For the last couple of months there has been a Pastor by the name of Corey Brooks of a South Side church and he has been occupying the roof of an out of business motel across the street from his church. A few weeks ago I was told the history of the area and it is amazing to know that both the space that the church is located in and the motel have been sharing a relationship for years. The church was a night club of sorts and famous African-American celebrities would perform there and stay right across the street at the motel. Now the former entertainment building is a church that Pastor Brooks preaches at and the motel became an eye sore due to the drugs and prostitution that took place there in recent memory.
How many places exist in your community, town, village, city, or state that are similar to this? How does a community and local elected officials ALLOW a place to turn into such a thing?
Obviously the community elects the politician to deal with such problems but when that politician makes over $120,000.00 a year for a position that is classified as Part Time the answer comes quickly for the question above…
After a few years someone new steps up to the plate and vows that they will make the change that the incumbent said they would do a few years earlier and we go through the cycle all over again. The real damage is that it’s not only a building that is left unused its all the other issues that seep out of that building and if you have more than one it becomes chronic. Once it becomes chronic no one wants to put the effort into dealing with the issues and all the while children are paying for it at least three times over. As adults we move quickly from one thing to another because we gage what can wait and what can be accomplished quickly and usually garbage pickup, park clean up, and street lights is the “feel good that you did something” that adults gravitate to and leave all the other issues up to the elected official to take care of.
What a difference would it make if the adults had help from 16 and 17 year old in their communities?
I’ve already had some people say to me that a 16 or 17 year old wouldn’t be able to make much of the political process because they are too young and voting is a serious thing. What I find interesting is that some of the same people are scared to death of 16 & 17 year old “gangbangers” so much that these adults plan their lives around them to avoid any conflict, running into, or possible mugging…
So, if we are going to think that a 16 or 17 year old is incapable to make a solid decision in a political campaign then what is it that makes us think that they pose a security risk in our communities? The shootings? The violence? Do you really think it’s JUST our youth that are making these things happen?
There are social services here in Chicago that are clear on what “kind” of youth they will work with and always use key phrases like “at-risk youth” or “youth in challenging situations” but no one will go right out and say we want to work with all youth regardless of what they are dealing with or what they are involved with. Some agencies might challenge me and say they work with incarcerated youth or youth on probation or “gang involved” youth and I will say there are some but when you think about the first two “types” of youth I mentioned it kind of already lets us know that the communities that the youth came from might not have been prepared to work with them. The “gang involved” youth usually means that they are working with them to leave the gang so they can have a better life and most of you are nodding your heads saying “OK so what’s wrong with that?” and there’s nothing wrong with it unless that is a goal set by you or an agency and not by the youth. See this goes back to the building, we see a building that is obviously a huge problem because out of that building predators wait for the young children to walk pass it to snatch them up and abuse them before they make it to school. Out of that building your child was offered their very first taste of crack, heroin, liquor, etc…and all the while we are worried about other things.
Our child our youth see and know that a building like that should be torn down immediately but the adults are too busy arguing about how they going to get the youth out of the gangs…do you see what I am getting at? Our youth attack the problem at the root cause and adults place bandages over gaping wounds of injustice, poverty, and inequality.
It is time that we turn the page of the old and outdated rule book and look into a future where we truly value and embrace the vision our children and youth have been desperately trying to show us all these years. We need to look at giving the right to vote starting at the age of sixteen for the youth in our society because without their vote we will continue to miss the mark and we will continue to fall behind.
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