As I mentioned last week, there was no happy ending to the Ferguson story – i.e. a young man is dead, and a good police officer has now resigned.  

Where is the happy ending here?  I don't see one!

My question is this: can we finally have a serious conversation about the African-American communities that give us young men like Michael Brown?  We learned about Michael Brown because he was shot by a white officer.  What about the others shot every week from coast to coast?

Can we have that conversation without being accused of being "racist"?

Can we have this discussion and listen to African-Americans like Jason Riley?

According to the FBI, homicide is the leading cause of death among young black men, who are 10 times more likely than their white counterparts to be murdered. And while you’d never know it watching MSNBC, the police are not to blame.

Blacks are just 13% of the population but responsible for a majority of all murders in the U.S., and more than 90% of black murder victims are killed by other blacks.

Liberals like to point out that most whites are killed by other whites, too.

That’s true but beside the point given that the white crime rate is so much lower than the black rate.   

Blacks commit violent crimes at 7 to 10 times the rate that whites do.

The fact that their victims tend to be of the same race suggests that young black men in the ghetto live in danger of being shot by each other, not cops.

Nor is this a function of “over-policing” certain neighborhoods to juice black arrest rates.

Research has long shown that the rate at which blacks are arrested is nearly identical to the rate at which crime victims identify blacks as their assailants.

The police are in these communities because that’s where the emergency calls originate, and they spend much of their time trying to stop residents of the same race from harming one another.

As the father of three sons, I ask this: why was Michael Brown stealing cigars? or pushing a store owner around?  Was his father aware that Michael was out stealing that night?  Why wasn't he looking for his son that night?  Where was Michael's father, anyway?

Where are the fathers, grandfathers, uncles, or older brothers who teach young men how to be a serious man?  There weren't any such men in Michael Brown's life.  Sadly, such is the case for so many African-American young men.

The left, and many of their friends in the media, love the "white kills black" stories, infrequent as they may be, as Andrew McCarthy wrote. 

At the same time, they avoid the "black kills black" stories, and they avoid any discussion of the absence of fathers and responsibility in these communities.  I guess that it's easier to play the race card than to dwell into the root causes of why a young man was out stealing cigars rather than at home with his parents.

It's time for an honest conversation not what we've seen in Ferguson so far.

P.S. You can hear CANTO TALK here & follow me on Twitter @ scantojr.