From the Chicago Breaking News Center:
At least 40 people were shot over the weekend across Chicago, with seven of them slain, according to police logs.
The toll covers a period from 8:43 p.m. Friday--after violent storms hit the city--to 6:39 this morning.
On Sunday, Chicago Police Superintendent Jody Weis acknowledged a high number shootings over the weekend and attributed more than half of them to the work of gangs.
At least 40 people...
Over the weekend a considerable amount of attention was dedicated to one of my favorite series on Daily Kos: The IGTNT diaries. Each time an American soldier dies in combat overseas, Kossacks have committed to tell their story and acknowledge their service. Regardless what you think about this - whether it glorifies war or creates sacred space - I think we can all acknowledge that the series is one of the most significant, durable, and visible in this online community.
Unfortunately, on all sides of the issue, the war dead are used as examples to prove a point. Those who support the war effort say things like, "We don't want their sacrifice to be in vain." Those who oppose it remind us that behind each death there is a story of human tragedy and family members who grieve the loss of a dearly loved one.
What gets missed, when we focus our attention on wars overseas and the geopolitical issues, is that there are countless examples of violence each day here in the United States - in our cities, suburbs, and rural communities. The example of 40 people shot in one weekend in Chicago simply highlights the fact that in an area with millions of people, and access to weapons, violence is going to be likely to break out.
I went to college and grad school in the Chicago area. This hits home for me personally. I have taught Sunday School in Lawndale. I've served the homeless on Lower Wacker Drive. I've gone to the South Side and worked in the same community where Barack Obama organized. And I've worked in the Western Suburbs, where the visible crime rates are lower but where hidden injustices happen countless times each day.
Violence is a reality. Those who propose a libertarian philosophy and believe that "statism" is a great danger have some valid points, but those points tend to be lost by the reality that each day, injustices are committed and individuals and communities act against their own "rational self-interest". So when I hear from people in rural communities who fear that "Obama's gonna take my guns", or listen to elected officials who exacerbate these fears with trumped up, baseless charges about the 2nd Amendment, I get angry. I think of people I know who have been arrested and thrown in jail, and I think of those who have been victimized by violence. And I wonder, "Why are we getting lost on idealism and Constitutional navel-gazing when there are real issues of poverty, violence, and injustice that are crying out to be addressed?"
What's wrong with us, as a nation, that we could ignore this stuff?
I spoke to a girlfriend yesterday. She grew up with a schizophrenic mother on the South Side. She didn't meet her father until she was 20 years old. She was complaining to me about the tone-deaf Fathers Day sermon she heard at her church, where the pastor went on for several minutes about how "Men carry the seed" and "Fathers are the ones who pass on the inheritance" and "We need our fathers to lead their wives." She left church thinking that she might never go back again, because she doesn't feel that the patriarchal message from the pulpit matches the experience of women and children who grew up without fathers.
My friend knows firsthand that you can grow up strong without a father in the house. She's one of the most talented, dedicated, focused young women I know. She's already worked for Al Gore, Alice Rivlin, and others. She earned a scholarship (merit-based) to a university and has law-school offers waiting for her now.
My friend said, "You know what made me angry, is that 95% of the people in that church didn't grow up with a strong father. And that's the experience of the vast majority of African-American families today." The sad fact is that men have not showed up. They haven't been there. They haven't passed along the blessing. They haven't given their children an inheritance, unless you're talking about the inheritance of a world where they must work twice as hard to achieve as much as their white neighbors.
And it's not as though I simply blame the black men either. African-American men are facing a tsunami of socioeconomic factors that undermine their ability to achieve equally in this country. Media messages assault them constantly with the "do more be more earn more buy more" philosophy of consumerism, telling them that what they have is never quite enough. Men face the catch-22 of trying to give what they've never been given - they're trying to raise a family right when they've not been raised right themselves. These cycles of poverty continue on, to a point where African-Americans tend to believe that marriage is something impossible or unattainable. Who can afford the wedding? Who can even afford the ring? And how are you going to pay to raise your family when unemployment in the African-American community is nearly twice the national rate?
So, we fall back into the Adam and Eve game - pointing fingers, blaming each other, getting drawn away from the core of who we are because we're told that what we are isn't good enough. And no one talks about this secret shame, because admitting weakness is a surefire way to get alienated. Finger-pointing doesn't change anything. Complaining doesn't change anything.
So we sweep it under the rug.
We act like it's not there. We don't act like victims of a system that is fundamentally opposed to helping families to thrive.
And we don't talk about it with our neighbors or friends at church. We don't discuss the fundamental injustice or systemic failure of our leaders to address the underlying problems in our nation. Instead, we turn on the TV. We look at BP's oil spill and we start pointing fingers about that instead. And at the end of the day, we feel more enmeshed and more isolated, and less a part of a community.
The war in Afghanistan is significant, meaningful, and costly.
But there's a battle we need to fight here in the United States of America. It's time for us to stop trying to solve the world's problems and start changing the only thing we've ever been capable of changing.