What is Random Violence?

    As the report on murders committed in the five boroughs over the past three years told us, violence is almost never random. Half of all murders committed in the city were tied to disputes (28%) or drugs (23%). According to the sociologists who analyzed the data, if you are not involved in crime, you have a negligible chance of being murdered.
    But what if you are? What if you live in a neighborhood where crime is woven into the fabric of everyday life? Most people in Morrisania, the central-south bronx neighborhood where I work, are not involved in drugs, crime or illegality beyond a loosie from the bodega or a bootleg DVD from the corner. Most Kansans are not killed by tornadoes. But it's part of the environment.
    On Friday an eighteen year-old was shot in the stomach by "two unindentified men" with whom he was involved in an arguement around 11pm in the park beside my school. He was shot about 200 yards from my classroom. I don't recogonize his name or face, but he was easily young enough to have been one of my students. He may have been.
    There was another article about my school's neighborhood in today's paper. On the cover of the City section there is an article about the music scene that existed, from jazz to early rap, in Morrisania. Mostly the article follows the work of Mark Naison (remember him from Chappelle's show?) of Fordham University. The author of the article states that Morrisania is, "known more for the fires that raged in the 1970s and the random violence that still explodes there today. . ."
    This statement says a lot. "Random Violence" is one of those cliches that lazy writers throw around, like "the inner-city" without thinking about what they mean. What kind of violence is random? Are people being shot by strangers for god-knows what reason at all hours of the day and night in Morrisania?  Is the Bronx really known for random violence? Does the author of this article read the New York Times?
    Saying that the violence in the Bronx is random is one way of saying that it is impossible to solve, which is what the grandmother of Terrell Dixon expresses. Her fatalism is understandable, but why should a New York Times journalist be so cynical?
      The fact is that Terrell was not killed for random reasons. Although his killers are indentified as, "not identified" they could very easily be known but unidentified by the witness identified in the newspaper as a "friend" out of fear of being labeled a "snitch." This is another form of powerlessness that grips Morrisania. the feeling that the police should not be helped because they are not there to help.
    And what help is given? Are we taking the problem of youth violence seriously, or we saying it all just "random" and shaking our heads and turning to the wedding announcements?