This past week, the 100th person was murdered in the city of Philadelphia in 2007. Numerous writers made note of the “milestone”. But it seemed that most of them did what I think a lot of people are doing with this problem: find someone to blame. Several writers claimed that using the term “Killadelphia” would wake people up at City Hall, as if we could turn this thing around if the Mayor just came up with a committee of people in suits and ties sitting around a table. I’m not completely belittling their efforts, because I think that it’s important that we keep the heat on City Hall to come up with ideas to deal with the problem. But there is only one group of people in Philadelphia who can really make an impact on the murder rate, and that is the citizenry. As long as we lob grenades at easy targets, nothing will get accomplished. If you want to lower the murder rate in Philadelphia, then it’s up to YOU to do it. Not Mayor Street, not Sylvester Johnson, not the local media. YOU. You have the power to make a MAJOR IMPACT on the future of this city. Now do it.
MAKE A DIFFERENCE.
