem, he is seeing the same issues in his community. He added that access to guns is a major problem.
“One young man told me it's easier to buy a pistol than it is to buy a pack of cigarettes,” Stevenson said. “Now, I don't know how true that is but I do know that a lot of young people are getting caught with weapons.”
His mission is to make a difference in the lives of the youth through mentorship programs.
“We actually try to help them find jobs and get them back into the educational system wherever they left off," Stevenson said. "We are helping them find themselves and to be valuable in the community doing positive things."
He encourages parents to speak to their kids about guns and to also do routine sweeps of their belongings if weapons are a concern.
“Being an active parent, going through their book bags, going through their clothes, dresser, drawers, even flipping the mattresses, if that's what it takes to make sure that your child is safe and that your home is safe and secure," Stevenson said.
Stevenson and Mack both agree there are too many guns on the streets.
Mack adds laws should be changed so that guns retrieved from the streets are destroyed and not put back on the market. She emphasized the need to invest in communities hard hit by violence and said it will go a long way to reducing the violence they experience.
Contact Jesse Pierre at jpierrepet@wcnc.com or follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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