What in Hades is Going on in Chicago?? Twice As Many Shot Dead in Chi-Town as in Iraq

I always had this view of Chicago as a friendlier, prettier version on New York City, but all year there has been nothing but disturbing news coming out of that city about gun violence.

School children have been ditching class to promote the career of a state senator... I mean protest a poor public school education system ....this week and you can see the end result of a poor education in this RIDICULOUS statistic about gun violence in Chicago:

An estimated 123 people were shot and killed over the summer. That's nearly double the number of soldiers killed in Iraq over the same time period.

In May, cbs2chicago.com began tracking city shootings and posting them on Google maps. Information compiled from our reporters, wire service reports and the Chicago Police Major Incidents log indicated that 123 people were shot and killed throughout the city between the start of Memorial Day weekend on May 26, and the end of Labor Day on Sept. 1.

According to the Defense Department, 65 soldiers were killed in combat in Iraq. About the same number were killed in Afghanistan over that same period.

In the same time period, an estimated 245 people were shot and wounded in the city. CBS 2 Chicago

Chi-town WHAT is going on with your city?

Comments

[BlackAchievement]

Have we forgotten our history? Truthfully, Dr. MLK, Jr.’s rise to prominence on an international scale was not the Montgomery bus boycott. The truth is MLK was simply a figurehead and Rev. E.D. Nixon was the seasoned veteran that lead the boycott. Also, Dr. MLK, Jr. was absent in Selma on Bloody Sunday. Nonetheless, Dr. MLK, Jr.'s greatest accomplishment was Birmingham. In case you did not know, the majority of Birmingham's Black citizens were not down with MLK, including well-to-do colored folks. The Easter Sunday shopping season boycott was an abject failure from the beginning because Bull Connor had locked up all the poor SCLC members, including Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, a great figure in his own rite. In order to save face and to save the Civil Rights movements the now disgraced Rev. James Bevel, whom Dr. King called the mad man of the movement, told Dr. King the following: Boss we have no more protestors they have all been scared away, but I have been working with these young people (middle and high school students--although Brown v. Board was a decade old, Jim Crow rein) who are willing and ready to get involve in our movement. Dr. MLK, sensing the dire situation, “reluctantly agreed.” Gina the rest as they say is history. Dr. MLK published Letter from a Birmingham Jail received international recognition. LBJ put forth and later signed the Civil Rights Bill of 1964. Dr. King would the following year win the 1964 Nobel Prize for Peace. And yes Dr. King moved on from Birmingham. Now the children who were tortured by the state of Alabama as a tableaux of disgusting photos ran through the NY Times, Washington Post, LA Times, etc, what did they get out of the deal? After, Birmingham of 1963 white children were still precious and black children despised. This is well documented, but I don’t like promoting books on other people’s blogs.

Remember Little Rocks’s Central High School in September 1957, those kids were pawns too. Young Elizabeth Eckford did not even get a courtesy visit from the organizers to let her know the logistic of the planned first day of school. Young Elizabeth goes to school ALONE and is spat upon, shouted at by white women (who were the primary antagonist for school integration) with the most vile things a teenage should never have to hear. To this day that moment in our history has had a deleterious effect on Mrs. Eckford. Our history is replete with children being used as pawns. Truthfully, many have lost their lives and we as a community and nation care not.

Now to Rev. Meeks, a pastor of a megachurch, and his ill-conceived boycott with absolutely no follow through or much thought should not be criticized for getting children involved in issues that greatly impact them. Violence on the west/southside Chi and woeful academic achievement in the west/soutside Chi has always been the norm, not the exception. The problems will continue until we confront us and stop allowing “foolishness” to set the tone in our community. Rev. Meeks is a very charismatic man at Salem Baptist church with ooooogles of members, well heeled by the way. Start a damn school!!! Hell as a matter of fact start a university! Why is it only white charismatic Christian pastors who can start universities (e.g., Oral Roberts, Bob Jones, Jerry Farewell’s Liberty, Pat Robertson’s Reagents, Jimmy Swagert, Tom Monahan, pizza man turned Christian town builder).

Gina, I have noticed the changes you have done with your blog please keep up the good work.

[gem2001]

Thank you BlackAchievement! I appreciate your perspective. We might as well make you a cohost of the Black Women's Roundtable. HAHAHA!

[Womenfolktalk]

What about the Washington, DC metro area? Just the other day, an African American 8 month baby was shot to death in Prince George's County, Maryland while strapped to his car seat. The twenty something year old father may have been the target. The father was shot in the chest area and from understanding remains in stable condition. The killing was so bad that affected the police officers because the baby was shot in the head! You may not have heard it because it was reported locally here in DC including the Wash Post. But there was No national converage.

For more information, click on this link http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/04/AR2008090401521.html?hpid=moreheadlines.

[Jennifer]

I'm from Chicago, IL and what is going on here is probably true for many, if not, all large metropolitan cities. If it isn't yet true for all big cities now, if whoever is in the Oval Office in Jan 2009 don't try to address this economical issue, every major city and even rural places will be just like Chicago.

This current economy has only managed to magnify the pathologies in our community. Gangs have always existed in our communities, but the problem has gotten worse with homes being vacant due to foreclosure. In Chicago specifically, our state has a nasty deficit, which has caused the mayor of the city to cut a lot out of the budget. Now, Chicago Police officers, city workers, Firefighters, Emergency Medical First Responders, schools, and basically everyone working for the city faces budget cuts.

Our communities have always had teen parents, etc. However, now these kids can't find employment in this economy, and it is extremely hard to get assistance in our state now because too many people are already on it with even more trying to get on it.

Our public schools in Chicago are a mess. Basically CPS has become a place for babysitting kids and feeding them. I can't even begin to expound upon why this is in this reply.

[KCW]

BlackAchievement--Rev. Sen. Meeks has actually started a school. And his boycott was far from unplanned and ineffective. It was years in the making and notwithstanding the critics, many admire the stance that he has taken. One of the primary themes of his senate term has been to improve the funding of poor schools in the state of Illinois. (I won't explain the funding formula in this post, but you can locate it on the net.) Through what amounted to a 2 day boycott, he brought much needed attention to the issue of woefully inadequate school funding by the Illinois legislature, that everyone has talked about year after year with no action. Now the governor has finally agreed to meet and discuss the school funding issue. It's a critical start. Black and brown children are profoundly effected by the poor quality of these schools--which is significantly related to the underfunding issue. I admire Meeks for taking a stance for our children. He is a highly intelligent man, though very unpretentious. He would not have done this without a well developed strategic plan. Moreover, poor schools directly contribute to the high crime by our youth that has plagued our cities.

[mrstatuesque67]

Unfortunately, a lot of this gang violence that is claiming all these childrens lives is the by product of the successful culminations of the investigations throughout the recent years by the police to identify and arrest the older gangmembers who are the leadership. They kept the rank and file in check on the street and now that they are incarcerated, there is in-fighting within the ranks of the younger members that are left on the streets for money and power. What you are seeing is these youngsters trying to become the new kingpins and the retaliationatory back and forth. Unfortunately, a lot of innocents, especially kids, are getting caught up in the crossfire. These gangbangers have grown up watching "The Wire, OZ, Scarface, American Gangster (both the movie and TV series), etc... and they are trying to emulate the characters they see. The pathology that is going on with these young men and women is just too heartbreaking for words. The answer to these issues lies within the family, but unfortunately there isn't any kind of positive family structure with way too many of these young people.

[BlackButterfly]

Our government has failed us. We are in a war fighting for the rights of other countries while in so many U.S. cities both large and small, children can't play outside their home or even walk home from school without parents fearing for their safety.

[BlackAchievement]

Response to KCW:

Thanks for reading my post and I dearly respect your opinion and your support for Rev. Meeks. I just want to clarify a few things. When I look at problems in our community I look at it through a historical perspective--”history is the subject that best rewards all research.” In other words, have we tried this before? What were some on of the successes and failures? For once in our lives let’s provide critical analysis and don’t believe the propaganda.

My closest connection to CPS is that I was a graduate student at U of I in Champaign and I saw first hand the competition between the best Black students from places like CPS and much smaller places like East St. Louis with other students from the state of Illinois. As a whole, we are no even close to competing. In Illinois, we are not in the race or at the stadium.

First, on the question of funding, sure get your equal funding if you can. However places around the country have tried that same approach (e.g., Burke v. Abbott in New Jersey and The Thorton Plan in Maryland) and it becomes a distraction (just a move the cheese game) to what is going on today in schools. Question for you KCW: at each individual high school on the southside of Chicago how much of the funding is dedicated towards curriculum and instruction. The funding in schools with relatively high Black populations is primarily focused on administration, security and remedial programs (SSI). Show us what CPS has done with the monies CPS has received before you engage the community.

Second on the issue of the boycott being well planned and well thought out, I support Rev. Meeks notion of a boycott and I urged people not to criticize him for using children. Other historic figures and national incidents have exploited children as well. But here is the thing, to integrate schools in the Jim Crow south students missed five years of school in Prince Edward County, VA with absolutely no get back. In Clarendon County, South Carolina, black students missed three years again with no get back. In Little Rock, Arkansas what they do not tell us about the Little Rock 9 crisis is that the following year Central High was shut down and only one (Ernest Green) of the Little Rock 9 actually for all practical purposes graduated from the school the rest were shuttle off to places like San Francisco, a nice liberal locale. But my point simply is when you do a boycott you have to be prepared to sit out a year if not more--not two damn days. How is a two day boycott effective? What Rev. Meeks wanted two days of media coverage? What Rev. Meeks wanted to meet the mayor, governor, school superintendent? Listen KCW most of our students think education is a waste of time and guess what so do white folks so bring on football, basketball, track, acting, singing etc. You know your educational substitutes. KCW over thirty years ago urban Black school were totally non-competitive and thirty years from now they will continue to be non-competitive because people with the requisite skills set and commitment are absent.

Please do not ever say “black and brown” again. Our causes get no traction because we include others--have we not learned anything. However, that is another 500 word comment so let me stop.

[KCW]

Thanks for your reply! I appreciate your points. I received my undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois' Urbana campus. I excelled at the U of I, along with many of my AA classmates who have gone on to success in many great professions. (There was recently a huge all black alumni reception in Chicago.) I graduated from the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and as an attorney, I currently oversee a program of volunteer AA attorneys who have adopted an impoverished Chicago west side school. Our school has seen great success since our involvement. The school is grossly under funded, has financially poor students, but a dynamic AA Principal who has high expectations for her teachers and students. That being said, our students are excelling! Hence, I agree that the issue is not all funding (although the state of Illinois ranks 49 out of 50 states in public school funding and its funding rate is well below the national average--here lies the crux of the issue), but it is one of the key critical factors facing Chicago’s poor performing schools. While I sincerely appreciate your passion, I don't believe you have factual information as to some of the issues with respect to the politics of CPS or the history, which is too involved to go into in this post. In Chicago we do include blacks and browns in many of our CPS discussions, because we have a huge Latino/Hispanic population. At least in Chicago, politically we are more successful if we address these educational issues along those lines. If we go for ours and they go for theirs, here there are really no winners. We are both victims of the same failing school system that includes only a small percentage of whites.

[BlackAchievement]

Why did I not get my invitation to the Black alumni reception? Black folks do travel. Yea I got jokes.

The terms "volunteer" and "adoption" are not in our vocabulary in Maryland. Sometimes programs with the most heart felt intentions are unfortunately just a part of the problem. However, I am sure you program is truly making substantive progress and is built to make sure that progress continues. In Maryland, several non-profit outfits fight like cats and dogs to get state and federal funding for mentor (adoption) programs. Most of these programs are abject failures for at least three reasons: (1) the mentor programs never question the curricula or instruction; (2) never question the operating budgets; and (3) never politically organize the students and parents. The road to Hades is paved with people with good intention.

With respect to coalition building, I love everybody. But just because you are here and I am here does not mean we have problems that puts us in the same boat. I am an American my people have been here since Jamestown, Plymouth Rock, the Constitutional Convention of 1787, our forefathers cleaned the toilets, served the tea and massage their loins. Now in order to find redress I have to unite with a newcomer. Haven't we been there, done that (e.g. white women's rights, gay rights, labor rights, disability rights, etc). You are right I am not in the Chi and I do not know the happenings there. I am sure you and others can make the black/Hispanic/poor white thing work. I wish you nothing buy the best.

With respect to our beloved UIUC, the smallest minority group on the campus is Black and in the sciences, engineering and math departments there has never been one real Black (not African or Caribbean, which may be one or two) faculty members tenured. Please excuse me for having mere mediocre expectations. When I was there in the early 1990s, it was not even a discussion. UIUC simply did not recruit or retain Black faculty. By the way, the UIUC had a relationship with teachers from several regions in Illinois assisting the teachers in preparing their students for the rigorous of UIUC. When I was at UIUC, the Department of Chemistry claimed that they invited teachers from CPS to their annual shindig but CPS never bothered to show up. I am sure things have improved. I hope.

[mike]

"What's going on,in CHI?" Murder,kids having kids,lazy parents that want c.p.s. to raise their kids .Kids murdering others. NATIONAL GAURD CONFISCATING GUNS. Unarmed citizens.Gang members armed.FIRST stage of Martial Law....