Violence takes sharp upward turn
“Redrum. Redrum.” The insidiously ominous murmerings of the dead children from the horror classic “The Stand” ring out loudly over the Windy City as the broken spirit of the place where I was born and raised struggles to figure out why it cannot seem to repair itself. Too bad.
After a much-welcomed period of decreasing violence in the city– there were 533 fewer shootings as of Aug. 1 than the same time period last year– Chicago has experienced in one murderous night a dramatic resurgence in shootings– in almost epic proportions, according to the Chicago Tribune. At least 40 people were shot from midnight Saturday to early Sunday morning. Four people died.
Predictably, gang violence is largely to blame. Police say twenty-five of the shootings took place on Chicago’s West Side– increasingly a hotbed of gang activity. Other shootings took place at a downtown concert with thousands of people in attendance. Some of the shootings were targeted; some were random.
I spent the first 35 years of my life in Chicago
The home I remember was not a place of such unnecessary violence. For decades now Black folks have been leaving Chicago in droves, looking for a better way of life. Interesting, though, whites don’t seem to feel as unsafe and insecure in the Windy City– and I’m not quite sure what to make of that.
