Answering President Joe Biden (D)'s prayers, the jury delivered the "right verdict," finding Derek Chauvin guilty on all counts in the death of petty thief and substance-abuser George Floyd.  And thus most of the U.S. was apparently spared the mostly peaceful riots accompanied by looting and destruction that followed Floyd's unfortunate demise.  But the daily routine of murder and crime that particularly affects Black and Hispanic neighborhoods continues without protest.

For instance, in Chicago, as some Americans still shed their crocodile tears over the death of 13-year-old gangbanger in training Adam Toledo, who ditched his loaded gun a split second before being shot  by a policeman as he was running down an alley, his full-fledged violent gangbanger mentor, 21-year-old Ruben Roman, was freed on bail offered by a "charitable community bond fund." 

While CCBF's publicity materials say it posts bond for people who "cannot afford to pay the bonds themselves and who have been impacted by structural violence," court records show the group does not shy away from winning release for people who are accused of violent crimes. 

A leader at the bond fund told CBSChicago yesterday, "We often prioritize cases that are connected to social justice movements – especially the movement to end police violence."

Although at the time of his death Toledo had been away from his home for a few days without his mother knowing — or seemingly caring about — his whereabouts, she had made no police report, so apparently his disappearances were common.  And acceptable.  And so she may not be able to profit from his death by suing the city.

And the bond fund's leader concept of "social justice" against "structural violence" does not extend to innocents killed or wounded, presumably by other Hispanics,  as there have been no community protests  mourning the death of a 17-year-old Hispanic girl, for example, who died after being shot in the early evening while a passenger in a car about a mile from where Toledo and Roman had been firing their guns a few days earlier.  As the police couldn't be blamed and the shooter was probably another Hispanic, community "activists" remained silent, their professional victim of racism narrative inoperative.

The same situation is true in Chicago's predominantly black neighborhoods.  As this crime site so graphically illustrates, the city's shootings disproportionately occur in Black neighborhoods with Black victims shot and killed by...no, not the police, but by other black shooters.  And except for a particularly unusual case, as when a 7-year-old little girl is shot and killed in a car driven by her 29-year-old father while in a McDonald's drive-thru, perhaps in a gang-involved murder directed at the father — so very common in Chicago — there is no widespread protest, only a small vigil.  Again, the victim of racism or police violence narrative was nonexistent.

But that is so not newsworthy.  Even Reverend Jesse Jackson doesn't dare speak against his neighbors about their criminal behavior; he escaped instead to Minnesota to desperately gain some publicity while remaining silent on the daily deadly plight of his community. 

As for the police, they understandably become cynical, understandably wary of extending themselves for fear of being accused of "violence."  And so the overwhelmingly decent people in these neighborhoods continue to suffer from violence.  That's the real neighborhood narrative for many.

Photo credit: Scott Davidson CC BY 2.0 license.

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