The morning shows and papers all have special features today remembering Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on the 40th anniversary of his assassination. The Today Show had Al and Ann at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, at the Lorraine Hotel, site of the tragedy...and that's all well and good. Here in Chicago, there are numerous memorial events scheduled for today throughout the weekend. Of course, we have a lot to be sad about today as we remember Dr. King – because his legacy has not yet been realized, and the bodies are still piling up.
Huh? Zoinks? WTF? Oh don't act so surprised!
Unfortunately, the year leading up to today, and indeed the month of February when we were supposed to be celebrating Black History Month; we spent way too much time mourning the deaths of 20 Chicago Public School students on our city streets.
Earlier this week I wrote a piece about people I met at Tuesday's anti-gun-violence rally in front of the Thompson Center. To me, the obvious parallel of the loss of too many promising young minds, and the loss of Dr. King; juxtaposed with the candidacy of Barack Obama for U.S. President; leads me to ask...have we really come as far as we think we have?
There is a sick bottom line to the entire issue of racism and classism in the United States. Today we still have a terribly wide chasm between whites and everyone else in this country. That statement may not make me a popular columnist with certain conservative people. The reality is, though, that we can't ignore that there is a connection between young black and latino kids being lured into drug gangs and living the thug life, and the fact that they 1. see the gang as a family, 2. see drug money as the way to success, 3. don't feel they have an opportunity to really make the most of their lives through education and conventional life and career opportunities. These kids end up in gangs because they have lost their way...and society disparages them for that instead of taking responsibility for going out and saving them before they kill each other.
I am not necessarily on the side of the anti-gun lobby on this issue..at least not yet. As someone who worked on the streets of South Florida and had one or two drug dealers put a target on my back as a security professional because my presence threatened their business--I can tell you that at a certain point every individual makes a choice about their life.
Yes, people can choose how they want to live, but the reality is that drug money is a strong lure for these kids, and sometimes they're into it so deep by the time they realize they have sold their souls that they believe there is no other way to live. When they pick up a gun as a tool of power, death, or glamour...it is all of our fault because we have allowed the situation to fester and even get worse.
We as a society need to take the steps to cross the chasm and provide true equality to all people, regardless of color, creed, religion, socio-economic class, gender, or sexual orientation. We need to force the issue through legislation, by electing leaders who advocate going beyond “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.” The white guys who usually say that are usually the ones who have turned a blind eye to the plight of young minorities, women, immigrants, and GLBT people who don't have it as “set for life” as they do. They are almost always the ones that say, “its not my problem.”
It is their problem, though.
Sometimes, as anyone who's worked in business can tell you..you have to make people see how ignorant they are being, either through hardball tactics, hardball oratory, hardball negotiation, or sometimes by "forcing a wake-up call" through legislating equality. I agree with many of the people I interviewed at the rally Tuesday that it is time for our leaders in Illinois and America to start taking a real hard look at the gangs and guns problem, and start going after the gun manufacturers who are providing these cheap deadly tools of death to the gangs. I also think it is our responsibility to stand up for these kids, go down into the neighborhoods, and march side by side with the black and latino communities on the South Side and elsewhere, screaming at the top of our lungs to “Stop the Killing!” It is our problem, it is their problem, and it is your problem..because the fabric of our society is breaking down.
It is a problem for all of us, because if our society is not truly equal – socially, economically, without regard to race or gender or orientation; we are not fulfilling the dream that Dr. King talked about before he was gunned down. We're not fulfilling what our founding fathers wrote in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights; and we're not fulfilling what I believe God really wants...for all of his children to live up to their full potential.
