To stop gun violence, US has to end poverty, racism: WP

NEW YORK - Decades of chronic disinvestment and systemic racism have resulted in endemic gun violence, and to stop gun violence, the United States has to fight systemic injustice like racism, inequality and poverty, reported The Washington Post (WP) on Tuesday.

"Millions of whites, Hispanics, Asians and others grew up in grinding poverty in America, often facing discrimination, and didn't feel the need to knock over a 7-11, jack a car or deal drugs on the corner," said the report.

"This is a First World country that promises opportunity for all. And yet, within its own boundaries, what is happening is so unbelievably unjust, unfair and so traumatic that it has really impacted how people are able to cope and even who they see as the enemy," the report quoted Erica Ahdoot, executive director of Horton's Kids, a Washington, D.C. nonprofit that helps kids graduate from high school and prepare for life, as saying.

No offense is necessary. Sometimes just a wrong look is enough to trigger a shooting. Such is the effect of internalized racism, and exacerbated by crowding poor Black people into isolated economic deserts, according to Ahdoot.

To end gun violence, piecemeal approaches to the problem don't work. "We have to address the underlying issues," said Ahdoot, "do the things that people refuse to believe can be done -- end poverty, end racism, stop the injustice."