I was sitting in a living room on Roycroft a couple of weeks ago talking to someone who had come to one of our Metro Justice events. She was concerned about the lack of jobs in the community and, when we had knocked on her door talking about city contracts and the fact that not too many people from the neighborhood were being hired,  she was interested and came to our town hall forum.

I’ve been on the D&C website looking at this photo of Mike Green surrounded by the yellow tape at the homicide scene on the corner of Roycroft and North. I am trying to picture the corner. I think I just blew by it in my car on my way home after the meeting.

 I didn’t know Antwan or Tamar. I’m trying to take it in. What is going on?

 As I was reading the posts on the D&C website I couldn’t help but think that the same forces that left these youth dead are the same forces that flow through the fingers of the suburban folks leaving comments.

Invariably the posts devolve into self satisfied rantings wondering how “those people” could live that way. The city is characterized as “an open sewer.” One individual calling himself “taxed up the wazoo” wonders why anybody would actually choose to live in the city. Each post eggs the next one on until it seems that we are talking about two separate species- those who choose to live in the suburbs and those living in the city. The process of dehumanization grinds on.

I am reminded of the genocide in Rwanda where the Hutu DJ’s took to the air to urge people to grab machetes and go after Tutsis.

The glimmer of the machete is in these D&C posts. The urge to scapegoat is inside every human. Like so many who rubberneck through the Democrat and Chronicle, the folks typing at their home computers have embraced that impulse. First they break our legs then they make fun of us for limping.

Rwanda is actually a good example. We have been trained to focus on the ethnic tensions that lead to genocide. Our documentaries and Hollywood movies stay on that narrative. But in Rwanda the untold story was the torpedoing of the international coffee prices that drove the rural countryside into chaos. We’re not supposed to look at the Rwandan farmers uprooting their trees after US coffee traders refused to honor international agreements. The resulting nflation and unemployment uprooted families and eviscerated social roles. Unemployed youth roamed the countryside providing cheap labor for local warlords. But don’t tell that story.

Which brings us to Rochester and Kodak and sprawl and the posts following the murders on Roycroft. It’s always easier to blame the victim. The blame pattern always flows down. It’s just easier that way. Don’t look at the system. Just look at the limping.

After 9/11 Americans were shocked by our vulnerability. Politicians still can’t utter the term “blowback.” And we were then quickly mobilized into scapegoating mode, dutifully mouthing our oath to destroy islamofascism. The process is the same. Mobilize the media to drop any pretense of common humanity and dehumanize the “other.” Then apply machetes liberally.

What’s going on in the city? If you want to tell the story you must first understand the parameters of acceptable discourse. It would be unacceptable to talk about agricultural changes in the rural south, northern migration to Rochester and discriminatory hiring practices at Kodak and other corporations. You’d also have to forget about talking about redlining, predatory lending, housing and mortgage discrimination. Don’t try to understand the forces of blocked aspirations, alienation and self-destruction. Instead, you’d have to just focus on the individuals involved.

And what conclusion could you draw? Well the problem would have to dwell somewhere inside the individuals. Or in their families. That would be the acceptable parameters of discussion.

I didn’t know Antwan or Tamar. But I can guess where the conversation is going to in the next few weeks. And just in time for the City Budget hearings on Zero Tolerance.

The folks posting on the D&C blog will continue to post from their suburban living rooms. Maybe they are safe there. Maybe not.