ATLANTA -- The topic of race here in America continues to trend throughout social media, households, churches, barbershops.
Local, state and federal government agencies are now evaluating their own tactics and the way they interact with communities after the shooting deaths of unarmed men and boys across the country.
But just how much of that responsibility lies on the community, or should law enforcement take the blame?
11Alive's DeMarco Morgan talked Henry Kelly, the president of the Atlanta chapter of 100 Black Men about what they are doing to figure it out.
"I don't think there's a quick fix, Kelly said. "Quite honestly, we're dealing with human dynamics and as I said, we all come from some level of bias and so therefore this is an issue I think we need to raise to a very high level of focus…We also need to focus on the level of violence in communities in general."
The local chapter has been charged since its very existence with mentoring inner city youth in at-risk environments. Their challenge is now even greater some five decades later.
"One of the things that we do is work with students. We have students in 9th grade through 12th grade and we have students in college as well," Kelly said. "We have conversations with them, talking about what can we do when we're confronted with a situation with law enforcement."
When asked how much of the responsibility lies on the minority community, Kelly responded, "We have a lot of black-on-black crime. We have a lot of situations where people are perpetrating on those who are less able to defend themselves like bullying for example. We need -- as a community -- to take this as a serious issue that we all come together and tried to find solutions.
"There's accountability on both sides," Kelly added. "There's a level of respect that officers should receive based on his role in that community. That is to enforce the laws of that particular area, but also there's another aspect where there should be mutual respect provided by the officer to the community that he is serving."
To help improve conditions in our community, the Atlanta chapter of 100 Black Men will introduce 35 new members on Tuesday, including the head of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, MARTA, Hollywood heavy weight Will Packer and 11Alive's DeMarco Morgan.
