Chicago's Youth Violence: Too Young To Die

The violence in Chicago has hit a major high of calamity amongs today’s youth and their families. According to statistics, since 2006 there has been over 500 student shootings, which 1/3^rd of those students died on their way home from school. These young victims ages range from 5 to 17 years old. Three weeks ago a 16 year old named Derrion Albert was brutally beaten to death on his way home from school.

So what do you do when you see your child off to school in the morning and he doesn’t return home? What do you do when innocence is lost, when it is taken right before your eyes? Derrion is just one out of hundreds of victims who have died due to street and gang violence over the past few years. You don’t even have to be outside to get hurt or shot these days. Due to gang warfare a young boy was in the confinement of his home when he was shot through the window while playing his video game. Although he survived that’s an example of how serious the violence in Chicago has gotten. Bullets have no name or a steady direction remembering the 7-year-old girl who was shot while standing at a hamburger stand with her dad.

My perspective on youth violence in Chicago is, first of all this is a cause for immediate and desperate action. It is going to take more than money for programs to prevent us from burying our children too soon. We need more positive leaders, more parental guidance more powerful law enforcers, and most of all we can’t put an end to violence without stopping and creating the criminals of violence. No need to beat around the bush but the majority of street and gang violence is most prominent in the black community, not just in Chicago but also all over America. However, it is evident that learned behavior is partially where the massive violence bought upon today’s youth stems from. It also comes from fatherless and unstable homes, peer pressure from friends and relatives, and non-productive and negative role models. Any child, who is living or brought up in the inner city/urban/hood, is at risk of being victimized or becoming a criminal of urban warfare. There is no doubt that dire action is needed to prevent the accumulation of youth violence, but in my opinion it starts at home. A child with improper or no guidance from home is more likely to open up to what’s presented in front of them-what they see most dominating to society is what they repeat. Nevertheless, children are a product of their environment; therefore, we can’t blame the schools, the police, government officials, television programs or society for the product we create. As a parent we make the rules, just like the government make laws to run a country, parent make laws to run their household. Now I know it may seen easier said then done but if we as parents; as role models; as mentors set by examples in the home first, we won’t have to worry about the streets raising our children. If we step up and assist those who need-who don’t have, then we won’t have to worry about our children being corrupted by the violence in the streets. All it takes is we coming together, not as one race but as people and as a community. No mayor, or any city official nor the POTUS can stop our youth from being victimized from these mean and dangerous streets only WE CAN! but  as long as we keep killing each other our youth and upcoming generations will continue to be headed for destruction.