Chicago, on the 4th....

 

 

"Oh, Chicago...."

 

This had been a very odd month so far. If you were hoping for another remake of an "OJ trial", you are in luck! If you are sick to death of hearing, on a  24x7 basis, ALL about the Zimmerman "stand your ground" trial, that is too dang bad. Speaking of the Zimmerman trial, how in the world did we get to this type of fascination with only one of the 14,000 murders that are committed in this country every year? I will tell you how - the President and the AG wanted another "teachable moment" about race, similar to the Henry Louis Gates (beer summit) incident.

The big problem with making the Zimmerman/Martin tragedy totally about race is this - it is not the races the Administration nor the MSM wanted. After all, it was a black kid and a Hispanic man. No problem - the press will fix that. All of a sudden we had a new race evolve in our country - White Hispanic. Yes, through the magic of the press, George Zimmerman now had become white. Well, he is of mixed heritage you might say. True - using that logic we can then say our President and Attorney General are both White African Americans. Let the silly season begin.

Here comes the hard part. As the nation was glued to the trial in Florida over the 4th of July, the Windy City of Chicago turned (once again) into a shooting gallery. Who cares? It seems not too many people - that is, unless you live in the battle zones of Chicago. How bad was it over the 4th? Eleven people killed, and at least sixty-two people wounded between Thursday and Sunday night. Once again, more people killed in Chicago than in an active war zone like Afghanistan. These numbers include two kids, ages five and seven, wounded in the gun fights. This carnage happened after last year's 500 murder spree when city leaders said they were going to "do something" to stem this senseless violence.

Who cares? For the most part it is just black on black crime. You know, gang bangers killing gang bangers. It has become our "new normal" in cities like Chicago, Los Angles, Oakland, Detroit and so on. Now if it was gangs of certain races fighting each other, like Sharks and Jets from West Side Story, the press might get interested.

Somehow, we as a society have been able to marginalize the lives of certain groups of people. Speaking for myself, and I am sure many others, I am NOT okay with people killing people, no matter the race, income level or age.  John Donne wrote in For Whom the Bells Toll - "Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." Somehow, we have managed to travel down the road from humanitarian to benign acceptance of escalating body counts. Yes, the bell does toll, and it tolls for all of us - and I mean all of us.