The Unheard Victims of Guns, Gangs and Violence
Our Voices Must Be Heard
Before you turn the page, click on another link, or watch the Bachelorette, because the last thing you need to hear is another sad story, please know that DESPITE the difficult experiences students in urban neighborhoods live through on a daily basis, they have graduated high school, gone to college, become police officers, teachers, nurses, chefs, etc. But this does not change the fact that the Unheard Victims of Guns, Gangs, and Violence and their stories NEED to be heard. Deserve to be heard! And most importantly deserve to have something done about it.
Have you ever?
Heard gunshots outside your home? On a regular basis?
Lost a family member or loved one to gang or gun violence?
Had a gun pointed at you while being asked “Who do you represent?”
Seen someone shot and killed in front of your home?
Been pressured as early as 8 years old to join a gang by your family?
Enjoyed a day at your local park with your young children when a gun fight broke out?
Felt scared to travel to school or work?
Seen a body laying in the street after being shot or stabbed to death?
Can you imagine a reality where these scenarios are considered “normal”?
Will your voice be heard?
Get involved
The tragic truth of the matter is that most of my students at a high school in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood can answer yes to more than one of those questions. Shockingly, they are not aware that for “most” Americans, these are NOT normal experiences. I recently had forty teachers from around the country observing one of my classes. We were discussing Parkland Florida student Emma Gonzalez’s speech after the shootings when I asked my students to raise their hands if they had ever heard gunshots outside of their house. Ninety percent raised their hands. Comments such as “man, that happens every day” were murmured. I then asked them who had lost a loved one to gang and/or gun violence. Seventy percent raised their hands. I then asked our guests the same questions. Five teachers said they had heard gunshots (all from a tough school district in Wisconsin). Three had lost a loved a one. More than one cried and told my students that they were sorry that they had experienced these things.
Six years ago, after the Sandy Hook shooting in Newtown Connecticut, I began an annual assignment of having students write about their personal experiences with loss due to guns, gangs and violence. After sharing these stories with friends on facebook and having them mentioned in an article in the Huffington Post, I received hundreds of messages from friends, family and colleagues that were devastated to learn that ANY child lives through experiences like these. One friend wrote me a message that she had been crying at her desk all day thinking about students like mine and expressed that the first time she was really afraid was on 9/11, when she was in her 30’s and that she was in Chicago at the time!