Where I Live

          

4/23/21-        Where I LIve

    There was a vigil held on Chicago's westside in commemoration of Jaslyn Adams, a 7 year old girl who was killed by gunfire, and to deplore the shooting that also seriously injured another. It was attended by pastors, ministers, and others. I was jogging just a couple of hours earlier only three blocks north and maybe two blocks east of the shooting. As a boy of 7-10 years of age, I am 69 years old, I lived three blocks away from the shooting. There is a personal  sentiment about this shooting for me, as this could have been me many years ago.  I went to school, played, and joined a church in this community as a boy. This is where I lived.

     As a boy of 7-10 years of age, I lived only a few blocks from where I informed you that a pastor showed me where a man  was slain in front of his church. The block that I live on now,  has experienced murders, driveby shootings while I was sitting on the porch. Driveby car wreckings with the perpetrators running off on foot. This is where I live now. 

     Like many persons, I too am concerned about policing reform, for the record. I live here in a black community, I just don't come here and go. I know the sentiment in black communities. I have canvassed black communities in Chicago and elsewhere. During the protests last year, some black people supported the protests, while others were disgruntled that the businesses where they shop to buy baby formula, food, and other necessities were not available to them. There are no monolithic, straight and narrow viewpoints that exist in black communities. Anyone who tells you anything else is a liar, they don't live in the black community, or they are misled.

    This I know to be true because I live here. Black people are concerned about policing reform AND street crime in the black communities. There has been great work done in rallying and discouraging street crime. I have participated in numerous Stop The Violence rallies in Chicago and abroad. There was vigil held here just the other day for Jaslyn Adams. Policing reform is just one issue that incurs the interest of black people, as most of us in the city of Chicago have also experienced some related form of street crime. I have been close to shootings from short distances where I had to duck in my car, and from hearing screeching tires just seconds past from a drive-by shooting. I live here.

    It is well within the interests of all involved for me to embark upon the task of helping to settle the land with the posting of GOD's  word among us. Policing reform and providng a means to instill peace, civility, and respect for life can co-exist. The word of GOD is a two-edged sword that searches the hearts of people. It removes hate and meanness, indifference to others, creates understanding, deems responsibility, screams aloud for justice and smothers injustice. It seems to me policing reform and street crime wherever they may be, have common elements that the word of GOD is eagerly awaiting to correct.