Anna Sowers is the wife of Zach Sowers, the Baltimore man who was beaten nearly to death and robbed last June. He remains in a coma; his prognosis, Anna Sowers said, remains bleak.
"We're still hoping for that miracle" of his recovery, Sowers told me yesterday.
Here's something else Sowers is hoping for that falls into the category of a miracle: getting a couple of dozen black leaders in this city to publicly condemn the "stop snitching" virus sweeping Baltimore and the nation.
"We had an idea to identify 25 black Baltimore leaders in politics, business, sports, entertainment, etc. to collectively stand up and publicly condemn the stop snitching culture," Sowers said in an e-mail sent Jan. 24.
A week later, nearly 100 people gathered at New Life United Methodist Church to hear several black panelists discuss this stop-snitching foolishness. Sowers said that Rev. Heber Brown III, vice president of the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance, invited her to attend, but she wasn't able to make it.
Perhaps that's just as well. What those in attendance heard Thursday was something that fell several light-years short of a public condemnation.
According to an article in The Sun written by reporter Brent Jones, Tyrone Powers - college professor, activist and absolutely Gov. Martin O'Malley's favorite radio show host - "told about 75 people ... that drug dealers and murderers should not be singled out, and that there needs to be whistleblowers in all walks of life, willing to expose politicians, police officers and clergy."
Quoting Powers directly, Jones reported that he said: "In this town, nobody tells on anybody else. If we're going to address the `stop snitching' thing, let's get it all out there. Let's not demonize a certain group of people."
"I don't agree with that," Anna Sowers told me yesterday, about whether critics of the stop-snitching culture are "demonizing" young black men involved in a life of crime. And she's got good reason. Young black men involved in Baltimore's criminal life have already demonized themselves more adeptly and completely than any of us ever could. Let's look at a few examples.
Darrell Brooks poured gasoline into the home of the Dawson family in October of 2002 and set a fire that killed seven people. Angela and Carnell Dawson had called police about drug dealing in their neighborhood. Drug dealers called them "snitches."
