Black men being murdered at an alarming rate

Race is once again headlining the news.This time it is over the an allegation of racial profiling and bias in the arrest of a prominent black professor by a white police officer. Much time will be spent arguing the merits the respective cases with the subsequent result of a hardening of distrust among whites and blacks.

While the open sore that is race relations is being clumsily probed once again, a far more serious issue concerning African Americans goes largely ignored--the alarmingly high homicide rate among black men.

The FBI statistics from 2007 paint an disturbing picture:(2007 are the most recent statistics available)

• 14, 831 persons were killed in 2007. Of that, 11, 618 were males and 3,177 were females.36 were registered as "unknown".
• Of the 11, 618 male victims, 6, 223 were black.

• Black men accounted for 54 percent of the total of male victims and a staggering 41 percent of the total amount of homicide victims.

According the the Center for Disease Control(CDC) homicide is the the leading cause of death for black men between the ages of 15 and 34 .It is astounding to me that this receives such little attention in the media.

Why is so much attention focused on racial profiling when young black men are being cut down at an alarming rate? Why isn't Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson doing all they can to bring this issue to light?

Homicide certainly isn't the only health issue that confront black men. As this link shows black men have quite a few issues pertaining to health. But of all, homicide is perhaps the most preventable. Diseases, injuries,etc, afflict all no matter what class or race a person belongs to. There is only so much one can do to avoid cancer or heart disease.

But homicide is 100 percent preventable.There is no reason why people who make up roughly 6 percent of the population should be the victims of 40 percent of the nation's murders.There is no good reason why we cannot reduce this.

This country would be better off discussing the exorbitantly high homicide rate among black men than racial profiling. One can only change through time, the other demands immediate action.