By John W. Fountain
This is another
in an occasional, yearlong series that looks behind the number of murders in
Chicago.
Not Jonylah. Not
Hadiya.
Frances. Her name
is Frances.
Frances Colon. She was 18. She was not just another nameless, faceless statistic in the incessant toll of Chicago murder victims whose blood pours over city’s streets like rain water.
She was Dorothy Payton’s and Jose Colon’s daughter. Sister to Lizzie, Lorretta, Lalorrie, Selena, Dominique and Donice. A jewel to four brothers.
Frances Colon. She was 18. She was not just another nameless, faceless statistic in the incessant toll of Chicago murder victims whose blood pours over city’s streets like rain water.
She was Dorothy Payton’s and Jose Colon’s daughter. Sister to Lizzie, Lorretta, Lalorrie, Selena, Dominique and Donice. A jewel to four brothers.
She was remembered
by tearful friends and family on a lukewarm Saturday in March, beneath a gray
sky. Her mother wiped away tears, said her goodbye.
Frances. Her name
was Frances. Remember?
I am too angry,
too troubled, to forget.
Her mother wants
us all to remember. Except she believed, even as we sat in the funeral service
for her daughter three months ago, that “we” would soon forget. That once
departed, the media, the cameras and the headlines that clamor, click and capture
public attention for the moment of sensation would leave and her daughter’s slaying
and memory would disappear, like the smoke of an extinguished candle.
Angry that the
media and society places more value on certain lives and less on others.
I cannot deny that
class and race and squeaky cleanness and scholarly achievement—not to mention perceived
pure innocence—in the mix of murder, can create media frenzy or give a story a
longer shelf life.
As a reporter, I
have too often had to lobby editors to write stories about black and brown
murder victims or even about black and brown life. Too often I have seen these
stories—even if I understand that there really are no black or white or brown
stories, only human stories—diminished and devalued.
I have witnessed
this in American newsrooms, largely because the lives of those making editorial
decisions often are not directly impacted. I have come to see it not only as a
matter of race but also class.
And yet, the “class”
issue that ought be most prevalent in Frances Colon’s case is that she was a
member of the senior class at Roberto Clemente High School. She should have
attended prom. She should be preparing for graduation. For the next phase of life,
rather than halted by homicide.
Like Jonylah
Watkins and Hadiya Pendleton, Frances was slain by a gunman’s bullet. She
happened to be walking out of a West Side store when, according to police, a 34-year-old
man was shooting at another man.
She was shot in
the back. She died. She was eulogized as she lay in a white casket trimmed in
gold. Her name was Frances. Remember?
Sadly,
there are too many slayings. Perhaps too many cases to report, too many names
to remember. Too many slain daughters and sons. Too many funerals. Too many
tears.
And yet, perhaps
not enough anger over it all.
“That was the
last thing on my mind, that she would go visit and stop at the store because
she was thirsty and wanted some chips and get shot,” Dorothy Payton said,
speaking emotionally to mourners at Frances’ funeral March 2. “It wasn’t God
that took her life… It was the devil that took her. And I am angry.”
“My daughter will
never be forgotten by me… She might be forgotten by everybody else, the media
and whatever, a year from now, a month from now, a week from now, but she will
not be forgotten by her mother.”
And not by me, I
promised the mother.
Her name was
Frances.