There is a rage that's justified against all the evil in the world and there's the kind that should never have been vented, like the gunfire that killed 3-year-old Acen King in still another outburst of road rage, this one in Little Rock just before Christmas, when joy was turned into grief and light into darkness.
According to little Acen's grandmother, 47-year-old Kim Macon-King, she was waiting to make a turn when a black car pulled up behind her and honked. And when she honked back, she said the driver of the black car got out, went over to her car, and fired just one shot. It was enough to change things forever. She may have half-hoped, half-assumed that this man had just fired into the air. But when she got to the shopping center where she'd planned to meet the rest of the family for some happy holiday shopping and hand over little Acen to them, she found him slumped over the back seat. A dedicated team of first-responders from Arkansas Children's Hospital did their usual best but little Acen would die there later that same night. There the story ends, but for all those of us who can't bear such injustice, it is only beginning.
That shot ricocheted all around Little Rock and the state, and even the world as clergymen, concerned citizens, and political leaders all joined together to call on the assailant to surrender. Both the police in Little Rock and the FBI each put up a $20,000 reward for information leading to at least one arrest. Benny Johnson, founder of Arkansas Stop the Violence, displayed the right kind of rage when he demanded: "We want these perpetrators . . . brought to justice. We want the city to band together. Put your arms around these families [that have lost children to such such senseless violence]. But most importantly, we want to show support by bringing the ones who did these heinous crimes to justice."
Lest we forget, Acen King wasn't the only victim of road rage in Little Rock this past year. There was also little Rimiya Reed, who was only 2 years old when she was riding in the back seat of a car with her mother when somebody fired into their car as they drove by. Rimiya became just another number (37) in the list of the city's homicides while Acen was No. 40. It's getting to be like waiting for your number to be called at the state's Department of Motor Vehicles.
It doesn't have to be like this if good citizens would just step forward and accept the responsibility they have to know is theirs. To quote Walter Cockran, another member of Arkansas Stop the Violence, "If anyone knows anything [about these killers], we ask you to turn them in because you're just as guilty as they are" if the community maintains its silence in the face of such rank injustice.
Yes, an arrest was made in little Acen's case, but what about in all the others? "It makes me feel good about Little Rock," says Police Chief Chief Buckner, "that our community came together. It makes me feel good about folks providing information, and it makes me feel good that our police agency stayed on top of this and are able to give the family some kind of peace before they bury him . . . . But I hate that we had to get to Acen King before we as a community came together to hate and be disgusted by the loss of human life. Because there [were] 39 other killings in Little Rock this year, and the pain of those families is no less."
Who dares say what one of these little ones might have grown up to be--a scientist, an astronaut, another Martin Luther King or Booker T. Washington or Daisy Bates . . . name your own favorite hero or heroine in the long march of this country up from slavery and every other form of degradation. For, yes, His truth goes marching on, and there's no telling where this road may lead, not in this country, not in the America we all celebrate and hope the best for.
Is any one of us really ready to give up on this country and our own responsibilities? Don't we all know where our duty lies? If so, then speak up now. For as Edmund Burke said, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to nothing."
Editorial on 12/28/2016