The Blame Game: Chicago's raging murder rate!

Our primary goal at GATE America is to reduce or eliminate street gangs. We have deliberately not wanted to step into the entire issue that surrounded the incident in the city of Sanford Florida. Those tragic events no matter what side of the argument that you are on, are tragic. To sum it up quickly they simply should not have happened. Howver, in a broader sense of the issue, it is our belief that many people have simply "missed IT!"  By "IT" we mean that our society has become so racially charged regardless of the incident that those politicans who seek the limelight for their own personal reasons just don't get "IT"

Here are some Examples of what we mean:



While Bobby Rush was on the floor of the House of Representatives protesting the shooting of Trayvon Martin, the City of Chicago was going down in blaze of gun powder and stacking up with bodies. In a series of just a few weekends over the fourty or so days that the shooting in Florida has dragged on a total of 19 people were killed with an additional 75 wounded. Just this month the Chicago Police Department released these staggering numbers.  



Homicides are up 60%

From Jan. 1 through April 1 this year, 120 homicides were recorded in Chicago, up sharply from 75 in the same period in both 2011 and 2010, according to department statistics. Nonfatal shootings totaled almost 490 in the first three months of 2012, up 37 percent from a year earlier. Part of the issue with the Non-Fatal shootings is that in the last 10 years, the Emergency Medical Service industry has made remarkable improvements in wound treatment and as a result keeping those wounds that would have been fatal injuries now survivable.

To Hoodie or Not to Hoodie!
Where was Representative Bobby Rush over the weekend of Easter Sunday when 3 children were shot and killed in Chicago? Isn't Rep. Bobby Rush's home district in Illinois, within the City of Chicago? We believe that he just doesn't get "IT!" Why hasn't Bobby Rush done this very thing here in the City of Chicago in his home State.

Children being murdered

On April 12, 2012 in Chicago in one night a 7 year old girl was one of eight wounded, but what does the Mayor of Chicago do? Rahm Emanuel pulls out the card of "its not my fault, it is someone else's fault. Mayor Emanuel said this ""You can say, 'Are you doing it right,'" Emanuel said, "but the question is, 'Why were those policies not done before?'" Emanuel was referring to a proactive gang strategy to deal with curfew violations, liquor stores that are gang havens and attract street gangs.

The Chicago Police Superintendent Gary McCarthy says "gangs are big problem-rapidly becoming even bigger. Gangs are responsible, he estimates, for more than 80% of the gun violence in Chicago." We believe he gets "IT", but with the political climate in Chicago getting "IT" done is extremely hard. But McCarthy also is proposing more legislation, but what is needed is a uniform approach.

Project Ceasefire is one of the very organizations that is working to address gang issues particularly after a violent situation occurs. They try to diffuse the situation before it get worse. But Project Ceasefire has yet to receive a returned telephone call. Why shun a group that can help? Project Ceasefire does some great work, particularly in prevention and intervening in the very issues are facing Chicago today. For those who do not know about Project Ceasefire the link is above. Project Ceasefire gets "IT!"

Black-on-Black Violence
An article in the USA Today by DeWayne Wickham in his column addresses the issue of "Black-on-Black Violence."  Mr. Wickham's article talks about "While blacks are just 12.6% of the nation's population, they're roughly half of people murdered in this country each year. The vast majority of these kills are at the hands of other blacks." He sites that via FBI Uniform Crime Statistics are that in 2009 6,556 Black people were killed, which is far more than troops killed in both Iraq and Afghanistan to date. Mr. Wickham states that the killings in black neighborhoods have fueled the flight of upper-income and middle class blacks to safer neighborhoods and "left urban war zones."  Mr. Wickham believes that by ending the epidemic of black-on-black killings  it could improve the educational opportunities of black children, improve job prospects and attract business opportunities to these urban deserts left behind.  Mr. Wickham truly gets "IT!"

In an article posted on the Blaze.com In response to President Obama’s decision to raise the profile of the Trayvon Martin case, T. Willard Fair, president of the Urban League of Greater Miami, recently told The Daily Caller that the “the outrage should be about us killing each other, about black-on-black crime.”

He asked rhetorically, “Wouldn’t you think to have 41 people shot [in Chicago] between Friday morning and Monday morning (March 17-19, 2012) would be much more newsworthy and deserve much more outrage?”  Mr. Fair is an extremely astute gentlemen and we know he truly gets "IT!"

Darryl E. Owens, Columnist for the Florida Sun Sentinel wrote a commentary in his article on April 6, 2012, "goes something like this: Why are Jackson and Sharpton (and by extension, the black community) so worked up over the death of one black kid? Why aren't they barnstorming Chicago, which endured a spasm of violence last month, including a deadly six-hour stretch in which 13 men were shot, and two died?" One can only say that this is very succintly put.

Mr. Owens continues in his column to say that "today, violent-crime rates have fallen to the lowest levels since national stats were first kept in 1965. Yet black-on-black crime remains epidemic. And like health epidemics, after years in the headlines, the initial buzz has faded."   We believe that Mr. Owen's truly understands "IT" and that although many in the black community in general say it, few want to address the issue, for what it really is.  that far to many young black men are dying on a regular basis at the hands of other young black men.

To sum it all up!

Regardless of if the public, politicians or the "talking heads" gets "IT", the issue is this. Young black people are dying at unprecedented rates at the hands of other young black men. Until the realization by the public is that becoming involved, parenting your children and finally saying "enough is enough" but instead of drawing attention to their deaths to address the issue. Time will only tell, but one thing is rest assured that more young black men will die by another young black man before this issue is ever resolved.