The Violence Project

Disappointment cannot describe the feeling I had watching the CBS 2 Chicago/WBBM radio town hall on violence in Chicago. It has been literally a minute since it went off the air, but I couldn’t wait until the next day to write about this. Here you had two of the largest media outlets in Chicago giving light on a hotly debated subject, and they drop the ball. How did they drop ball you ask? With panelists and speakers ranging from Jesse Jackson, school board president Rufus Williams, Congressmen Jesse Jackson, Jr. and Danny Davis, police superintendent Jody Weis, Rev. Michael Pfleger and parents of murdered CPS students, what or who possibly could have been left out?

The youth

The youth

The youth

Two hours of rhetoric, grandstanding, insight, and ideas about what is wrong with young people today, how can they be saved, why are so many at risk, but not one youth is given the chance to speak on their own behalf. The irony of this is that right outside Kennedy King College, where the town hall took place, you will find young people between 55th and 79th & Halsted breaking curfew, hanging out on the streets. For every youth out there who are gang banging, dropping out of school, or dying, there are many more trying to do something with their lives and able to offer as much — sometimes more– insight than the leaders who continue to speak on our behalf. Each time the camera cut into the audience, I scanned it to find at least one young face but could see a person who looked like they were under 25.

Despite popular belief, young people have to something to say. They always have. We just don’t listen. We put up the wall at the first difficulty and conclude that they’re “different” or “not how they used to be back in my day.” But as a recently vilified pastor once said, “different does not mean detrimental.”

Besides ignoring the young people, regular community residents were left out of this talk. I’m talking about the residents who aren’t part of an organization. If we’re going to open up this debate, we need to knock down the doors and let everybody in. Forget about the cameras. Forget about the lights. Forget about the ad sponsors. And, hopefully, Mayor Daley can take part too.

In fact, here is my idea for a town hall: Mayor Daley and these same leaders go on a citywide tour of community centers, high school gyms and auditoriums , churches, etc. — maybe even Soldier Field if the demand is there– and open the doors to everybody in the communities. When I say everybody, I mean everybody. Community groups, youth, parents, gang bangers, addicts, the homeless, the tired, the rich, the poor and the huddled masses. Open the gates and just have at it for as long as everyone is willing. Find out why these kids are dropping out? Why are the gang bangers joining gangs? Why are addicts doing drugs? Why have some people stopped caring? We don’t have to worry about commercial breaks or interrupting CSI: Miami and Criminal Minds.

If there was one person at the town hall who brought this point home, it was teacher and lecturer Dr. Adolph Brown, III. Brown walked around the room until the very end disguised as the stereotypical young male many are used to envisioning: doo-rag and baggy clothes. Brown encountered only stern looks and silence from most of those in attendance, not an ounce of outreach or gratefulness for this disguised young person making the effort to attend this forum. As Brown revealed his suit and true identity under the baggy clothes, the audience was left silent and befuddled from their hypocrisy. After two hours of talk, Brown challenged them to action.

Will they answer his call? We’ll see at the next town hall.

Tonight, from 7pm to 10pm, CeaseFire will target a series of blocks in Chicago’s North Lawndale Community and its surrounding neighborhoods to engage further residents on the block and discuss the efforts of violence interrupters, while potentially defusing any conflicts that may arise during these more violent hours and work to train residents in non-violent conflict.

Details:

Friday, May 9, 7pm - 10 pm

Christian Valley Baptist Church

1318 S. Homan

I wanted to use this post to single out some of the excellent reporting my fellow Medill colleagues have been doing this week on issues related to this blog.

On Tuesday, Erin Halasz wrote about Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s proposed $150 million initiative that would invest in community development and summer jobs for young people in low-income communities. The money would be broken down in the following ways:

• $30 million to create jobs for up to 20,000 teens and young adults
• $20 million for after-school programs in high-crime areas
• $50 million in grant money for organizations that help put people to work or redevelop high-crime areas
• $40 million for local community development groups, financial institutions, venture enterprises and businesses or communities that can demonstrate immediate job growth from their projects
• $10 million in grant money for local police departments to purchase equipment

While the plan sounds good on paper, doubts are still in the air, given the govenor’s track record of political grandstanding and not being able to come through on his promises. The financial troubles of the state are also worth considering.  Mayor Daley, who last week announced his plan for youth summer jobs during his State of the City address, made his own doubts public regarding the governor’s plan.

Another angle on the governor’s proposal was followed up the next day by Josh Pollock. He looked at one of the groups that, surprisingly, was left out of the gov’s new funding: CeaseFire. In a year, CeaseFire has seen its locations shrink from 25 to only four, despite many successes. The sharp reduction in operations is due to state funding that was discontinued. CeaseFire now receives its money mainly from the Department of Justice and private organizations.

Today, Chloe Wiley covered a local organization near the Cabrini Green housing development that reaches out to give local kids an alternative to the streets. The Alliance for Community Peace is a faith-based organization that states in its mission:

seeks to improve academic performance and school attendance of students; to provide opportunities for demonstrating postive social skills,interactions, and relationships through educational, recreational, cultural, and other program activities, to adopt positive decision making skills that discourage negative risk taking behaviors through life skills application; and to develop meaningful work experiences leading to career and vocational fulfillment for students, adults, and families.

Big propos to all three for peeling the layers off this onion and doing the work many in our field still won’t do.

Ishma Stewart (Family photo from the Chicago Tribune)

In another detour from what’s supposed to be the usual focus of this blog, I have tragic news to share.

Loyola University journalism student Ishma Stewart was shot and killed Sunday night on the 4800 block of South Indiana Avenue on the city’s South Side. Stewart, 20, was driving her car down Indiana Avenue when another car drove alongside Stewart’s, and someone fired shots inside it.

“She felt that journalism was a platform for her to go in and do her part to change the world a little bit—and at least expose some of the truth that may be neglected by mainstream society,” her brother said.

Full Article

Sunday’s New York Times Magazine (written by Northwestern faculty member Alex Kotlowitz) profiled the work of CeaseFire and Gary Slutkin, who I mentioned in an earlier blog post last week. The article goes in-depth to cover Slutkin and the outreach workers of CeaseFire; many of whom are ex-offenders and ganger members who Slutkin believes are the best antidote in preventing shootings in their communities.

THE STUBBORN CORE of violence in American cities is troubling and perplexing. Even as homicide rates have declined across the country — in some places, like New York, by a remarkable amount — gunplay continues to plague economically struggling minority communities. For 25 years, murder has been the leading cause of death among African-American men between the ages of 15 and 34, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has analyzed data up to 2005. And the past few years have seen an uptick in homicides in many cities. Since 2004, for instance, they are up 19 percent in Philadelphia and Milwaukee, 29 percent in Houston and 54 percent in Oakland. Just two weekends ago in Chicago, with the first warm weather, 36 people were shot, 7 of them fatally. The Chicago Sun-Times called it the “weekend of rage.” Many killings are attributed to gang conflicts and are confined to particular neighborhoods. In Chicago, where on average five people were shot each day last year, 83 percent of the assaults were concentrated in half the police districts. So for people living outside those neighborhoods, the frequent outbursts of unrestrained anger have been easy to ignore. But each shooting, each murder, leaves a devastating legacy, and a growing school of thought suggests that there’s little we can do about the entrenched urban poverty if the relentless pattern of street violence isn’t somehow broken.

Given more attention is Slutkin’s alternative model to fighting violence, a public health method that uses the outreach works as to fight what Slutkin calls going after the most infected, and stopping the infection at its source.

Despite a cut in funding and disputes over its methods, CeaseFire can claim concrete results in the work it has been doing. A soon to be released report by researchers hired by the Justice Department found the following:

But the study found that in six of the seven neighborhoods examined, CeaseFire’s efforts reduced the number of shootings or attempted shootings by 16 percent to 27 percent more than it had declined in comparable neighborhoods. The report also noted — with approbation — that CeaseFire, unlike most programs, manages by outcomes, which means that it doesn’t measure its success by gauging the amount of activity (like the number of interrupters on the street or the number of interruptions — 1,200 over four years) but rather by whether shootings are going up or down.

In March, two classmates and I spent a day with a CeaseFire branch on Chicago’s West Side. Here is a video from that story.

An American Nightmare

Action Now is launching a West Side anti-violence campaign at a town hall meeting of community members and government officials tonight at the Christian Valley Church on Chicago’s West Side. The town hall is aimed at opening a dialogue between residents and local officials on strategies to stem the growing tide of violence in west side Chicago neighborhoods.

Action Now plans to call upon officials to support the creation of a 100-block community saftey zone, and the implentation of strategies to get youth off the street and help re-intergrate the formerly incarcerated. Initiatives include:

• Creating more after-school programs
• Launching a summer jobs program for youth
• Improving police presence on the street with foot and bicycle patrols
• Establishing ex-offender re-entry program

Scheduled guests include 28th Ward Alderman Ed Smith, 24th Ward Alderman Sharon Denise Dixon and Cook County Commissioner Robert Steele.

When: 7:00 p.m., April 29, 2008

Where Christian Valley Church, 1237 S. Homan Ave., Chicago, IL

The paper of record brought its attention to the second city with a recent article on the deaths of Chicago students and the steps being taken to prevent more deaths from happening. It offers a very detailed overview for those who might not be familiar with the story, but ultimately stakes out familiar territory. We get the impassioned quotes from schools CEO Arne Duncan and Mayor Daley, balance from an expert and community resident, and, last but not least, a student. In the end, the article asks nothing or challenges the reader or those being interviewed. I felt led on by the beginning of the article because I thought the focus of the article would stay with the community groups who are escorting Crane Technical High School students to school, but by paragraph four it had already moved on. Left out again is the fact that many of these shooters and gang members are as young as the victims or/and drop outs. Left out again is the mention of students trying to organize and lead in their communities, rather standing idle as politicians and other leaders do the talking. Left out again are more community groups and churches who are marching and leaving their doors open late to save those on both sides of the gun. Not given enough depth is the issue of poverty and outside factors that are at the root of this violence.

Props to CLTV and Alexander Russo for shining a different light.

Chatham community marches for peace

Why Is The Mayor Of Chicago Destroying The Reputation Of His Own City School System?
Why Is The Press Letting Him?

From AP:

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley says he’ll meet with more than two dozen officials from religious groups, police, schools and social service agencies to talk about a recent spate of gun violence in the city.

Although this blog is primarily about youth affected by violence, this particular story could not go without mention. Yesterday five people were found shot to death in the 7600 block of South Rhodes in the Park Manor neighborhood. The victims were three men and two men, all in their 20s. Park Manor is right next to the neighborhood I grew up in and continue to call home, Chatham. Both are in the 6th ward, represented by Ald. Freddrenna Lyle — who lives three blocks from where the murders took place.

The shooting brings the number of shooting victims since last Friday to more than 40, 12 of which are fatal. While many of the shootings have been attributed to gang tensions, this shooting is believed to be isolated.

My hope is that these murders do not reflect a negative light on Park Manor or Chatham. They are thriving communities with a rich history and countless people –young and old– who work to make things at least a little bit better. The area has been home to gospel legend Mahalia Jackson, former Chicago Cub Ernie Banks and continues to be the home of former Illinois State Comptroller and Attorney General Roland Burris, who was the first African American elected to a statewide office in Illinois.

UPDATE

The victims were identified as Lakesha Doss, Whitney Flowers, Donovan Richardson, Reginald Walker and Anthony Scales, a spokesman for the Cook County medical examiner’s office said. All the victims were in their 20s, except for Doss, who was 17.

James Edwards/Medill

Gage Park High School students wait to visit the Illinois House of Representatives in the state capitol last week.

A group of Gage Park High School students took a day off from school to learn the ins and outs of state government and lobby for more money for schools and a crackdown on gun violence involving young people.