Eternity Gaddy, Terrence Jones and Nequiel Fowler: "Tying Her Sister's Shoe"

I was on the Chicago Tribune site yesterday looking up additional information on an ongoing protest involving Chicago school children riding buses to a nearby suburban school district to protest inequities in school funding when I saw this photo of an adorable little Black girl along with this headline "Tying Her Sister's Shoe".

It was the story of 10-year-old Nequiel Fowler. Apparently she was shot as she was bending down to tie the shoe of her blind 5-year-old sister. Valarie. Watch the video.

You may not have hear about Nequiel's story because she's a little Black girl and their violent, senseless deaths don't make national news. Unlike the equally tragic story of Caylee Anthony.

For those of you who have managed to miss the Caylee Anthony story, I have heard about it on television, on the front page of all of the major news websites. I have even heard the Caylee story being discussed on both local and national radio. Now maybe Caylee's story is gaining more attention because the circumstances surrounding her disappearance are soap opera-esq. But it is yet another example of two little girls, one black and one white, who are killed or go missing at the same time yet receive vastly different coverage in the national media. Police are continuing to search for Nequiel's killers.

Is it that we expect the Nequiel Fowler's of the word to die by stray bullets? Three children in the Chicago area were killed over the labor Day weekend. Nequiel Fowler -10, Eternity Gaddy- 13, Terrance Jones-16.

Eternity Gaddy

Eternity and others were standing outside her great-aunt's home in the 3400 block of West Potomac Avenue, men yelling gang slogans emerged from a nearby alley and started shooting, police said. Chicago Tribune

Terrence Jones

He cared for his 60-year-old diabetic and arthritic mother, helping to manage her medications. Jones was her favorite "from the time she looked at him," Pious said. Chicago Tribune

Three children under the age of 16 mowed down in a three-day-period. The irony is that I would not have known these three souls had left the earth if I hadn't stumbled across them while looking for something else. Yet CNN's front page made space to tell us about 800 dogs jumping into a pool. I wonder if they were pitt bulls?

If three pit bulls had been shot dead in Chicago this weekend, I got money that says THAT would have made national news.

Previous Posts:

Why Aren't the Lives of Black Women Treasured?

Maybe Black Women Should Come Back as Pitt Bulls in Our Next Lives

Comments

[Yme]

I'm sick of our children dying unnecessarily. I'm sick of us coddling and making excuses for their killers. I'm sick of our leaders ignoring our anguish. In this moment, I think no politician should get a pass. We have a right to expect safe streets, good schools, and everything else normal families expect.

[Revvy Rev]

It appears that we have bartered dialogue on race as well as issues relating to the African American community, and our own Black spiritual heritage in exchange for a false sense of economic security and political inclusion. What has the community really gained if it does not at least have enough power to acknowledge our struggles as well as our triumphs? We are not allowed to talk about race. We can't talk about poverty. We won't talk about the hypocrisy and double standards that we obviously see. We continue to suffer and die because we are afraid of offending someone or that it will cost us political capital. The things that are happening to our children along with our refusal to advocate and educate them is an abomination. Children cannot speak for themselves, but grown-ups and leaders MUST!

[gem2001]

I don't know so much that wee need them to speak, but to act.

Apparently Chicago has a serious gun violence problem and something is going on in that city in particular. Maybe drive bys are still happening, but I don't remember hearing about thie reckless abandon with gang members running around on foot shooting folks. Especially little kids. two little girls and one teenage boy.

I don't see your point Revvy Rev. Is one post flowing into the other. What does this have to do with what is happening in Chicago.

[gem2001]

Is this about race or is it about poverty or is it about class? I never hear about this happening in poor rural areas. Although we have the occasional school shooting. And is part of the problem the fact that we've accepted this behavior as normal or just the way things are?

[Revvy Rev]

Yes, I am thinking about Dr. West's and Malveaux's earlier comments as well as venting a little and I tend to get incoherent. However, young black lives are being lost all over the nation in a similar manner to Chicago. The cemeteries and prisons are full of black youth. The sociologists can explain if it is the result of internalized oppression, the loss of values, sense of purpose, and personal responsibility - or all of the above. However, you are right - this goes by without comment while the loss of young white lives brings a collective outrage. As a result, social policy is enacted that responds to the outcry of what happens to others while what is happening to us is taken out of the national dialogue for fear of losing an election.

[2Unruly]

Now Gina, you know the status dogs carry in this country. You can't be surprised a human interest...I mean, animal interest story made headlines. Can you? I guess we don't make enough demands, if any, for the news corps to change how/what they report about us.

If we don't force their hands I don't see anything changing anytime soon.

[gem2001]

You made me go back and edit my post to say that if three pitt bulls had been gunned down over a three day period in Chicago, THAT would have made national news.

[La Belle Femme]

I never knew there was an ongoing protest about school funding in Chicago. This is what I call organizing on a grassroot level and not waiting for "higher up's" to listen.

As for black youth dying, I just can't explain it. White kids die too but there is more outrage. I think some people in the black community have accepted our youth dying as just a part of life. I think some in the black community have an utter disregard for life and I don't know if it's rooted in the culture of poverty or as Revvy Rev said, internalized oppression and loss of values. This is just so sad and there is no reason for youth to die this young.

[Naima]

Obama needs the "hood" to come out and vote for him and at the same time he isn't speaking to them at all in his speeches. The fact that he came from Chicago and just is ignoring the issue is just- I don't know. Are these the only circumstances that a black person can be president?
I think he is going to have to do more than play that emotional card that he can play with working class or middle class blacks.

[gem2001]

@labelle,

that might be it. We don't value our own lives. The criminals know this. They wouldn't dare go on the white side or the more affluent side of town and start waving around a gun and firing indiscriminately.

[cinco]

I think so many of us just don't care enough to do or say anything, unless its someone we know or are related to- then you may see short lived protests, etc. I don't know where the answers lie, but I guess a start is within your own home/family, block, and community doing what you can to break the cycles. Anything more may appear overwhelming and ungratifying.

Btw-did anyone catch the news in New Orleans- based on what happened previously- that laws have been changed to say that animals must be rescued, to I guess prevent ridiculous pet owners from trying to save their pets (as opposed to leaving)- those animals were set up- better than some humans in impoverished areas!

[Do Write]

"They wouldn’t dare go on the white side or the more affluent side of town and start waving around a gun and firing indiscriminately."

From the Chicago Sun-Times July 5, 2008:

Before Thursday night's dazzling fireworks display downtown,
Chicago's Olympic committee aired a promotional video urging
Chicagoans to support the city's Olympic bid.

Hours later, three people were shot, one fatally, as hundreds of thousands of people streamed out of Grant Park after the fireworks and the Taste of Chicago.

This is the third time in the last four years that gun violence has erupted at or near the Taste.

With the world's eyes on Chicago as a finalist for the 2016 Games, Chicago Police held a press conference Friday to make clear the city can prevent violence at heavily attended events.

"I assure you we will do everything we can to keep this place safe for our visitors and our friends," Police Supt. Jody Weis said. "The safety at the Taste is undisputed."

Weis also stressed that the shootings happened a mile away from the Taste, not on the park grounds, which "was our focus."

But police sources said there was an undeniable gang presence at the annual food fest Thursday. Many gang members openly flashed gang signs. The problem has grown worse in recent years, the source said.

[MacDaddy]

Gina: I used to work with gangs and still talk to a few guys who used to be in gangs and who now spend time trying to keep their kids and relatives out of them. I recently spoke with several from Chicago, and they told me that gangs used to be bigger and controlled by adults from gang families. Now, they're more like neighborhood gangs with younger leadership, which is more violent, more reckless, quicker to shoot, no matter how many people are around.

They don't go back to Chicago anymore.

[Spinster]

What a shame that this segment of the population (black and brown girls) is so ignored that I didn't hear about this. Ridiculous.

Wishing solace and comfort to those children who died this past weekend - girls and boys alike.

[Mark S. Allen]

Special Public Service Announcement
UPDATE !!

More Churches Follow the lead of Bishop Jordan, Rev. Crider and Father Pfleger in Leading Special Sunday Fundraiser To Save
CeaseFire Program in Roseland; Also Prayer Vigil and March Set for Friday, September 5th, at 5:00 PM on 109th & Loomis (2 blocks from Roseland Ceasefire Office) in honor of Terrance Jones, teenager shot and killed in gang crossfire

CeaseFire Sunday Scheduled For Sunday, September 7th

Contact Mark S. Allen @773-392-0165 or Roseland Ceasefire Director
Bob Jackson at 773-895-7991


Religious leaders across Chicago and in the Roseland area in particular are being asked to please use this Sundays September 7th church services to support Ceasefire Sunday, The Roseland Ceasefire Project's fundraising campaign to keep their doors open while they await new funding to be finalized. Roseland Ceasefire desperately needs the public's financial support so they can continue to aide and assist the communities of Roseland, Maple Park, Morgan Park, West Pullman, Pullman and all the other areas where they lend their support, and continue their hands on efforts to stop the violence. They have went almost $40,000 in debt while new funding sources were being identified.

Roseland Ceasefire provides hands on programming at the grassroots street level in crime prevention, intervention of retaliations and they help get kids off the street corners through job training, job development, substance abuse coaching, spirituality coaching, civic education and much much more !!

The Rev. Tyrone Crider and Father Michael Pfleger have worked and marched directly with Roseland Ceasefire and were the first two religious leaders to respond to the call for special collections and/or financial donations to help Roseland Ceasefire remain open. Other churches that have responded who will support this special fundraising effort for Ceasefire Sunday this Sunday September 7th should are Greater New Mt Eagle Baptist Church, Bellview Baptist Church, New Progressive MB Church, Greater Tabernacle, Mt. Calvary MB Church, Greater Everlasting Baptist Church, Progressive Baptist Church, Greater Pleasant Green Baptist Church, call 773-238-5599 or 773-895-7991 Roseland is just one area where these gang shootings continue to kill as with the recent killing of teenager Terrance Jones caught in gang crossfire just 2 blocks from the Roseland Ceasefire office, so Roseland CeaseFire deserves this special community fundraiser to get their workers back in the streets providing full time prevention and intervention.

[Dominique]

Yall might have not knew of Nequiel a.k.a Ne-Ne but wat i can say about her was that she was a loving young girl who always had respect of her elders and i am a friend of the family i would miss the times when she use to come over her grandmother Anette house on warren and tell us about what goes on in her life i might have not known her like that but the times that i did share with her will be remember we will allways miss u NEE-NEE