Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America

by Michael Eric Dyson

Beloved, let’s try a brief thought experiment. Let’s apply the logic of some of your arguments about black folk to you. Take your argument that we should pay more attention to black-on-black crime than white cops killing black folk because more blacks are killed by other blacks. Now let’s compare the number of white Americans killed by whites to the number of Americans killed by terrorist acts. I can already feel your hair standing on end. You see how hurtful it is to make such a comparison? You see how it could miss the point of giving each cause of suffering its due? According to your logic, we should not be concerned with political acts of terror committed on American soil because, since 9/11, less than 100 people have been killed in such attacks in America while 11,208 people were killed by firearms in 2013 alone and 21,175 died by suicide with a firearm. By Giuliani’s logic, then, the obsession with terror is both misplaced and hypocritical. We should focus instead on the plague of firearms on the American population. Far more white folk kill each other than are killed by terrorists. So let’s stop worrying about terrorism and worry about white-on-white homicide. Stop griping about a couple of planes crashing into a couple of towers. Stop crying over a few folk getting butchered by a few religious fanatics when the routine crime that snuffs white life lies in a white man’s assault rifle.