Something About Nothing by Julie Seedorf

Cassius White. You won’t recognize the name unless you caught the small blurb of his name in a newspaper article surrounding the Fourth of July weekend shootings in Chicago. It was a little blurb, easily missed, considering all the news of the world splashed across the headlines in our papers today.

Cassius White was 19 years old. He was killed in a drive-by shooting while waiting for a bus in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Chicago. White and his family moved to Chicago in 2006 after being displaced by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. He was in fourth grade at the time of the move.

The weekend Cassius was killed, there were, according to Homicide Watch, 13 people killed and 58 wounded by gunfire in Chicago. Some of the victims were shot standing in front of their house, driving down the street in their cars and waiting for a bus. The age of the victims ranged from 14 to 50. Some were mothers, fathers, sons and daughters.

You might wonder why I am writing about a little blurb in a newspaper and violence in Chicago. It doesn’t affect us, and it doesn’t affect me — except it does.

Cassius White was the nephew of one of my best friends from high school. Her phone call to me was one of deep sorrow. This young man was loved by a mother, father, brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends. I grieve for my friend’s loss.

I remember a few years ago, living in my insulated world, I was shocked when my son and his wife, who lived in Omaha, told of an employee in the company he worked for that lived with the sound of gunfire every night in his neighborhood. People were killed, people were wounded. This was 10 years ago. Now, as I look back from my naive world, I realize that the situation played out in every big city in the nation even at that time.

Here we are 10 years forward, and my friend is grieving for a nephew that is a victim of the same type of violence I became aware of that had been taking place in sections of Omaha. Not much has changed except it appears to be escalating.

Little by little what is happening in the neighborhoods of the big cities is also creeping into my little naive insulated world, shocking me and others that this could be happening. Schools have become a place where the doors are locked like prisons only to keep people out, instead of in.

Kids are not allowed to walk down the streets by themselves, or play the way we used to play. Mall shootings are becoming commonplace, and we are shocked for a while. How soon will these occurrences become little blurbs in the newspapers, like the death of Cassius White? Already we bemoan the fact that there are no longer any safe places, and yet we go on with our lives without another thought.

The past few weeks, youth groups from churches all over the nation were on mission trips to larger cities and neighborhoods where violence takes place on a regular basis. A friend of mine shared with me that while they worked they were warned of a shooting that had just taken place on the next block. Another time, they had be evacuated because another situation was taking place nearby.

The kids who lived in the area took these happenings calmly and weren’t shook up. It was normal to them. The same feeling was not shared with the kids from the youth group. This was not their norm.

The headlines and TV talking heads are screaming with the news taking place overseas. Heated discussions about these events are taking place all over our country. American news media should be screaming about the murders of our young children in neighborhoods like Chicago, Omaha, Milwaukee and other big cities. It should be front and center and a high priority for all of us instead a small blurb for a day in a newspaper.

We should be angry about what is happening to our young people of all races. We also should be angry that so many of our young people today feel so incomplete that they need to take their life in suicide.

I imagine now for a few minutes after this column is published the discussion will be about  blaming guns, blaming parents, blaming our legislature, blaming the fact that the word God has been taken from our country, blaming drugs, blaming poverty and whatever else we can find to blame. If we don’t live in the neighborhoods where the violence is taking place it is easy to blame what we don’t know and what we don’t understand. Does blame get us any closer to a solution or drive us farther away from any chance of coming together for a more peaceful environment for our children?

A wise friend gave me counsel as we were talking about the violence. This person suggested that we send people in to the neighborhoods who need help. They stay for a few days and then they leave. This person suggested that the only way we are going to understand, or  see a difference, is if these neighborhoods become a shared neighborhood with us. There is only going to be a difference if we live in these neighborhoods and share the lives of the people that are living there.

Because we live in such a segregated society of the rich and poor, with the dwindling middle class somewhere in between, this will never happen. Life has become too centered on greed and things, rather than caring for one another. Perhaps this person is right.

That doesn’t sound very hopeful does it? I feel in a small way that a change has to start with each and every one of us.

Perhaps that small change can take place by being aware, by reading the blurb in the paper that will not stay in the headlines. It might take place by remembering the name of Cassius White and praying for his family. It might take place by being a mentor to a young person who is struggling. It might take a family to be a mentor to another family. It might take place right in your own home by making the decision that family time and mentoring your own children is more important than the next video game or the next scheduled practice. It might take place by teaching your children and your neighbor children compassion.

Remember the saying “Children learn what they live.”

Rich or poor, children can learn compassion and integrity. Change might take place in tiny steps by reading this column and telling someone, and starting a discussion and keeping that discussion going. Agree to disagree. Somewhere, somehow, there has to be someone out there that can make a difference, start a movement to stop the violence in the cities. We send aid and negotiators overseas. We send missionaries and aid workers to war torn countries. We live in the greatest country in the world, let us be bigger than our differences.

Cassius White, I grieve your death even though I did not know you. I hurt for your family. May we all remember your name and use that memory to move forward with change.

 

Wells resident Julie Seedorf’s column appears every Monday. Send email to her at thecolumn@bevcomm.net. Her Facebook page is www.facebook.com/sprinklednotes.