A surge for Detroit?

NBA Commissioner
David Stern has suspended Mr. Arenas indefinitely for his actions. Stern is
“shocked, shocked” that an NBA star would carry a gun into a locker room.

He shouldn’t be
too shocked. It is not exactly a secret that many professional athletes and
entertainers pack pieces with them wherever they go. Remember when Plaxico
Burress, the New York Giants wide receiver, was convicted in New York City for
shooting himself in the leg after he went to a nightclub in the Big Apple? And
there are plenty of other similar stories that have hit the headlines over the
last several years.

Why do these
professional athletes arm themselves?

Well, some
undoubtedly do it for protection. They make a lot of money and they can be
targets for robbers or worse. And some do it because they come from the streets
and it is part of their culture.

I am not one, usually,
to agree with Al Sharpton, but he had an insightful column in today’s
Washington Post.
“Guns are not a joke.
Violence and recklessness continue to be treated as acceptable and even heroic
behavior by part of our society. When I was growing up in the ghettos of
Brooklyn, my peers and I knew unemployment, bad schools and social
marginalization, but our athletic and entertainment heroes inspired us to beat
the odds. Our ambition was to not submit to a subculture that would confirm the
worst depiction of who we were and what our destiny would be.”

Well, things are
different now. Now many of these athletes seem to embrace the gun-toting,
drug-dealing, gangbanging ghetto culture. They have their gang symbol tattoos,
they bring their guns, they listen to their gang-glorifying music and they lead
lives that seem inspired less by the example of Jackie Robinson or Barack Obama
and more by the examples of the local crime bosses.

This seems like
another teachable moment for President Obama.

Yes, I
understand that he should be focused on terrorism. But there is another war on
terror that needs to be waged. And that war is against the drug dealers and the
gangbangers who are still shooting up the streets of too many of our big
cities.

More than 16,000
people were murdered in 2008, a sizable portion of whom were caught up in gun
violence in our nation’s toughest neighborhoods.

Last year, USA
Today reported: “Criminal gangs in the USA have swelled to an estimated
1 million members responsible for up to 80 percent of crimes in communities
across the nation, according to a gang threat assessment compiled by federal
officials.”

We have a problem with terrorism, yes. But we have an
ongoing, bigger problem with crime in our country, and that needs to be
confronted.

The president has spent a bunch of time talking about healthcare,
about Wall Street, about Afghanistan, about Iraq, about global warming and
about how great he is.

He hasn’t said a word about how we should confront the
problems that are continuing to plague our most crime-plagued cities.

He authorized a surge into Afghanistan. How about a surge
into Detroit?

It seems to me that this Gilbert Arenas situation gives the
president a nice opportunity to talk turkey to those who like to glorify the
gangbanger lifestyle.

He should bring Bill Cosby, John Lewis, Dr. Dre, LeBron
James, Michael Jordan, Will Smith, Denzel Washington and Magic Johnson into the
White House and have a summit on how to stop our kids from killing each other.

That might be the best thing he could do for America.

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