Chicago suffered a horrific, violent, gun-shooting, wild-west like, weekend. Re: The Chicagoans who shoot other Chicagoans this weekend.
Every one of the shooters is multi-dimensional people. Some have a mental illness, some are stuck in poverty, some are just “lone bad seeds.”
I wish Black people could love ourselves enough to see layers in one another.
White shooters are described as “humans, who were ill or made a mistake.”
Black shooters are described as, “animals with a thirst for blood and violence.”
All shootings are wrong.
AND
All shooters are human.
We, all people, can have sympathy for *the people who were shot. Why can’t we also have sympathy for those committing the crimes? Because if we can’t see both, the victims and the offenders, with love and the capacity for change and growth, we are doomed as a people.
We need courageous love and faith, for all Black people during this time. All Black people.
THIS VIOLENCE BENEFITS SOMEONE
**Rahm is a genius.
With all the stories of out of control gun violence of Black & Brown youth, makes you support Rahm’s plan for tax-funded $95,000,000 new police academy, right?
The shootings this weekend makes you feel its okay that Rahm chose to close schools, social services, and mental health clinics in Black & Brown communities because Rahm is going to put more police in the community instead and that’s more important.
Propaganda is real.
Who is financially benefiting from all this violence?
Why aren’t the Black shooters in Chicago given context about their lives?
Because of the racism in the recent media coverage and the racism of individuals, and society, both all Americans and Black Americans; I provide the following facts.
I hate that I have to state this but Black and Brown’s inner-city men aren’t the only killers of innocent people in America.
Here’s an edited list of mass shootings in the United States:
- May 18, 2018: At least 10 people were killed in an active shooter situation at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas.
- Feb. 14, 2018: A former student who had been expelled for disciplinary problems is arrested after a shooting at a Florida high school that left 17 people dead and 16 wounded.
- Oct. 1, 2017: Gunman opens fire on a country music concert in Las Vegas, Nevada, killing at least 58 people and wounding more than 500 others, in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
- June 2016: Gunman kills 49 people at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.
- December 2015: Couple kills 14 people after storming California social services agency. They are killed in gun battle with police.
- November 2015: Gunman kills three after storming a Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic; he is arrested after a hourslong standoff with police.
- October 2015: Gunman kills nine at an Oregon community college before killing himself after a gun battle with police.
- July 2015: Gunman kills five at U.S. Navy Reserve center in Tennessee before being shot and killed by police.
- June 2015: Gunman kills nine people in South Carolina church before fleeing, is captured the following day. The gunman, Dylann Roof, was sentenced to death.
- May 2015: Nine killed in shootout between rival motorcycle clubs and police at Texas restaurant.
- October 2014: Teenage gunman kills four teens, two of whom are his cousins, in Washington state high school before committing suicide.
- September 2013: Gunman kills 12 people at a naval facility in Washington before dying in a gun battle with police.
- December 2012: Gunman kills 26 adults and children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut before killing himself.
- August 2012: Gunman kills six people at Sikh Temple in Wisconsin before committing suicide after being shot by police.
- July 2012: Gunman kills 12 people during showing of a “Batman” movie in Colorado.
- January 2011: Gunman kills six people and wounds U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona.
- November 2009: U.S. Army psychiatrist kills 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas.
- April 2007: Virginia Tech student kills 32 people before committing suicide.
- October 2006: Gunman kills five girls in Pennsylvania Amish school before committing suicide.
In closing, I plea for all Chicagoans to:
Speak life into our youth.
Speak power into our youth.
Speak love into our youth.
Don’t give up on our young people.
We can stop violence in our communities when we love our community. And all community members.
-ShaRhonda Dawson
* We also need to care about all victims too. Transgender, drug addict, gang member, or someway other “socially unacceptable” are people too.
**my husband suggested that I add a disclaimer, that I don’t think Rahm is personally coordinating the shootings nor do I think he is putting guns directly in the hands of the kids. I am a conspiracy-theory (light) person, so my first thought for any crisis is a conspiracy. I still want to know about Scalia’s death at a “man-society” retreat.”