Gun-Related Violence Silences Traditions

Recently, the 27th annual Cambridge Carnival, which celebrates Afro-Caribbean culture and identity, was called off after a string of gun violence near the Boston Caribbean Carnival Parade in August, and after Cambridge Police Department received intelligence that the festival was under possible threat of gun violence. This news also comes five years after a deadly shooting at a 2014 Caribbean festival in Dorchester where an innocent bystander was shot and killed.

The Cambridge Carnival offers a lively celebration of the culture and traditions of Cambridge’s Afro-Caribbean community. It is both an important event for that community and its sense of identity, as well as an important way for it to represent itself to the greater Boston area. We are saddened to see such a lively cultural celebration shut down due to recent acts of gun-related violence in the Boston area.

We recognize the necessity of canceling the event for the sake of the safety of festival goers. Certainly, violence should be avoided at all costs. But we grow ever more conscious of the degree to which gun violence not only threatens the physical safety of our communities, but also their proud expression of identity.

Time and time again, cities and towns across the country have felt the need to succumb to the fear of gun violence. With the rise of gun violence in neighborhoods and school districts across our country, it’s become commonplace to fear such heinous acts which only keep citizens from expressing their cultures, traditions, and heritage. We urge members of the greater Boston area to stand up against the culture of gun violence in their own neighborhoods and to stand up for their respective cultures and identities.

While the carnival could not be held on its originally scheduled date, we hope that festival organizers and CPD officials work together to ensure that the celebration will eventually take place this year, in an environment where Afro-Caribbean Cambridge residents can feel safe to express their identity. Going forward, we hope that citizens of Cambridge’s many diverse neighborhoods do not have to give in to a fear of gun violence, and change plans and traditions due to threats of weapons and conflicts.

We also caution government leaders not to give in to fear tactics that may be created in the spirit of hate and cultural repression. Our city cannot shut down in the face of threats; it has to find ways of protecting itself and its traditions. How tragic would it have been if the Boston Marathon had never been raced again? How tragic would it be if the Afro-Caribbean Carnival ceased to exist?

We remain outraged by the gun violence that has become a defining feature of American society. It is not just acts of terror that silence voices. It is often the violence seeping out of our own nation that stifles celebrations of American identity in all its many shapes and forms.

This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.