I felt compelled to write about this after reading a post by Amy Fuji.  Friday night in Chicago on the far South Side, another innocent Chicago Public School student was killed as a result of what is believed to be a gang shooting.  A freshman student was coming home with cousins when gun shots rang out.  According to the victim's cousin, they heard anywhere from 30 to 60 gunshots.  Excuse me if I am wrong, but this is not a war zone, it's a city street. 

Gregory Robinson was the lastest victim of these senseless crimes.  I don't understand the rationale behind some of these gang members and I'll probably never will.  They are fighting about 'turf' and other things that don't belong to any of them.  They shoot one another and when they all end up dead or in jail, some other loser is out on the street doing the same thing.

This story is a little personal for me.  Gregory Robinson was the oldest child of a girl I know.  She was one of the pastor's grandchildren of the church I attended when I was younger.  We weren't very close (and I really didn't care for her when we were younger), but I've remained in contact with other members of the family.  In spite of the our childhood and the feelings I had for her, I still feel like a part of me died with this child.  Maybe it's because of the connection I have with other family members.  Nonetheless, it is still a tragic, senseless death.  My friend told me that the mom (her cousin)hasn't spoken a word since this child's death. 

I often hear on the news about programs and initiatives to stop violence and I couldn't agree more with the people who start these events; however a significant number of people who need to hear about these programs are never listening.  The parents of the gang members are either too busy doing their own thing, or they are pretending like their child is an angel.  They'll be the same people on the news trying to convince everyone that their child was a good child and never did anything to anyone after he is killed. 

It's hard trying to convince many young people that live in high crime areas that the gang life will only get you in jail or in the grave.  They don't believe me because my life is not their reality.   I can't imagine thinking I will not live beyond a certain age.  Many of my students believe they will not live beyond 16, 18, 21 or 25 so they really don't plan for much.  I now understand why elementary and high school graduations are so important to a lot of them.  When they graduate from elementary school, that is the best time of their life because they may not make it out of high school.  Some of them will either drop out of die out. 

When the time comes for these students to graduate from high school, the parents come up to the school crying and slinging snot because they have gotten all of their family members together to come and witness their precious Junebug graduate.  Most of these parents were nowhere to be found when Junebug was not doing well in school prior to graduation time.  Many of the parents fight for high school graduation, even if the child has a low GPA.  It doesn't matter, just as long as they graduated from high school.  I think the parents and the children know that high school is the final hoorah before they either go to jail or die.  This is why so many of them spend hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars on the prom. 

I digress.  It is sad that so many CPS students are dying and summer hasn't even gotten started.  Robinson, an unintended target is the 28th student to die this school year.  I don't know what the summer holds for many of the students in Chicago, but if the past 7 months are any indication, then it's going to be one crazy, deadly summer.