By John W. Fountain
I
am almost too angry to write. Angry about the
killings. Angry at this city I love. Angry at my people—fellow African
Americans—over our nonchalant acceptance of the senseless murder of our children
in the streets like dogs, and our defeatist, kneejerk, shoulder hunching.
I am angry about
the murder of another child—Hadiya Pendleton, 15—fatally shot this week while
standing under a canopy in a South Side park.
I am angry that we still are not up
in arms. That we have not yet declared, “Enough is enough.” A state of
emergency.
Angry that we do
not demand that Mayor Rahm Emanuel now make all of Chicago safe, restore order
to every Chicago neighborhood, make them secure enough for children to go to
school, jump rope outside their homes, sit in the park, or simply play without
the daily threat of gunfire in the same way that his own children play at ease.
Angry that the
city’s police chief can speak of shootings and killings in percentages, as if
the numbers are not a reflection of human loss, as if what’s being measured here
are jellybeans not human lives.
I awoke yesterday
to a friend’s Facebook posting: “For months, I disagreed w folks who thought
the president should come home and address the violence issue. Now, I think
it's time…”
Uh, hello, man… It’s
wa-a-ay past time to come home.
Surrounding Obama’s
Hyde Park home is a valley of death on the South Side, where streets are
stained with our children’s blood.
Oh, and, the
president is, uh—last I checked—uh, well, uh, black.
And the little
girls being murdered here? Well, they look a lot like his beautiful daughters
and mine.
But what can
President Barack Obama do? What could he really say? Why should he act like
he’s the president of “Black America”?
First, there is
but one America. And ain’t I—we—also American?
Also, what
President Obama can do or say for us is the same thing he has said or done on
behalf of advocates of same sex marriage, or on behalf of the cause of illegal
immigrants, or gays in the military, or for the grieving families whose
children were slain at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
Obama can bring a
sense of national urgency to this crisis in Chicago. And by doing so, he’ll also
bring a little more heat on his former chief of staff, the mayor, to stop these
mostly young, black male killers “by any means necessary”—to use Malcolm X’s
words.
And what can we African
Americans do?
We can resolve to
raise our children, to teach them values from the cradle. To teach them about
the sanctity of human life and the difference between stuff and substance.
Our men must be
fathers, not simply sperm donors.
Single young
women must cease from having baby after baby after baby after baby when they
cannot care for one.
We must snitch.
Mamas must turn
in their killer sons.
And our churches,
which take so much, must now give back—opening their doors as after-school learning
and adult training centers, as safe havens, even using their big screen
televisions in their sanctuaries to spotlight this issue at every Sunday
worship service until we have subdued it.
I can hear ‘em
now: “So, Mr. Self-Righteous, what are YOU doing?”
For starters, I’m
raising my children. I’m mentoring other men’s children, more than I can count.
And I’ve resolved
to keep writing, even when I question whether it does any damn good.