TRACKING MURDERS IN CHICAGO: IF NOT NOW THEN WHEN? IF NOT US THEN WHO?

Can I be blunt?

I love Black Chicago and I hate Black Chicago.

Growing up...I lived in the intersection of the haves and the have-nots. I lived one block west of King Drive and two blocks north of 79th on the southside of the city. Although conventional wisdom would have you think that I lived in the "HOOD" the fact is that I lived on an uber-quiet block filled with bungalows owned by doctors, lawyers, teachers, and policemen. This 'utopia in the hood' provided me with an interesting perspective on life -where within my personal realm of reality I saw that anything was possible but early on I had to consider the kids just on the other side of King Drive that, for some reason beyond my understanding at the time, had a far more difficult mountain to climb to achieve their dreams.

But irregardless of where you start, Chicago has always represented a place where Blacks can accomplish things that were inconceivable in any other location in the world. To this day, the Black middle and upper-middle class is a large-yet-paradoxically small subset of the City's population that is highly accomplished, highly exclusive, but unfortunately becoming highly irrelevant.

…..Yes. Irrelevant.

The "new" upper-middle class of Black Chicago has become so consumed with "identifiers" of class, status, privilege, and wealth that WE have allowed kids to die in our schools, on our streets, and in our neighborhoods – merely recognizing the tragedy of it all when we read the “Murder-Tracker” section in Redeye on our way to work. We see “them” – the victims of these senseless crimes – as the underclass and/or people who are unlike “us”….but this disconnect will prove to feed the growth of crime and poverty within our community.

We will create a collaboration of doctors, investors, and lawyers to throw a party but not to start a foundation to help at-risk kids. We will throw parties in multiple cities at a time but not arrange mentorship opportunities in multiple schools in one city? We will combine resources to rent out party halls but not leverage each others resources to help many of our younger brothers and sisters who will likely not live to see the age of 21.

Is this really what we want our legacy to be?

In Illinois, Black males consist of only 2 percent of all college graduates but over 60 percent of all new inmates per year.

This year, there have been over 125 murders in Chicago, including 28 children in Chicago Public Schools, and 38 murders in the month of May alone.

In the grand scheme of things, we are literally a dying breed....and WE are not doing anything about it.

I’m willing to do SOMETHING….are you?


Murder Tracker-

http://redeye.chicagotribune.com/red-chicagomurders-map,0,2276.story