(Editor’s note: we continue to take a pause from the regular reporting of sports and shed some light on the violence happening across the city of Chicago. St. Rita head track and field coach Jon Daniel is a lifelong native of the south side of Chicago where a tremendous amount of violent crimes such as murder and robberies are committed. Coach Daniel agreed to take some time out of his busy schedule to reach out to the city that he loves).
My city is in a crisis right now. This violence epidemic has been crazy for the past few years. Babies and all types of innocent people have been taken because of the choices that some misguided young men in our community make on a regular basis. Instead of handling their problems by talking it out or even boxing it out, they decide to hide behind bullets. This choice has devastating effects as it normally ends with lives lost and people put in jail (which ends up affecting multiple families because it’s mostly black men are dead AND in jail). At the rate we are going we won’t have many black men left in 20 years. A lot will be dead and a good majority of the ones alive will be in jail if we keep heading down this path.
There is not one single thing that must be corrected to fix this problem. The education from schools, the things we see on television and in music, our parents, money, lack of leadership, and the government are some of the most glaring things that in most cases perpetuate the violence.
EDUCATION
Let’s be real here, the education in America needs an overhaul. We use archaic forms of learning and it shows on a national scale as our country lags behind the other world powers. Bring that to a smaller scale like Chicago, where there are budget cuts slashing programs for kids, leaving them with outdated materials. How can the government take away from education when we need that to bring up our future doctors, scientists, and lawyers?
One of the ways to bring change to a community is to educate the people in it. Teach them how to manage money, how to network, how to build business. Our education system is too busy teaching us that Christopher Columbus founded America. When your economy is low, THE LAST thing you should cut is school spending. The kids are our future and there should be no limit on how much we spend for their future. Who wants to learn in an environment that isn’t conducive to learning??
Then you have outside factors that pull you further away from the school route. The “school isn’t cool” mentality has hurt our generation tremendously. You see it on TV shows and especially hear it in music. That forms a “its cooler to be dumb” mentality amongst each other where the smart kids are ridiculed and sometimes have to suppress their knowledge. Then a kid turns on the TV and sees a rapper that didn’t finish high school with all the millions living the life that the kid always dreamed of. The lack of education doesn’t help the kid realize that this is only TV and the rapper represents the exception to the rule. The kid wants to be like the rapper instead of the scientist because the rapper looks COOL. The rapper looks like the people they look up to on the street but better because he has more money. I call this the “hood rich” mentality. You will not get very far in life if you are “hood rich” which brings me to my next point…
TV and Music
The things you watch and listen to also have an effect on how you think and handle situations. The TV, internet and radio are very powerful sources as they teach you most things in your everyday life. What to eat, what’s going on in the world, and also what is “in” and what’s not. These outlets in the wrong situation can also teach you some very bad habits such as blowing money, shooting to handle situations and drug use.
Back to the scenario from the last paragraph: A child in the hood with little to no education sees Chief Keef on the TV. The child sees his clothes, his fake model women, his money and he also sees the guns that Keef talks about in his songs. “If Chief Keef is my idol, and Chief says he shoots people that do him wrong, I’m going to do the same thing”. Silly right? Yes to an educated person this may sound foolish but in the hood where the education is low this is real life. These kids worship the wrong things. Instead of wanting to be a scientist, they want to be a drug dealer because that’s what they see on TV and they lack the rational thinking to know that what they see is purely entertainment. Then you have hypocritical radio stations like WGCI that use slogans like “put the guns down Chicago” then proceed to play music that perpetuates gun violence. That makes no sense to me but I won’t get into that (I will save it for another blog).
The things that kids see now don’t teach them to handle situations in a proper way. Watching World Star videos where most situations end in violence doesn’t teach a person to talk out their problems. The internet allows kids of all ages to view extremely vulgar content that they shouldn’t be seeing until they are of age.
Parents
Parents take some blame in this crisis as well. We have so many babies raising babies that it’s almost impossible to instill good values into the children. If there is lack of education on the parents it is harder to persuade the children to go the education route because the parents don’t know how to do so. Then you have so many families without a father because of death and incarceration there is no leadership in the household. There is nobody for the young kid to look up to so they look to things like music for their idols and they end up with an idol like Chief Keef. Parents we have to do better as a whole! Support your kids! Be active in their lives. Push them to be great in school. Good parenting saves children.
Money
One of the main contributors to crime is money. In the hood it’s a never ending cycle. You start school as a young kid then you start to have the outside factors try to pull you away from that path. Drugs, gangs, music, and the education itself can make a kid go down the wrong path. They flunk out of high school and start selling drugs to make money. The cops come and bust him and now there is a crime. Money will drive a person that doesn’t have it to great lengths to get it. They will do some horrible things to get a dollar or two. Look at Chicago, the places with the lowest poverty happen to be the places with the highest crime rate. This isn’t just a coincidence. To truly help a community you have to INVEST in that community not take away from it. Provide programs designed to change the way of thinking by the people in that area. Show them how to get money without selling a rock on the corner. The government takes their tax dollars and instead of using it on the community they use it to build stadiums and things of that nature in OTHER communities.
Lack of leadership
This is a huge problem in the community as well. There aren’t many leaders anymore that stand up for the rights of the people. Even on the gang side there are no leaders so instead of being unified, gangs are now sets so violence happens block to block instead of area to area. There is no father in most households so the leadership is gone in almost every aspect of life. No father so no leadership at home, nobody on the block or in the neighborhood to look up to, nobody on the national scale to stand up for your rights. It is up to the people in the neighborhoods to fight back and win their neighborhoods back. Our communities as a whole are too focused on self instead of helping each other to strengthen the whole.
Government
I could talk about the government’s role in this for days. The government plays a huge part in whey things are this way. With things like the war on drugs, allocation of tax dollars into different communities and lack of funds into the education system, the government is a big part of the problem. Under the table deals and gerrymandering keep politicians in office that shouldn’t be. We have to get these people out of office to see some changes. Be active in elections because your vote truly does count!
Most of us turn a deaf ear to the things that are going on in our communities. Nobody can fix the problem but us. Most of us talk a good game but only do just that, talk. I urge you to make a difference in your community. Coaches be a role model for your kids and make them better men! Be a mentor! Be a leader! There are many great organizations such as the guide right organization that are designed to help mentor and save our youth. Reach out and be the change that your community needs!
I would like to thank Tony Jones for allowing me to put my input in on this controversial topic. This platform will help me reach out and bring awareness to what’s going on in our city. If I can save one life or change the mindset of one person this blog was a success. Let’s take back our city, one life at a time.