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Violence: Blacksburg to Richmond
"About the same number of people that were killed in the university shooting get shot here almost every month."
By Ayesha Walker
April 22, 2007
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In the aftermath of the V Tech shooting, Youth Radio's Ayesha Walker reflects on violence in her own city...Richmond. Ayesha says while the mass shooting of 33 people shocked the nation, no one is shocked when young people die from gun violence in her neighborhood.
As I see channel after channel chronicle the devastating incident at Virginia Tech, I think of the ongoing devastation in my own city...Richmond, California.
About the same number of people that were killed in the university shooting get shot here almost every month. But you probably wouldn't know about it unless you lived here.
This isn't Point Richmond, where bike trails surround parks near the San Francisco Bay; or Hilltop Richmond, where fast food restaurants have restroom floors that look spit shined. I live on the grimy, gutter, flat land; the Southside of "da Rich", where you can't even rub your bare feet in the sand because there's a chance you might step on a used crack needle.
As I've grown up in Richmond, little has changed. People get shot almost everyday here and now, even when it's someone in my family, I'm not surprised. The shootings at Virginia Tech are heartbreaking. Here, our tragedy is so embedded in the city that it doesn't make the headlines. It's just what we're known for.
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