Bowling for Columbine Page #8

It seemed the ultimate urban nightmare.

What I love about this country of mine

is that whether you're a psychotic killer

or running for President of the United States,

the one thing you can always count on

is white America's fear of the black man.

We've heard the stories

on the news and in the papers,

and they have killed people.

Killer bees, also known as...

I'm scared. I'm really worried with them.

Rosemary Shibley

never expected a nest of killer bees

to shack up across the street from her.

But I'm terribly allergic to them

and so are my grandkids.

They came from southern and eastern Africa.

Dr Warwick Kerr brought some to Brazil

in 1956

and tried to mate them with the European bee -

the kind that we're used to.

But they got loose, took over and moved

to the southern United States.

The main difference between a traditional bee

and an Africanized bee is their aggressiveness.

If I was to do this to an Africanized bees' hive,

I could have several hundred stings

in a matter of minutes.

Danny Self raises the kinder, gentler

European bees, and he's done the research.

You can only distinguish them

by measuring them.

Quite frankly, the black community has become

entertainment for the rest of... the community.

Meaning what?

The entertainment being

that the crime of the day...

you know, if it bleeds, it leads...

gets to be the front story,

and then that becomes the perception

and the image of an entire people,

which couldn't be further from the truth,

in my opinion.

In fact, you'll find, I think,

most African-Americans are quite adverse

to gun possession.

In suburbia, I think there's some notion

that there's going to be

an invading horde come from either the city

or from someplace unknown

to savage their suburban community.

To me, not only is it bizarre...

"but it's totally unfounded.

And these pistols, curiously enough,

weren't being taken off of kids

in the city of Flint,

but were being taken off of kids

out in the out-county area,

in the suburban communities, and...

t didn't think that's what you were gonna say.

I thought you were gonna say that

it's all these black kids in the inner-city schools

that had these guns.

No, that's a...

We've never really had many problems

with the guns in the city.

Not to say that we haven't. We've had some,

but that's never been the biggest problem.

The biggest problem has been the gun

possession by these adolescents in suburbia.

How did you get a gun?

- I stole mine.

- Where from?

- From a friend of mine.

- Where did he get it?

- His dad owns guns.

- What were you doing with the stolen guns?

We went to Detroit to try to sett them,

cos I can get, like, a buck-fifty a pop for a 9mm.

Really? Who would you sell them to?

Anybody that would really want them.

Mostly gangs and stuff.

Gangs in the city of Detroit? Black?

- Er... predominantly.

- Yeah.

So now you're OK?

I'm free now. I'm completely clear.

You can keep selling guns?

I can't really. It's getting too risky, man.

Everybody knows me up here.

If people want guns, or drugs, or alcohol,

they come to my house,

and that's just too much.

Yeah, too much. Too much hassle.

My favorite statistic

in all the research I did

discovered that the murder rate

had gone down by 20%.

The coverage, that is, how many murders

are on the evening news,

it went up by 600%.

The American people are conditioned

by network TV, by local news,

to believe that their communities are

much more dangerous than they actually are.

For example, here in this community,

crime has decreased every year

for the past eight years,

yet gun ownership, particularly

handgun ownership, is on the increase.

Crime rates

have been dropping, dropping, dropping.

Fear of crime has been going up, up, up.

How can that be possible?

It doesn't make any sense.

But it makes perfect sense when you see

what we're hearing from politicians

and seeing in the news media.

So we're er... we're right here

on the corner of Florence and Normandie.

This was kinda ground zero for the LA riots.

Right.

You know, if a couple of white guys

go down and walk around South Central,

they're gonna get killed,

which is a common perception.

The odds that something's going to happen

to us are really, really slight. Minuscule.

Right. OK.

But, you know, if you look up there,

you get a different symbol

of the Hollywood sign.

It means something very different

than the corner of Florence and Normandie

for most Americans and most of the world.

It means glamor, except that we can't see it.

I can't see the Hollywood sign. Where is it?

Right. You can't see it because of something

probably much more dangerous for us,

which is the stuff we're breathing.

The pollution blocking the Hollywood sign,

we're breathing this,

and that's far more dangerous than all the other

stuff the media's telling us to be afraid of.

As we left the comer

of Florence and Normandie,

I noticed that a number of helicopters

had appeared in the sky.

Within seconds,

the news media started to arrive.

- What's the story?

- I thought you'd know.

I don't know anything.

A sergeant just told me it's a guy with a gun,

but they're not sure. That's all they told me.

There's no action,

so I'm not getting the camera down.

I just saw the chopper.

We were going to another story.

- What story were you going to?

- A near-drowning.

- A drowning?

- Near-drowning.

How about the story about how you can't see

the Hollywood Hills because of the pollution?

Could you maybe do a story on that tonight?

Pollution. You probably could.

I probably could. You can't see it.

You can't see anything around here.

If you have to choose between a guy

with a gun and a baby nearly drowning,

- and you can only be in one place atone time...

- Go with the gun.

Always, go with the gun?

Is it all over here? All over?

- All over?

- Not yet. Not yet.

Just wait for these... these sergeants down here

to come down,

cos they got all the details.

OK. Hey, I was just wondering.

I just got here to LA today.

I can't see the Hollywood sign

down on the hills there, down Normandie.

- I can't see the sign cos of the pollution.

- Right.

Is there anybody you can go and, like, arrest

for polluting up the air?

Absolutely not.

- Nobody?

- No.

Why is that?

Well, why is that, Sergeant?

Oh, he's fighting him!

For over a decade,

there's been one show on American television

that has consistently brought

black and white people together

in an effort to reduce our fears

and celebrate our diversity.

Get your hand back here.

That show is Cops.

I went to see a former producer of Cops

and executive producer of

World's Wildest Police Videos, Mr Dick Herlan.

If you look "liberal" up in the dictionary,

I think my picture's in there. Yeah.

So, then, you know,

why not be compelled to do,

you know, a show that focuses on...

you know, what's causing the crime,

as opposed to just chasing the criminals down?

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