The Reverend Darius Pridgen reacted today from the pulpit on the Buffalo News story from Sunday's paper discussing the criminal pasts of the City Grill shooting victims:
As I've stated before on this site, I like Darius Pridgen's style. I think he's going to defeat Curtis Haynes for a position on the Buffalo Common Council. It's unfortunate, because Haynes is a very intelligent leader also, something which Buffalo is in short supply of these days. I can certainly understand Pridgen's anger towards the News. He knew some of the victims personally ( even mentioning that he baptized two of them recently). I would like to think that the Buffalo News would have mentioned the victims' criminal past had they been white instead of black.
It would be great if a leader as charasmatic as Pridgen could use this tragedy to help change the gun laws. Cities like Buffalo need to do something drastic to make it less easy for young people to get their hands on illegal guns. That's the first step. People selling the guns to the criminals need to be prosecuted. In other countries, the only people able to obtain firearms are legitimate hunters. Somebody out there is being greedy and the end result is gang members walking around with guns.I don't know what the answer is, but I'm sure a guy like Pridgen would have some very good suggestions.
The other two problems in both poor white and poor black communities are the breakdown of the traditional family and a complete lack of respect for the importance of education. Until those three issues (guns, family, and education) are seriously addressed within the poorer communities, tragedies like the one at the City Grill will continue. I have confidence that someone like Reverand Pridgen will step up with some solutions to these issues that have been around for at least two generations now.
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