The videotaped beating death of Derrion Albert on Chicago's South Side could have been from the streets of Somalia during the Civil War in their country in the 1990s. Let's fast forward to this week and President Obama and the First Lady, along with the Chicago 2016 contingent, in Copenhagen Denmark to make a proposal for the 2016 Olympics. What a contrast. The reality is schoolchildren in Chicago, their hometown, continue to be killed and wounded going to and from school while they campaigned for the Olympic games that these children will not view.
The question that I would ask all of these people is; how can you find the resources of over $4 billion, and the energy to promote an Olympic bid, but you cannot protect over 42% of the city's population from a combat zone-like environment. Nor have we had the money to provide computers, desks and adequate school facilities for our children in decades? In this article I'm not going to address the other more important issues facing our country, like troop strength in Afghanistan, stimulus funding, or health care reform. I'm only going to focus on the carnage, and lawlessness our children face daily in Chicago neighborhoods. Many whom suffered from PTSD, without medical treatment or counseling.
Over the last two years on my show at WVON, I have publicly extolled the killing in our neighborhoods by individuals I call "urban terrorists," many of whom have gang affiliations, and some who do not. These urban terrorists prey on our best students and athletes and the elderly in the community. The statistics about the number of Chicago public school students that have been killed in the last four years is horrendous; by some accounts, over 150 students have been killed and 1,000 wounded.
Many of us have tried to bring national attention to the wholesale carnage in the South Side and West Side neighborhoods of Chicago, without much success. And when the national media comes to town, they run to the people who are part of the problem. The community activists are being funded by the city to run ineffective programs with taxpayer dollars, and the religious organizations are in the business of saving souls. There are those in our community organizing to address this issue on a basis of "by any means necessary." If you read vigilantism into that, I would have to surmise you're probably right.
I find it reprehensible that the residents of Chicago, and citizens of our great country are forced to live in combat zone-like conditions. The elderly and young people are nightly held captive in their own homes and neighborhoods. One may ponder to ask why the authorities, whomever you consider them to be, have not addressed this issue. I think the answer is very simple: It is not in their neighborhood and not their problem.
My favorite quote is: "A person's liberalism seems to be related to the distance they are from the problem," from Whitney Young.
If we operate from this premise then the answer is clear. If this type of carnage were going on in a suburb of Chicago we would have the National Guard, Blackwater, and armed vigilantes lining the streets to protect these young people. However, we are talking about blacks that are in many cases gun-fearing, working class, middle-class, under-educated, self-disenfranchised, ghettoized, inferiorized, victimized, misinformed, mis-educated, and some poor people, in need of a leader. These citizens have developed over the years a kind of twisted pathology about the workings of government, community and values in our neighborhoods. Those of us that speak out for civility and law are called Uncle Toms, white man's n----rs, and other disparaging remarks for having morals, values and ethics of our American heritage.
It seems to me that President Obama and Mayor Daley are more concerned about securing the Olympics for the city than the safety of the Chicago Public Schools students in the city. This statement is not made without careful thought and consideration of the facts. So I have based my conclusions on the facts of the situation. The senseless killing of black children in Chicago neighborhoods has been going on a very long time, without any real emphasis on the source of the problem. This is one issue that Mayor Daley can't claim he did not know about, as he usually does. During last year's presidential campaign the Chicago Public Schools stopped releasing statistics on the number of students killed and wounded, which was about 38 by Nov. 4. Was this a conscious decision or just coincidence? If I were a betting man, I would bet the former.
The solution to this problem is to take control of these neighborhoods by any means necessary. The citizens of these neighborhoods need to be advised that they should act in a manner that is consistent with the values and morals of the black middle class. The ghetto conduct that Hollywood and the mainstream media has glorified will no longer be tolerated. If you dress like a gangbanger, act like a gangbanger, and speak like a gangbanger, then we have to assume you are gangbanger.
If the Chicago Police Department could eliminate the Black Panther party in the 1960s, which operated as a community self-help organization, then it can gain control of our neighborhoods from the criminal and terrorist element that generate hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal activities. Makes one stop and go "Hmmmm!"
Best regards, Charles.