In the last few days Chicago news have been reporting about a City sticker (it’s a sticker for the windshield of your car to show that you paid your tax for living in the city basically) that “might” show gang signs in it. In Chicago the city has a yearly contest for youth to draw a city sticker and the winner gets a $1000 Bond. The city clerk quickly reacted and asked the advice of the former police superintendent that now works at the Chicago Crime Commission and he said that yes it looked like a gang symbol. Just last week the city clerk had praised the 15 year old boy that drew the winning drawing and this week she basically made him look like some sort of criminal in the media. The clerk pulled the drawing and has given the runner up the winning prize of the contest. The clerk has since said that she would buy, out of her own pocket, a $1000 Bond for the young boy to reward him for trying.
One thing I try hard not to do is to look at the comment area at the bottom of these articles because you usually get the most insensitive people with a lot of time on their hands make the worst comments. The breakdown of the comment area that I read was mostly supportive of the actions that the clerk took and praising her for taking quick action. Then you have the comments that might as well have called for the lynching of this young boy. The smaller percentage of comments was people disagreeing with the negative comments. What I didn’t see was a comment in defensive of the young boy and to my own surprise I was NOT surprised about it. Where has our love for humanity gone? I’m not interested if the young boy is or was involved in a gang because that’s not what I care about what worries me is how it is expected for young boys in our society to be BAD rather than Human.
This young boy will be injured by this for a very long time and by this time next week the rest of Chicago will have forgotten that a young boy was made out to be some evil genius that “snuck in a gang symbol” on a city sticker. Some of the people that brought up the issue are connected to the Chicago police department and a Blog that is popular with the police as well wrote about how they thought it was a gang symbol. Recently in Vermont the state police had noticed after a year that their decals on everything from stations to squad cars had an image of a pig in it. The State of Vermont uses an inmate run printing press for these decals and more and one of the inmates that runs the graphics side of it replaced an image of a cow with the image of the pig and now they have to redo all the decals. I believe that’s where this paranoia is coming from with the city clerk and all others involved.
Our society is not one of peaceful life it is a constant “someone is screwing me I just haven’t figured out who it is yet but I know it’s happening!” Do we really want to live this way? Religious people are on a constant “You’re going to Hell” kick and well to be honest I can go on almost forever on this but the question here is when will we accept people for who they are? And when will we stop thinking we know who people are based on the color of their skin?
I got plenty of questions today!
I think that if the city opens its doors for anyone to submit anything that might become a symbol for the city they should have a system set up to avoid these situations. Otherwise don’t open the door and hire someone to do it and let’s move on without having to hurt anyone's feelings about what they said they did in good faith. The actions the city clerk took sent a loud message to the youth of Chicago and it will manifest itself in different ways as time goes on. Why are we so careless with our youth?
Why is Loving so hard to do? I ask that because if we had Love as the fuel in our lives we wouldn’t act with harshness and carelessness. Love is a complicated emotion but even at its basic level it’s beautiful and fulfilling. I remember the first time I said “I Love you” to my girlfriend in elementary school and how it made us both feel. As an adult it might seem like it wasn’t love but it was love at its basic level where it feels good to be with that person and kiss them with such tenderness. The love got better as days and weeks went by because when you love someone each and every day is a chance to make it better than the last. As an adult to express that love to my partner is amazing because you already know what it will feel like and the possibilities it has…why can’t we love Humanity the same way? Are we unwilling to struggle for it and work through the obstacles we have placed in front it?
I love the expression of laughter and if you know me you know that I’m trying every single day to make someone laugh about something and that’s how I love Humanity every single day. So if we were together or talked anytime this week and I made you laugh that is my expression directly to you that I Love You! I love you so much that I want to bring joy to your world because you brought joy to me by blessing me with your presence.
We need to form new habits and create a presence of Love when we walk into a room or meet someone new and it doesn’t mean that we are embracing everyone when we see them and smothering them with kisses. It is a smile, eye contact, active listening, engagement in conversation, non-judgmental responses to others thoughts and ideas, and most important being 100% REAL. There’s nothing more off putting than someone that try’s hard to later claim that they at least tried. It is about being Human and accepting where people are in their lives and expressing your unique self.
The 15 year old boy has learned a lesson in city politics and now knows it is a harsh place to be involved with but I hope that somewhere people can show their Humanity for him and that he will not let the carelessness of the city clerk of Chicago determine who he is as a person.
Peace/AMOR
Gerardo
No comments:
Post a Comment