Jackson Free Press

In south Jackson, my neighbor cuts our yard and my neighbor's yard next to us on the other side. When my pickup truck broke down, my neighbor across the street, who is a mechanic, fixed it for me within a couple of days.

There are speed bumps every 25 feet on my street because a lot of children walk to and from school, ride their bikes and play with other neighborhood kids on a daily basis.

Our neighborhood is a normal working-class community. Like others, we too have crime issues. Some will even argue that crime is more prevalent here. On Thursday, Dec. 5, 2013, soon after I moved into the neighborhood, two teenage young men shot and killed a Wingfield High School freshman outside the school, which is a block away from my residence. Days later, the two were in custody, and a vigil was announced at the spot where she was murdered in honor of her life.

Every time I pass the stop sign where she died, I think about her. I also think about how it seemed like a lack of concern from the community where I now called home. I expected outrage, but everyone went back to their normal routines. A 15-year-old girl was murdered on a street with a high school and an elementary school, but after the vigil and the brief news coverage, no one spoke about her death again. Maybe this wasn't the first time that a child was murdered on the way home from school. Maybe the community knew it wouldn't be the last time.

I don't want to point fingers and start the usual back-and-forth blame game. I look inwardly to what I could have done. I could have gone door-to-door, rallying my neighbors to take action. I could have organized a huge community town-hall forum and invited the police chief and the school administrators to come and discuss solutions and to hear our demands for a safer community.

But the truth is, I didn't. Honestly, I have become desensitized to hearing gunshots at night. I have adapted to my surroundings. It doesn't come as a shock when I hear about crime in my community. Sirens and blue and red flashing lights are just as commonplace as pot holes and stray dogs. Yet, I know there are good, decent people who call south Jackson home, people who do care.

South Jackson has changed drastically from when I moved to Jackson in 1999. At that time I was a student at Tougaloo College, and south Jackson was considered the "white side" of town. When we would drive through the area, it was much different; there were many more businesses and fewer vacant homes. As the suburban towns like Brandon, Madison and Byram grew, many of the white residents moved from south Jackson to these outlying towns, taking the tax base and economic stability with them.

South Jackson isn't much different from west Jackson, and parts of north Jackson, where the majority of the residents are black, and many live at or below the poverty level. The police and other government services have a history of being in place to control us, and not to work for us. Fifty years after being legally protected to vote, we still have a long way to go to truly be enfranchised. This is evident by low voter turnout and civic participation, and that when someone from our community is murdered, the outrage and demand for action and safer streets is low.

I don't like the term "black-on-black crime." Crime is crime, and it happens in all communities, some more than others. The difference is in how we organize as a community to deal with it.

I don't have the answers for solving crime, but as Chokwe Antar Lumumba said during his campaign for mayor: "Crime is a product of a lack of economic opportunity. With more opportunities for jobs and resources, you get less crime."

With a strong economic base, you also get a stronger community concern and accountability for crime, I believe. There are many theories on crime-fighting, but I think we all agree, something needs to be done.

Tyson Jackson is the lead organizer for the Mississippi Association of State Employees-Communication Workers of America local 3570 in Jackson.