This is Beautiful

Tupac noted in one of his interviews that if you were to see a rose growing out of concrete, you would stop and admire it. He was comparing the rose to a kid from the ghetto.

Tupac’s philosophy hit me this week as I was walking one day. All I saw was trash and glass on a jacked up sidewalk in a messed up neighborhood. Then out of nowhere I saw a bright yellow caterpillar crawling across the sidewalk. I had to stop and admire. This fuzzy caterpillar to some would be considered disgusting, but I swear at that moment I saw beauty.

Here is this caterpillar pressing on against the cracks and glass of this sidewalk to make it to the other side, in order to eventually fly. Tupac had a point, there’s beauty everywhere and it has worth wherever it is.

Black Teenage Flash Mobs in Chicago

This year it seems that the new phenomena in Chicago are “Flash Mobs”. According to Chicago residents, a flash mob isn’t a group of people dancing in the street at 12:30pm in the train station but rather a group of 10-15 black teenagers beating and or stealing from a white person in Chicago’s premier neighborhoods; Gold Coast, Lakeview, the Beach, and Michigan Ave.

At first I thought that the Chicago media was going a little overboard of the few incidents of teenagers shoplifting at some Michigan Ave stores. I really did not understand the need of helicopters. I was actually concerned and anticipating the intense racial profiling that would occur as a result of these incidents. Seriously, there are other teen flash mobs of all races and classes all over the country but right now in Chicago, black teenagers are the main offenders.

My thoughts and suggestions are towards black teenagers. STOP!!!! Please STOP!!!! Do not even consider doing this again. This makes blacks in America look bad.  I come from a big black family and I don’t want to be stopped by the police because I’m with 6 other black young people. I know this is not fair to be pinpointing black teens. But if you all were white teens…racial profiling just wouldn’t happen. It’s just the way it is. All black teens would be racially profiled because of just a few.

Also, there is no reason to beat a person. You guys are acting like punks. Only 15 punks would beat up one adult. It’s not cool and it isn’t funny. Go to a museum; go to the movies, read a book preferably by Maya Angelou or Frederick Douglass. Read a speech from Dr. King. Read Twilight, or read a newspaper. Please do something creative and constructive. I know you can.

Do it for the sake of black people’s reputation in America, do it for your grandmother, do it for the fact that we have a black president. Do it because Dr. King did not fight for this. Do it for your dignity.

Chicago’s Crime Rate Down 2010!

Yay! Whoohoo! Chicago experienced a 17-percent decrease in violent crime since 2009. Hallelujah! Just coming in: West Chicago reported an overall 27 percent decrease in crime rate. This calls for a PRAISE BREAK!

I guess I don’t have to worry about stray bullets anymore when I volunteer to tutor in East Garfield Park on Tuesday evenings!

Reality Check: According to Redeye’s weekly homicide tracker, February 5^th, 2011 was Chicago’s deadliest day of the new year. There were five homicides and not surprisingly all were in predominantly black neighborhoods. My beloved East Garfield Park were among the five crime scene areas.

I think it is awesome that the crime rate has decreased. I hope this trend continues. However, it is important to realize that the problem is not fixed. The problem of crime and specifically gang violence is rooted in deeper issues. Gang violence is attached to bigger problems in American society. It is attached to racism. It is chained to unemployment.  It is confined to deteriorated neighborhoods. And it is imprisoned to nihilism.

How do you fix systematic imprisonment? Certain programs attributed to the crime rate decrease in West Chicago like National Night Out and Neighborhood Watch are great. But these programs are bandages to an ulcer.

My advice to Chicago: Keep doing what you’re doing and way much more.

The Problem with Justice

AP Photos/ Rich Pedroncelli

We demand JUSTICE! Americans have heard this slogan at some point in their lives either through media or actual experience. And most would agree that justice is good and that justice is right. Hence, the infamous U.S Justice System, right?

What is Justice? There are many definitions for the word justice. According to Dictionary.com, justice is:

• The quality of being just; righteousness, equitableness, or moral rightness
• Rightfulness or lawfulness, as of a claim or title; justness of ground or reason
• Just conduct, dealing, or treatment
• The maintenance or administration of what is just by law, as by judicial or other proceedings

Justice?

Now, I’m confused because I was expecting justice to simply mean fairness. According, to the definitions, justice is doing something morally right. So is the American Criminal Justice System morally right? Does the system conduct justly with dealing and treatment?

Black men are 6 times more likely to go to prison than white men. Is this just?

White people are five times more likely to be drug users than blacks yet blacks are 13.4 times more likely to go to prison for drug charges. Is this fair? More importantly, is this justice?

Think about it…and realize that there’s a problem with Justice in America.

My Indifference

As I look over this blog, I realize the merit and value of it. However, this blog came into being not because of my passion against gang violence but because I needed a grade A+ in my Communications course. Yes, I was interested in violence in the city of Chicago. I am still concerned with black on black crime. In fact, I want to make a career of significantly reducing it. However, I have come to the realization of my indifference.

It is evident in my quick disengagement of writing posts the day before this project was due. I stopped writing posts of homicides in black communities for almost two years yet homicides did not stop. As I stated above, it’s not that I lost interest but rather I never had passion.

I’m realizing that Concern isn’t enough. Sympathy isn’t sufficient. Interest isn’t adequate. Concern, Sympathy and Interest are good but these feelings don’t change anything. It is passion that drives action.  Thesaurus.com gives many synonyms for passion including:

• Dedication
• Devotion
• Agony
• Eagerness
• Fervor
• Indignation
• Zeal

Passion serves as a conscious conviction against wrong. In the context of this blog, wrong is gang violence, senseless child deaths, bad neighborhoods and broken homes. Passion produces enough discomfort in us to make us do something about it.

I will now write with passion because I want to see change. No longer will I write with indifference because it is useless. No more will I speak with apathy because it is hopeless. And never will I care with interest because it is worthless.

Recruiting young boys for war

AP Photo/Matt York

I have to write a reflection on the movie “Innocent Voices“. The film is about the war in El Salvador in the late 1980′s. It portrayed the system of recruiting young boys to war. This film in particular discussed the United States led Salvadoran military coup in the country. The movie made me think of the many young boys who are teared from their family either in the name of their country or the name of an unknown reason. Overall the film reminded me of countless other young boys across the world whether it is in Asia, Africa, Latin America or in gangster America… Yes young boys are taken away from many families and their lives are lost to senseless violence between two opposing forces whether if it is two countries, two coups or two gangs.

The Recruiters of America

The big gangs of the U.S.A recruit young boys as early as nine or ten years old to fight over territory and resources. I know I am making the inner cities of Chicago and Los Angeles sound like inner Africa but it is a similar circumstance. Throughout the film the main character’s mother was afraid of losing him at age twelve. How many young mothers in the United States are afraid of losing their young sons to violence? How many young mothers in the US are afraid of losing their sons to war in their own neighborhood?
How are we any different than any other country?

Chicago Public School Board President killed by his own hands

According to the Cook County’s medical examiner, Michael Scott committed suicide on Monday, November 16,2009. The office ruled Scott’s death by a single gunshot wound in his left temple. His funeral was Saturday the November, 21,2009.

It is a sad story. We will never know the exact reason why he decided to take his life, but I am sure his position over the Chicago Public schools had an effect. Yes, he probably had hectic days but he also had overwhelming sad days in which he heard yet another Chicago student killed or beaten for no reason. That is depressing…..Wouldn’t you say?

AP Photo/Stephen J. Carrera