Race, class play role in gun violence: Column

Jenny Irons | USATODAY

Just over 50 years have passed since four little girls were killed in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala. One day after the anniversary of their deaths, the nation watched another shockingly violent event unfold as 12 people were gunned down at the Naval Yard in Washington, D.C. Our minds turned back to the tragic loss of 26 lives in Newtown, Conn., in December 2012, and we worried, once again, about the seemingly random nature of gun violence.

While media and authorities speculate about the motives of the Naval Yard shooter, and while some politicians call for gun control reform, we should look more deeply into the role race and class play in gun violence in the United States. While rampages such as the ones in Newtown and the Naval Yard are unpredictable, the landscape of gun violence is not. Two of the most significant predictors of gun deaths continue to be income inequality and the percentage of the population identified as black.

In 2008 and 2009, gun homicide was the leading cause of death among black teenagers in the U.S. Over the same period, more white children were killed by guns than were black children, but black children were disproportionately represented among those killed. Since 1979, gun deaths have decreased among white children and increased among black children. Most gun deaths occur in large cities, and central cities see gun deaths at a rate of more than twice the national average. For children in large cities, the per capita rate of gun homicide is close to three times the national average. New Orleans, the city where I currently live while on sabbatical, has the highest firearm homicide rate among children ages 10-19 in the nation. In short, children who live in poor central cities have significantly decreased life chances, because of their class and race.

A few weeks ago, about two miles away from where I live, a one-year-old black girl was shot dead, as her 18-year-old babysitter held her on a city street. The sitter was shot in the back; the bullet critically injured her and killed the baby, who was just learning to walk. This event happened near an intersection that I drive past many mornings when I take my two little ones to school. Days later, a bit further away in the city, an 11-year-old girl died, and her cousin was wounded, as they lay sleeping. They were hit by a bullet fired outside the house. Where was the national outrage?

Rampage shootings draw throngs of reporters and undivided attention, and for good reason. They are awful, terrible, shocking events, and we should all mourn with outrage and sadness. Yet, when child after child is lost to gun violence in poor urban neighborhoods, which are often occupied mostly by brown and black people, our nation should also respond with the same kind of collective grief and anger. The murders of one-year-old black girls or 16-year-old black males are not just problems in "those" communities; they, too, are part of a national tragedy, and they are far more likely to happen than are mass school shootings.

When something awful happens to a person -- seemingly because that person was in the "wrong" place at the "wrong" time -- one might say, "there but for the grace of God, go I." It could have been me, or my child, or someone I know, but for the grace of God -- and luck.

This may hold true as we look at rampage shootings, but it is not the story that holds for predicting who is most likely to die from gun violence in the U.S. For while that one-year-old baby was shot and killed not far from where I live, my children are still far less likely to be victims of such violence, because they are white and middle class. The difference in the likelihood that my children will be victims of violence comes down to the "grace" of class and race. Why? Because these things determine place, determine where we live and go to school and go to play. They determine what streets we walk down and whether we have access to a car. Being black and poor are what shaped the chances that these little girls would be in the "wrong" place at the "wrong" time -- their neighborhood, their street, their home, their church.

The reform of gun control legislation is a necessary step towards curbing gun violence in the U.S. But we also have to address the deep and tangled social roots of violence: residential segregation, inadequate educational and employment opportunities, the culture of violence, and racism.

We also have to engage in moral reform. We have to broaden our collective understanding of what bodies matter in this battle. We must grieve those who are killed on inner-city streets just as we grieve those are killed in rampage shootings.

Jenny Irons is an associate professor of sociology at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y.

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