Chicago loses more black kids
than soldiers in Iraq to gun violence
Recently in Chicago, a teen
gunman boarded a crowded public bus near a high school and opened fire with a
handgun. I imagined this scene must have been similar to the bus bombings that
are so common in wartorn Iraq.
As I researched this analogy,
I found striking similarities between what is happening in black communities
across the United States and what is happening in a full-fledged war zone in
Iraq. The major difference is that far more black children are dying in Chicago
than Chicago soldiers are dying in Iraq.
At about 24 deaths a year, Chicago children are being killed 24 times the rate
that Chicago soldiers are being killed in Iraq. Statistics from Military
Genealogy Trails show that during the five-year period between September 2001
and July 2006, six soldiers from Chicago were killed in Iraq combat. In a
startling comparison, however, during an eight-year period between 1998 and
2007, 190 Chicago Public School children, mostly black, died in gun-related
incidents.
This year, the violent death toll in nine months totals 27 for Chicago's public
school students, again, mostly black youth.
Chicago is no different than any other city, because deadly violence in the
lives of black children today is a constant, overwhelming reality in America.
Unlike the massacre at Virginia Tech, where 32 people were gunned down, no
national or international outcry is voiced against the gun violence that easily
and frequently destroys black children.
Nor is there the kind of grief
counseling and support that Virginia Tech students received. It seems that the
lives of Virginia Tech students are intrinsically more valuable than the lives
of black children who live in ghettos and mostly poor communities across
America. And, sadly, the black community's reaction to the massacre of its
children can only be described as "ambivalent."
For many black children in America, the war in their schools and communities is
far more deadly than the war in Iraq. Too many black children fight with their
teachers, their parents, the authorities and each other. The actions of these
children terrorize their communities. The fighting and the violence have seeped
down into kindergarten and pre-school. Because of severe living conditions, too
many black children -- especially black males -- early on have become hardened
and calloused toward life. They are suspended more, expelled more, arrested
more, fight more and die more violent deaths than children of any other race.
In 2005, a typical year of carnage in black communities in the United States,
FBI statistics reported that 3,289 black people were killed -- which included
hundreds of school-aged children -- and most were killed by gunfire.
All of this adds up to a kind of wartime mentality that directs black children
away from education, playing and learning and, instead, toward violence,
aggression and death. Their lives of constant exposure to killing make these
children unafraid of death. Many black children cannot imagine themselves alive
in the future.
The shame of America is that there is no organized outcry against this violence
that is consuming black children. In fact, the media, the faith community, our
government, the black leadership and even the black community itself have not
given the kind of attention the violence against black children demands.
"SHAME ON OUR LEADERSHIP!!"
Many of us who are working to help solve this problem are centered on the
symptoms instead of the solutions that get to the root cause. We must have
solutions that are structured, comprehensive, institutional, long-term and
effective.
Although the most powerful immediate role must be played by parents, families
and communities, those who must help solve this problem also include the
church, the police, the schools, the courts, elected officials, social workers,
foundations, the business community and, most importantly, black men
themselves.
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Three points must be covered
to fix this problem:
1.Rebuild the black family.
Every major problem in the black community, including poor education, massive
unemployment, hyper-incarceration, high mortality rates and senseless violence,
can be traced to the disintegration of the black family.
2.Provide black boys with
strong, positive black men as mentors, role models and, particularly, a
connection to their fathers. Black boys, like any other children, will become
what they see.
3.Control the negative peer
culture and
electronic media that mold some black boys and men into violent,
irresponsible, uncaring human beings. This is the way, and the only way, to fix
this problem.
Without a solution, makeshift
memorials of teddy bears and "RIP" balloons will keep springing up
across America's graveyards as we continue to plant black children like
flowers. And the rest of the world will continue to see America for the
hypocrite that it is because it advocates human rights for every other country
while it does nothing about the "silent genocide" of black children
here at home. Shame on America!
[So that] the man
[that is] tender among you, and very delicate, his eye shall be evil toward
his brother, and toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the remnant of his
children which he shall leave:
|
Thou shalt not
avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou
shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I [am] the LORD.
|
And thou shalt love
the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy
mind, and with all thy strength: this [is] the first commandment.
|
And the second [is]
like, [namely] this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none
other commandment greater than these.
|
Isaiah 28:15
Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves:
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