Gun violence in SF: The cultural context

From the SF Chronicle online, Cinnamon Stillwell writes:

"To read a newspaper or watch TV these days, one would think that all of black America was represented by Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Louis Farrakhan. Meanwhile, the true intellectual giants of the black community are rarely heard from. Such great minds as Shelby Steele, Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Star Parker, Niger Innis, La Shawn Barber and John McWhorter largely languish on the sidelines of public attention, while conservative black activists such as the Rev. Jessie Lee Patterson and Ted Hayes suffer the same fate. 

It is only on the Internet that conservative black journalists, bloggers and organizations seem to be flourishing. But with mainstream black figures such as Juan Williams and Bill Cosby basically echoing the same solutions to the challenges facing the black community, perhaps that will begin to change. Indeed, Cosby and Williams may very well represent the coming moderate consensus. Neither is an ideologue: They would simply like to see the African American community return to its roots in excellence, achievement, family and faith."