Chicago Lawmaker Claims Cops Are Killing City's Black Teens

State Rep. Monique Davis (D-Chicago) was one of the dimmer light bulbs in the Illinois legislature when I worked there more than two decades ago, and her light has apparently only gotten dimmer over the years. In an interview with a black radio TV audience in Detroit of all places this past week, she blamed Chicago Police for the skyrocketing black on black violence in the Windy City. She didn't just question their policing skills and their endemic culture of corruption like the City, which are a legitimately line of inquiry, she actually claimed that they're secretly going around killing black teens and making it appear that their killers were other black teens.

"I’m going to tell you what some suspicions have been, and people have whispered to me: they’re not sure that black people are shooting all of these children," Davis told the Detroit radio audience.

She continued saying, "There’s some suspicion -- and I don't want to spread this, but I'm just going to tell you what I've been hearing -- they suspect maybe the police are killing some of these kids."

One reason "there's some suspicion," Davis said, is because there have been few arrests for the dozens of murders perpetrated on the streets of the city. Lack of arrests leads Davis to believe police are the actual killers because there are no perpetrators being fingered.

After word of the incredulous claim made by Rep. Davis made its way back to Chicago, WBBM-AM radio tracked her down to confirm if she stood by her claim. "I’m going to tell you what some suspicions have been, and people have whispered to me: they're not sure that black people are shooting all of these children,” Davis told the Chicago radio station. "I'm not a detective, I'm not an investigator," Davis said. "I said my community, many people in my community, based upon their experiences and their knowledge, believe it is possible that some of these murders are committed by our finest. Now, we can’t say that doesn’t happen." Chicago's Police Superintendent wasn't amused by Rep. Davis' comments. "I think it's absurd, I think it's inflammatory. I think it's also insulting," McCarthy said.

I can't say that I'm surprised by Rep. Davis' comments. After all, our President from Chicago went on national TV yesterday and similarly implied without any evidence that George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin simply because he was black despite his acquittal this past week by a Florida jury and an earlier FBI investigation which concluded there was no evidence that Zimmerman killed Martin out of racial animus. The Chicago Tribune's John Kass has their number:

Race was established by the president of the United States, and by other political and media actors. It's a cynical business, about money and power, about keeping divisions between American tribes. There are the black tribes that see Martin in the context of the old civil rights struggles and leverage, and white tribes that see Martin being used to pummel them with racial guilt.

The algebra of all of this is as old as some musty textbook in your uncle's garage. We've seen it before. We've heard the lines, the formulations, the slogans, and some of us recite them the way we recite phrases from television commercials. We're given just enough evidence and we're told we must choose a side.

Yet none of this tribalism has anything to do with what happened the night Martin was killed. Politicians don't worry about that. They're experts at the game of tribes, and a tribal America is what nourishes them.

Americanism should be about something more than tribes and groups. Americanism should instead be about individuals, about individual promise, individual accomplishment.

Only an individual can give another respect. Tribes can't. What tribes do is battle other tribes over the spoils of government. This has nothing to do with individual respect. It has everything to do with group leverage.

Clearly, Martin and Zimmerman didn't give each other respect. Each one could and should have walked away, and didn't. Many homicides happen that way, with bad choices and stupidity and anger. Homicides are never political at the beginning. They become so only after the body is cold, when the political actors approach and heat things up.