Deep Pools of Black on the South Side of Chicago

I am going to tell you a story, a sad story.




A story of unimaginable misery and a very forlorn story.



This story will leave you in tears.



Iit will leave you angry.



It will leave you with despair in your heart and a gaping hole in your soul.



This is a story about confused youth and gang cultures.



The story of missing dadas' and preoccupied mammies.



It is a story driven by poverty and social marginalization.



A story about the institutionally disenfranchised.



A story about the boy who walked on the wrong side of street.



This is a story about anywhere USA.



A place where the child is raised by the streets.



A place where only one rule matters.



The rule that helps you survive the silence of the city night.



A place where your cry for help will be met by blank stares.



A place where deep and hollow eyes look straight through you.



A place scarred by the viciousness of lives counted in minutes.



Your heart will be broken, again and again.



You will hear of promises being thrown away.



Tales of futures damaged beyond repair.



Tales of men dealing with the repercussions of decisions made as a child.



You will resign yourself to the hopelessness of the times.



You will tell yourself it is the sad savage underbelly of “living in the City”.



The “City” a jungle of a place where boys grow up fast and girls even faster.



A place driven by the one true creed, “I gats to get wats mines”.



I was going to tell you this story.



But you have already heard it, so many times before.



Now the whole thing just washes over you.



Even though you are soaked in it.



You barely stop to reflect on the brutally and stupidity of it all anymore.



This is the sad story of black on black violence.