May
7, 2006 -- A resolution calling for state officials
to study the reasons behind the disparity in the homicide
rates was endorsed by a Common Council committee last
week, but not before an angry Ald. Ashanti Hamilton blasted
Ald. Jim Bohl for suggesting that a lack of morality might
play a role.
"We're
dancing around the real problem," Bohl told the Judicary
and Legislation Committee. "We're pretending that
somehow some statistics with a few numbers are going to
lead us to the magic solution and frankly it's looking
us in the eye and nobody wants to address it...We have
just lost morality in our society."
Jim Bohl
Bohl also criticized
popular culture that featured music videos glorifying
"hoodlums" who "kill each other between
New York and LA, running around with young women, half-nude
clad."
Hamilton, obviously
angry, said most buyers of music featuring those artists
are young white people.
"This
is not the population that is dying in the street,"
he said.
Hamilton also
said "the mere suggestion that community I come from
is less moral than the community that anybody else comes
from is part of the damned problem."
