Today, Baltimore has been shamed, not because people have burned cars and stores but because the leaders of the city, state and federal governments have despicably referred to our neighbors (and especially our young people) as "thugs and criminals" when they express their rage against racism, oppression and injustice ("Shabazz plans rally for thousands Saturday," April 28). Five hundred years of violence against people of color, savage brutality committed here and abroad, extraordinary inequality in incomes, housing, education and health care — these are the conditions that have led us to the fires this time.
Not until we have eliminated the nearly 20-year gap in life expectancy and the $90,000 gap in median household income between Sandtown-Winchester and Roland Park (see the Baltimore City Health Department's Neighborhood Health Profiles) can we began to discuss an end to violence.
Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake recently proclaimed, "Too many people have spent generations building up this city for it to be destroyed by thugs who, in a very senseless way, are trying to tear down what so many have fought for." We certainly have built poverty, homelessness and inequality while enriching the one percent. This should not produce pride.
As Frederick Douglass observed, "For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced."
Jeff Singer, Baltimore