As an up-and-coming African American social worker, I have engaged with clients who were homeless, addicted to drugs and mentally ill. For many of them, the first step toward deciding on treatment and/or recovery required the acknowledgment that they had a problem and that it had become too large and devastating for them to manage on their own.
Unfortunately, in Chicago, there is a pandemic of death that many of our elected officials refuse to acknowledge out loud even as the bloodshed continues every day.
For decades, beautiful Black people who were aspiring artists, college graduates, high schoolers, adolescents and even infants have been cut down at the hands of Black offenders. According to the Chicago Police Department’s annual crime report from 1980, homicide claimed 881 lives in the city that year; 688 of those victims were Black people.
Fast-forwarding through the years, the numbers change very little: In 1981, Black people made up 790 of the 959 homicide victims; in 1982, 735 out of 856; and in 1983, 635 out of 770. Reports from the 1990s echo the same death song as previous years. The number of homicides remained very high, varying from 650 to 900 a year. This decade also ushered in the sad trend of younger victims and perpetrators. Reports show that the majority of those slain were ages 11 to 30.
The beginning of this century also came in like a bad dream from which we could not wake. In 2010, 70% of those killed were young men, and 76.1% were Black. In 2020, 80.65% of homicide victims were Black, even though Black people made up only 28.8% of Chicago’s population, according to the 2020 census.
In no other civilized nation would this be normal. If Black people were dying at this rate at the hand of people of any other race or culture, it would be seen as a massacre and condemned in the strongest terms possible.
Only in Illinois and Chicago do men and women get elected, swear to better the lives of their citizens, take their money and votes, and do it all while standing in the bloodshed. Every summer during spikes in the violence and death, politicians, if they speak at all, offer prayers, watered-down excuses of past racial impediments, past social ills, employment obstacles and police ineffectiveness, while sidestepping any true expressions of real anger and condemnation.
And while the city itself has only had the pleasure of having three Black full-term mayors, Black people serve as the Cook County board president and chief justice, and we occupy the Cook County state’s attorney office, multiple aldermanic seats and the police superintendent’s post. However, these authorities have done very little to change the amount of violence and self-hatred that has plagued our neighborhoods and culture for decades.
Black political elites must stop thinking of themselves and engage our problem loudly and not in hushed tones. They must begin to have the hard conversations with each other, minus the stigmatization, and attack this problem as the humanitarian crisis that it is. In tandem with them, we must speak the truth that no child is born hamstrung with the knowledge that they are Black, poor or incapable of achieving greatness. These obstacles must be placed in front of them at their homes by parents who have come to feel this way themselves.
We have to accept the truthful realization that police are not going to be our Superman. They walk back through the aftermath of a crime, discover who committed it and arrest the offender for judgment by the courts. It is unfair to condemn them for failing to solve homicides in our area when homicides continue to happen with such frequency.
And finally, even though we were not the primary architects of our neighborhoods and their decline — much of it taking place through racial redlining and city policies — there are those who live among us that have played a major part in ensuring they stay dilapidated. Narcotic sales and use, gang violence, incessant littering and an overall lack of respect for others and authority have downgraded Black neighborhoods and robbed them of their financial value.
If we intend to break free of this senseless circle of death, it will be through reaching the next generation. Employing youth boot camps with competent, caring instructors; military career workshops; trade workshops; and arts and theater and job training programs are just some of the ways we can help young people see their greatness and combat the neighborhood hustlers.
Paying teens a favorable wage year-round to come out and pick up trash, help the elderly with chores and learn as interns in the financial sector could help combat cheap money from dangerous shoplifting and drug selling.
If we take the time to admit that we have a problem, maybe we can begin to collectively deconstruct the violence and jump-start the healing process that is sorely needed to save the next Black life.
Ephraim Lee is a Chicagoan and a member of the council for Chicago’s 2nd Police District.
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