Chicago's Own War

At first, I had a hard time thinking about what I was going to write about here.
But then I realized I was thinking on far too big of a scale, a mistake all of us often make. Because you don't have to talk about Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, or Gaza to talk about war. It's much closer to us, right at home in Chicago. There are several very common "mind-ruts" about violence in the city taken up by all types of people in the country- near, far, and in between.
The first one that I'm going to talk about is the violence being isolated in the south side-- that is a damn lie. In the past year, in addition to all of the violence in places like Englewood, Austin, and Lawndale, there have been 8 homicides in Logan Square and Wicker Park since January. Yeah, that's where the hipsters live. You read that right. This means that the violence isn't just in the south and west sides-- it's going everywhere. (Check out the statistics across the city for the past two years by neighborhood here.)

Secondly, the south side is not a death sentence. I once heard a cubs fan say (nothing against the cubs, I don't care about baseball) "Yeah, I bet you that you'll get shot on your way to the sox stadium. Like for real." That has to be one of the most ignorant things that I have heard in my life. Joke or not, it's not something people should say. Also, in general, the south side has just as much culture and just as many nice neighborhoods as the northside does. Think about Pilsen, Bronzeville, Hyde Park, South Shore, ect, ect. The list goes on. Of course there are some neighborhoods that you shouldn't go to out of common sense, but that doesn't mean that the south side is a death sentence.

Thirdly, I think seeing the news of homicides so often really desensitizes it to people. Let's go back to those 8 homicides since January in Logan Square/Wicker Park figure. Odds are 8 people don't even live in your house. Think about our english class-- that's about 1/4 of the class. Dead. Gone. Imagine that they were your classmates, imagine that they were your siblings, your parents, your cousins.
You get the idea. It's something quite serious.

And, finally, there is a future for us and our city. But, I'm not gonna end with some dumb sugarcoated ending of "oh someone will do something and it'll solve itself." Get out there. Volunteer. There's lots of oppurtunites at non-profits and after school programs to help out with kids and other things in these neighborhoods. We can make a difference. I can make a difference. It doesn't matter how small your contribution is, because if we all did it, we could make a huge impact.

Go out there and do it.