TIGblogs - Scott Foval

They are the ones who hurt the most when someone is gunned down. They are the other victims. They are the mothers. Standing next to them at yesterday's 11AM anti-gun-violence rally at the Thompson Center, the deep pain that gun violence brings to one's doorstep was raw, real, and unfortunately...as present as it was the day they found out their children had been wiped off the face of the planet.

Some of them, crying as they stood silently nodding along with Father Mike Flager's cries to "stop the killing!" you knew...these women would always be missing a piece of themselves.

One mother, whom I will not name here to protect her identity, stood directly next to me near the throng of reporters, photographers and videographers, and the circle of politicians jockeying before them. Wiping back the nearly constant stream of tears, she agreed to tell me about why it was important for her to come down and show her solidarity with the nearly 500 Simeon, Crane, and other CPS students in their protest against gun violence.

"It never goes away," she said. "I know how it feels to lose my child. She was gunned down in front of her children." Wiping away the tears, the grieving mother shows the pain even two years after losing her daughter. " I am trying to raise them as best I can now," she says. "But they'll never know how wonderful their mother was."

She wasn't the only mothers I ran into downtown. While waiting to get a moment with CPS CEO Arnie Duncan, I ran into the President and members of the Simeon H.S. Alumni Association. They were there to show support for the students who left their classes yesterday to protest and demand that legislators in Springfield, Gov. Blagojevich, Mayor Daley, CPD Commissioner Jody Weiss, Duncan,and others take action stop the bloodletting on the South Side.

"No one wants to see a child senselessly killed," said SAA President Romona R. Smith. "We realize above all that some of these kids aren't getting the support they need at home, and we as mothers and Simeon alumni are here to try to give them what they might not get at home." When I asked what that was; flanked by fellow board members Sharon Miles, Sonia Wallace, Ms. V. Washington-Currie (Dean of Girls at Simeon) --they almost in unison said "Love, Support, Encouragement."

SAA's purpose, they explained is exemplified within their motto "Reaching Back To Move Forward," and that's what these ladies say is a critical part of solving the problem of senseless gun violence in Chicago. "Some of these kids don't know anything other than fear," Washington-Currie exclaimed. "We have a responsibility to show them something better."

Smith added, "It is different now. When we were coming up, there were fights, but there wasn't the killing...now there are no rules." All of the women voiced that it was the responsibility of the parents and members of the community supporting them, to show their children another way to solve their problems than through violence.

For all the calls for the end of the killing, it was CPS' Duncan who voiced the most frustration and desperation with the loss of his students. "I want them to grow up safe...this is crazy! There are extraordinary students here who are so committed to their own futures." he said. As we spoke he flipped through an album containing pictures and writings from students who have been killed in the last two years; showing it to nearly every reporter who interviewed him, underscoring his own pain at the loss of each student.

I asked him about the numbers of his lost charges. "24 last year, and now 20, er, 21 this year, and it's only April 1st," Duncan replied. "But one is too many--and we need to have the political will to change laws to protect them. This doesn't happen in other industrialized nations...and it is just crazy that we haven't changed the laws to keep our kids safe."

South Side business and community leader Ron Watson was even more blunt in his assessment. "They watch the video games and learn to kill," he explained. "It is too easy to change the channel, or turn away, until it hits you in your household. Now, it is past the point where we have the discussion of the value of life...we have Iraq right here at home!"

Watson stressed the importance of putting forth positive messages to change core values within childrens' minds. "What are we selling them?" he asked. "Video games, Sean John, Air Jordans. Positive values don't sell, and that's what we have to change." He pointed to his website, http://www.Had2.com, which stresses the message that he "had to" change his attitudes in order to become a success, and that kids have to do the same.

"We've made our kids a pawn," Watson said. "Now, we want them to respond. The problem is, Oprah's not talking about it, Obama's not talking about it. We have to be the ones who show these kids that its like my dad used to say -- If you don't stand for nothing, you'll stand for anything...its time to show them a positive model to follow instead of what we have been selling them." Watson said he was there to make sure that political leaders know that members of the community are ready to do their part, but that they can't do it alone.

"Chicago has two problems," Watson lamented. "The weather, and killing."