FROM MY BROWN EYED VIEW 11/02/03

While everyone is running around in panic over H1N1, I find myself far more concerned about a disease that may end up killing more people than the flu ever will. That disease is apathy.

According to Dictionary.com the definition for apathy is:
Lack of interest or concern, especially regarding matters of general importance or appeal; indifference.
Lack of emotion or feeling; impassiveness.

It seems to me that there is a major epidemic of apathy in the Black communities of this nation. I realized today that it definitely has hit hard in Cleveland, Ohio.
There was a story posted on Black and Missing But Not Forgotten that really got me stirred up this morning. Six women in a Cleveland community were found dead in a man's home. They had been raped, murdered and their bodies were decomposing inside of the house. This story by itself is gruesome and it has made headlines all across the O-State. I sat and watched the news story unfold on the evening news and all the updates that have followed.

What got the better of me is the responses of the residents where the bodies were found. "One of my neighbors has been missing since May, and now I wonder if she was in there," said Teresa Brown, 54, an usher at the nearby Perfect Peace Baptist Church. "If I'd done something, called someone, would it have made a difference?"

"The stench of decay was overwhelming," said Lt. Thomas Stacho, spokesman for the police department. "The closest I got was 15 feet from an open door, and it was more than bad enough. I can't figure out how the neighbors didn't know something was wrong."

They did.For months, they said, they gagged whenever they walked past the wood-framed house, with its listing porch and neatly mowed lawn. Some recalled that Sowell's clothing smelled bad enough to make their eyes water."He came into my store last week and reeked so bad, I had to open the front and back doors," said Eli Tayeh, who owns the Amira Imperial Beverage convenience store across the street. "I asked why he stunk. He shrugged, bought his beer and walked out."

Neighbors blamed the smell on mundane causes: body odor, the garbage bins Sowell picked through for scrap metal, the raw meat next door at Ray's Sausage Shop.No one called the authorities. No one, they said, even thought to do so. After all, in Cleveland these days, help can be hard to find.

"We kept away from him and he kept away from us," said Pierceton, 26, who lives in the predominantly black area. "We should have said something to someone. I wish I had." (source)

There are six families who will eventually wish that someone had called the police too. I find it difficult to imagine that type of stench did not disturb neighbors enough to contact the police or at the very least the Health Department. I know that Cleveland is going through tough economic times and the entire O-State is feeling the budget crunch. But no one seemed to feel motivated enough to find the source of the odor. All of the women who were murdered by Anthony Sowell were Black. Six women come up missing and no one thought to even have him checked out. Why not? This is a question that they will have to answer while learning to adjust to the reality of what has happened in their neighborhood.

There isn't a vaccine to help prevent apathy from spreading. Nor is there a pill that anyone can take that will shake them loose from its grip. If we are not willing to take responsibility and do the right thing for ourselves and the people who live in our communities-who should we blame for end results like this one?

I hope that this lesson is one that everybody takes note of. If just one person takes the initiative to do what their first mind says-this type of tragedy might be averted. We are the ones who have to take care of ourselves.

Please take time to look at the posts on Black and Missing But Not Forgotten. There are still individuals who are not accounted for. You never know-you might see someone that you have information about.