“Not too long ago I covered crime in Oakland, Calif.,” tennessean.com crime beat journalist Natalie Neysa Alund reveals. “It wasn’t an anomaly to cover youths being killed in the city, where the streets are mean and poverty flourishes. When I took this job covering crime and breaking news in Nashville last year, I thought I’d get a break from seeing children die. I was wrong.” Like gun control advocates, Ms. Alund’s reference to “children” includes . . .
teenagers. Her opening salvo also omits the fact that the majority of these “children” killed by “gun violence” were involved with gangs (e.g.,the East Nashville Crips) who shoot rival gang bangers to protect lucrative drug territories. Here’s Ms. Alund’s solution to these Nashville’s “child” shootings . . .
My hope is that Nashville’s children are working to combat their issues by using words to solve problems instead of guns. And that parents, neighbors and religious and city leaders form a united front to help them. To teach them.
Does Ms. Alund, an alum of the “mean streets” of Oakland, really believe that Nashville’s firearms-related homicides are a Strother Martin problem (“What we’ve got here is failure to communicate”)? Can anyone — a reporter — possibly be that naive?
Yes. Yes she does and can. And here’s more proof that Ms. Alund’s perspective on “gun violence” is informed entirely by emotion.
It’s a sadness no one wants to imagine.
In my time covering the deaths of Nashville’s youths, some family of victims want to share their story in the hopes that another child doesn’t die. Others curse me, telling me to mind my own business.
There are nights I don’t sleep well.
There are days I call loved ones and cry. I feel the need to tell my mom that I love her in case something happens to me — her child.
But for the most part, I keep the gory details involving their deaths locked in a small place inside my head.
Someone might say something unkind about the amount of storage space in Ms. Alund’s head, but I couldn’t possibly comment. Suffice it to ask, who cares whether or not Ms. Alund cries at night?
This piece is labeled as “analysis” not “cry me a river.” Ms. Alund’s admission that she calls her mother in case she gets shot [hanging out with cops at crime scenes and talking to the parents of “wayward” children or their victims] makes me want to ask “What neighborhood do you live in?” Something tells me it’s not the Charlotte Pike/Oceola Ave neighborhood, for example.
Needless to say, Ms. Alund’s me-me-me perspective stems from both self-obssession and elitism. Like this:
In the end, no matter the scrutiny, the hate and the all-encompassing opinions, the death of our youth is news.
Reporters are here to let the world know about the epidemic of lethal violence involving our children.
If we don’t report the killings, the masses won’t know. And if the masses don’t know, nothing will change.
And right now change involving Nashville’s youth is crucial.
Yes, those great unwashed, otherwise ignorant masses yearning to be free from all those horrible guns that keep killing children. Alternatively, there are those who yearn to be safe from all those horrible “children” who keep killing each other and innocent bystanders when they use bullets instead of their words. Or something like that.