Houston is horrible, but Chicago’s disaster is worse
Houston.
We have a problem.
Make that a personal issue exists with this deluge of national and world support for Houston flood victims combined with exultations that the United States comes together during difficult times.
Of course, U.S. citizens rally for catastrophes such as 9-11, Hurricane Sandy, Hurricane Katrina and the opioid crisis.
My heart yields to families and friends of the scores of people deceased from Hurricane Harvey but the 2017 body count in Chicago stands at 470.
Nothing has changed in Chicago, where a Fourth of July weekend recorded more than 100 people shot and 15 killed.
Killers set a torrid July pace as 74 people, most of them black, some Latino and a few whites, perished.
Life counters ranked 2016 as Chicago’s most violent in 19 years as Chicago tallied 762 murders, 3,550 shooting incidents, and 4,331 shooting victims.
Blood in Chicago may not rise to the levels of Houston flood waters but Windy City streets stain with scarlet and crimson hues.
Chicago represents a chronic national disaster, a perfect storm produced by guns, criminals and bad government.
President Donald Trump should make Chicago a destination for discussion about the catastrophic effects of violence, murder and mayhem.
Meanwhile, media members press a thumb on Chicago’s pathetic pulse of murder then in a severe case of attention deficit disorder opt for sound bites and tears about Houston homeowners who have lost everything, even their pet canine, bird or cat.
One does not need a taste of sodium pentothal to understand that Black Lives (Don’t) Matter much in the U.S.
All the lost toaster ovens, microwaves, cars and houses could never equal the sound of one heart beating, even the fourchambered fleshed appliances tucked inside Chicago murder victims.
No matter how media and society frames urban death, black and brown-skinned people being knocked off in Chicago 80 times more than Agatha Christie’s “Ten Little Niggers” aka “And Then There Were None” still categorize as homicides.
Of course, this deluge of death in urban U.S. cities holds responsible those toting handguns, knives and other instruments of murder but no urgency exists for slowing this siege against human life.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said and did next to nothing as Trenton experienced record murder numbers, despite the fact that he played an instrumental role in the proliferation of Garden State gangs.
Christie cut funds to urban areas which forced those municipalities to lay off police officers — which emboldened criminals.
The outgoing governor now ranks as champion of addiction recovery after high opioid body counts materialized in those suburban enclaves of his voter base.
As opioid addiction and death invades suburban homes, government responds, even with legislation to charge drug dealers with murder. If that were the case then Christie should be charged as an accessory to the heavy body counts in Camden, Trenton and Newark.
If we accept this line of reasoning then let’s start the arrest and prosecution of people who manufacture and sell guns, discounting the fact that gun users commit crimes.
Media members tell stories about suburban teens who got caught up in opioid use. Those lost souls receive portrayals as real people who had smiles, loved their family and dreamed.
Black teen murdered? (Man, he must have been involved in something illegal).
Black people dream, too, perhaps not as wildly as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who hoped and prayed that the United States might “one day rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”
Dream off.
The human carnage that occurs in Chicago deserves just as much attention as whatever people lost in the floods of Houston.
Equality matters in government, education and the media. As usual, those who turn on televisions, listen to radios and read print, will react to what’s being looped in those communication mediums.
Chicago can wait.
L.A. Parker is a Trentonian columnist.