Opinion
‘The violince is effecting my friends im sad about that’
Chicago sixth-grader’s letter urges local politician to think of gangsters as people, too.
On Jan. 13, the Justice Department released a report on the Chicago Police Department that showed systemic violations of civil rights, including the practice of firing at suspects who don’t pose an immediate threat. Race appears to be a factor in the police force’s behavior.
“Raw statistics show that CPD uses force almost 10 times more often against blacks than against whites,” the Justice Department wrote.
What’s shameful is that children are noticing the way people in power dehumanize their communities of color with coded language like “gangsters” in order to justify this use of force. People living amid the violence of Chicago’s South and West Sides want safety as much as the police do, but they also want a just resolution to conflict—not an all-out “war on crime” that will only further devastate marginalized communities.
My buddy Ed Komenda at DNAinfo just published this letter written by a sixth-grader at Shield Middle School to his local alderman, Raymond Lopez. In it he begs Lopez to “please help about the neighborhood violince [sic]” but also insists on the humanity of those who could be abused or killed in the response:
“Mr. Lopez don’t blame the gangsters my friends family is mostly gangsters and they love me and I love them. the violince is effecting my friends im sad about that.”
