Oh Dear God. What kind of country are we? Our wounds are deep. Our wounds are many. I wish I had the gift of expression to adequately portray the horror, outrage and despair I felt after reading this.
Bob Herbert’s behind-the-firewall commentary in the NYT shines a clear light on the moral bankruptcy of this nation.
…there was nothing particularly unusual about schoolchildren getting blown away in Chicago’s black and Latino neighborhoods. Since September, when the last school year started, dozens of this city’s public school students have been murdered, most of them shot to death. As of last week, the toll of public schoolchildren slain in Chicago since the opening of the school year had reached 34, including two killed since the schools closed for summer vacation.
Kids. Nine years, twelve years, fifteen years old. Getting gunned down in schoolyards, on busses, outside libraries.
This situation, of course, has been barely covered by the mainstream media. This slow bleed of hope and promise is not as dramatic as the sudden killing of several students at once. This slow bleed of hope and promise is not as sensational when the victims are black or brown.
We would not be staying the course in the war on drugs if this was happening in Wilmette or Barrington. In the rich white suburbs, cathedrals and synagogues would be overflowing with mourners and news vans and helicopters would be everywhere. Phones would be ringing of the hook in the offices of politicians, principals, pundits and policymakers.
These kids, these babies, are our children too. The children in Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston, Atlanta. When did we stop caring about each other? When did we stop caring for each other?
Immigrants, the uninsured, wounded veterans, the homeless. Are we so used to their plight – and so overwhelmed by it – that we accept it as a part of the fabric of our society?
The solution to any one of these problems is complicated and costly – in terms of both financial outlay and brutal assessment of our complicity in the situation. But no change will come unless we demand it.
Regarding the killings, Arne Duncan, the chief executive of the Chicago school system, said, “That’s more than a kid every two weeks. Think about that.”
Yes. Think about that. And do something.
.
The girl killed in the playground was Schanna Gayden, who, according to the police, was shot in the head by a gang member who was aiming at someone else. Blair Holt, a high school junior, was shot to death on a city bus. Another teenager was killed as he walked home from a library.
Lazarus Jones, a 13-year-old computer-lover who was looking forward to beginning high school in the fall, was jumped by several members of a gang and beaten to death. Twelve-year-old Laura Joslin was stabbed to death, police said, by an 18-year-old girl on Thanksgiving Day. Victor Casillas, 15, was killed in a drive-by shooting.
Chicago Tribune – Year of violence, grief: 27 city students slain
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Bless you Kahli for writing this.
I am as outraged as anyone about what this country is doing to the children if Iraq. But too often we ignore this kind of loss in our own back yards – urban America.
Of course our media will remind us IF the victim is a blond white girl (I saw another one highlighted on Faux News last night). And my heart grievs for them as well. But the story of the thousands of black and brown children being lost every year never gets told.
Thanks for the blessing, NL.
This past July 4, I heard people singing “America the Beautiful.” The words from verse that never gets sung include:
America, America, God mend thine every flaw.
Confirm thy soul in self-control.
Thy liberty in law.
It is easier to just celebrate this “beautiful” idea than it is to look around and try to mend our flaws.
The question that Michael Moore posed in Sicko keeps sticking with me. What kind of a country are we. Do we turn our backs on the weak, the sick, the poor?
I’m all for personal responsibility, but to me that also includes being responsible for others who are struggling. Moral responsibility. Ethical responsibility.
Family values? Culture of Life? America is in need of a radical beauty treatment.
I just started reading a book that I think is likely to change my life. Its The Culture of Make Believe by Derrik Jensen. I’m only through about 100 pages of the 720, but he is more profoundly answering that question “What kind of country are we?” than anything else I have ever read.
doing things like offering free tickets to Sesame Place.
and this is in the Philadelphia area, in a year where Philadelphia leads big cities in the highest murder rate.
It’s disgusting.
Unbelievable. And very disgusting.
They’re not white, ergo their blood isn’t good enough to lead with in the world of infotainment.
of the country. But we don’t approach that number of school children gunned down.
What is interesting here is that public housing has longed been blamed for violent crime here, yet most of it is closed now, and our crime rate has skyrocketed.
Our mantra has been the privatization of public services here, closure of public housing, closure of public health services, closure of public schools, will lead to even more desperation.
I know that in Chicago, public housing has bee demolished for the most part, with the promise it would be made better for its low income residents. What happened to that promise? Why is there so much violence and crimes still?
Thanks for putting up this diary Kahli. It seems every day I read one horror story after another relating to children in this country..from shootings as you’ve mentioned to homeless children to young children and teens being violently abused in ‘teen camps’ or homes, children being tasered at the age of 6 or arrested and taken to jail to every other horror story almost impossible to imagine being perpetrated on our children..it makes me think that for all our so called politicians/religious nuts talking about our precious children this country does almost nothing any more to keep children safe, give them safe haven and safety nets for their growing years or even worries about how to keep them healthy…our social contract with children seems nil at this point and why is that..I truly don’t understand. It’s almost not the children who die but those who live in these surroundings who became embittered with a hopeless despair who will go on to perpetrate more violence and the circle of hopelessness goes on and on and will destroy us all. Building more prisons isn’t the answer, building communities where there is hope is the answer….the next child saved might grow up and find a cure for the common cold dammit.
You mentioned solutions being complicated and costly…I don’t know about that..it seems anyone with half a brain knows at least some of the solutions for happy, healthy and safe children…same as always…jobs, jobs and more jobs, invest in the community, improve schools and classroom size, universal health care so parents don’t have to worry about their child getting sick and dying for want of a huge paycheck…it also seems to me that no matter what this may cost the cost of investing in people is really far far less costly in terms of human life and dignity than the hideous mess we now have.
If you can bear with me for a moment, I’d like to tell you a story:
“Drew” (not his real name) lives with his maternal grandmother, mother, and three sisters. He and his sisters have three different fathers – none of whom is involved. His mother is extremely ill, having only one kidney and that one is in failure. Drew came to the attention of authorities when he was 8 years old and his mother took the children to an emergency room because it was mid-November and they had been homeless for 3 months. Prior to that time, they had moved at least 10 times in Drew’s 8 years – many times across state lines. This started a process of the children being placed in and out of temporary shelter programs over the next few years as mom continued to go in and out of various forms of housing.
There are also many reports in the system of domestic violence by various men with whom the family was housed. But, even more serious, over the years, all four children were sexually abused, and its still unclear who the various perpetrators were. What we know is that Drew, by the time he was 10, was regularly acting out sexually.
But we got involved with Drew because, by the time he was 10, he had already been written up by the police 4 times for assualt. One was against a teacher, two against staff in the shelter where he lived, and one against another boy. Anyone want to wonder where Drew was headed with all of this??
We have been involved in Drew’s life now for over 6 years. During that time, our staff have worked to help the family find stable housing, facilitate therapy for mom and all the kids about the sexual abuse, get Drew a psychiatric assessment and medication management, connect Drew with an adult mentor, facilitate conferences and planning with his school to make sure his needs are met and on and on the story goes.
This week, Drew stopped by our office on his lunch break from an internship he is doing this summer at the City Attorney’s Office. There he was, 16 years old and absolutely beautiful!!! All dressed up for work with his shirt and tie. Big smile for everyone and proud of himself. He’s talking about wanting to be a lawyer as a result of this internship. I’m still in tears when I think about it. This lovely young man – and all it took was for us to get involved in his life with some sanity and really care about he and his family.
How many of those children in Chicago could be alive today if we had embraced their killers when they were young, and given them the same thing we gave Drew? This is not rocket science. We know how to do it. If we cared.