Looking for Peace is a blog I will be writing for my project “Walking To Peace” www.walkintopeace.com
I’ll be covering issues of violence and hate in our society and how politics, religion, laws, education, poverty, and many other avenues contribute to the daily violence and hate in our society that mostly our youth face in full force.
The city of Chicago has gone through some interesting changes in 2011 we’ve had yet another Governor put on trial and convicted, Mayor Daley stepped down from his post of 20 plus years and handed it over to Rahm Emanuel (yes there was an election but if you are from Chicago you already know what that means!,) New police chief hailing from NYC region, and lots of displaced anger that no one seems to care who and how it affects our city.
Chicago ended the year, as of the 27th of Dec., with 423 murders and 85 percent of them were caused by gunshots. Now, 423 is a very high number but we are actually in a downturn of murders and that’s great news! The flip side to the downturn in murders is that sexual assault has gone up as well as car thefts this is a sign of frustration, hate, anger, and opportunity. The problem is that everyone looks at the police and the mayor and applauds them for a job well done and when asked what they did to reduce the numbers there’s a winding answer that encompasses all the other things they really want to talk about. After about five minutes people seem to forget what the question was but the people are happy that there was a long answer.
Part of the reality is that shootings are bad for business and I’m not talking about Boeing I’m talking about the business of street dealing. Everyone that has spent some time in a hood knows that the last thing anyone wants is attention to what may or may not be happening out in the hood. Does this means that some of the drug dealers and/or gang leaders sit down and talk it out? Yes they do and do you know why?.......It’s because they are human beings providing a demand for a product that they are able to supply and in order to accommodate such high demands they like any other business men/women have to work out their issues. I’m not condoning their activities what I am doing is explaining as simple as I can that the shootings that do actually happen are much greater than 423; remember the number 423 is the number of murders. If we sat down and counted how many actual shootings happen in Chicago where no one gets hurt or even a graze wound that is taken care of at the community level I think people would flee from Chicago in high numbers because they would think they are living in a war zone. Here’s the twist, it is a war zone out there and as obvious as it is to many of us it is well hidden from everyone that is not interested in solving issues we are facing.
2012 is going to be a tough year for Chicago because it is going to be a constant war between the police and the citizens of this great city. The G8 and NATO summit will be held here in May, President Obama is running for his second term and I’m sure people will push limits in their form of protest when he is in town, many more parolees are coming home to a city that has a high unemployment rate,…and well like I said it’s going to be tough and people are expecting that the election of a new President or re-election of a President will fix it all. It sounds good when it’s said and I believe that most of them truly feel and mean what they say in those moments, fulfilling those promises is where we hit a snag. While adults try to work it out our most precious resource in our country (our youth) is being ignored, abused, warehoused, discarded, and stepped on with no regard to their opinions, thoughts, fears, ideas, or concerns. Our youth need an avenue to express themselves and in our society we believe in the freedom of speech but not in the freedom of voting.
Voting has been an issue for many people from different backgrounds and people may say that you have to earn your privilege to vote, so does this mean that Women were not trying hard enough before 1920 to show their worthiness of voting? It hasn’t been 100 years since women have been allowed to vote in our society and they are still fighting to earn their rightful spot in government, at their place of employment, and yes at home as well. What did Brazil, Cuba, Nicaragua, North Korea, and Sudan see in their woman that we didn’t? I say this because the countries named above allow women to vote as young as 16, North Korea and Sudan at 17. I’m sure they are not free of issues but the fact remains that there are other parts of this world that allows people younger than 18 to vote and in a society like ours that can add tens of millions of voters to the ballot box why don’t we allow our youth to vote at the age of 16?
How does all of this connect? In a society that makes decisions for the lives of millions of its population risking future economic stability to win an election and doesn’t allow (those that will feel the full weight of those actions if it goes wrong) them voting privileges is not the society that can preach about fairness to their fellow Nations.
It is a violent act to risk the education of a child.
It is a violent act to deny a child’s parent the ability to earn a livable wage.
It is a violent act to deny a child’s family access to affordable housing.
It is a violent act to deny a child an opportunity to live their lives free of discrimination.
It is a violent act to FEED a child food that will ultimately cause them health problems for the sake of earning a profit and saving money.
It is a violent act to deny a child clean air, clean and accessible water, a health environment, etc…
….there’s a lot to talk about still.
Peace/AMOR
Gerardo
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