Chicago Free Press Editorial - Normal people
Chicago Free Press Editorial - Normal people
Copyright by The Chicago Free Press
January 3, 2007.
Around dawn on New Year’s Eve, as reported in a news story in this newspaper, two masked gunmen kicked in the door of a South Side apartment full of people partying and opened fire with semiautomatic weapons.
Six people were shot; amazingly, none of the wounds was life threatening and no one was killed.
The evidence isn’t in yet, but it appears that the party was targeted because most of the people there, along with the people renting the Avalon Park apartment, were gay. The people who lived there had moved in last April and reported being constantly harassed by area residents over being gay.
In the wake of the shooting, TV news crews even interviewed neighbors who complained that the gay men living in the apartment shouldn’t have been there—one said matter-of-factly that the neighborhood was for “normal people, you know, straight people.”
Wow—so this is still, in 2007, what some people believe? Wasn’t it just a few decades ago that white people in Chicago were saying the same sort of thing whenever black people attempted to move into some neighborhoods?
And what—are we to believe that this then is how “normal people” react toward gay people? By getting out the guns and firing away?
We’re waiting to see how Chicago responds to this.
Specifically, how will official Chicago react? One supposes that if members of one ethnic group had fired away at a gathering of members of another ethnic group, the city’s political leaders would be up in arms. There would be City Council members and County Commissioners on the scene demanding some type of action. State senators and representatives would be there to console the victims and their families and to denounce the hate that had spawned such a crime.
None of that has happened. We wonder why.
We would also expect a response from other leaders, especially religious leaders. There’s no shortage of noted religious figures with large constituencies in the area where the shooting occurred—people such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Rev. James Meeks and Bishop Larry Trotter. These are leaders who’ve shown their concern when similar events involving hate have taken place in their communities; we’d hope they’d be aghast at people being targeted for such violence just because they’re gay and we’d expect to hear them voice those concerns publicly.
That also hasn’t happened yet. We wonder why.
We’d also expect people to wake up and realize that our schools need to get involved and do more to teach this generation of young people in that neighborhood that gay people are just as “normal” as anyone else, and that anti-gay hate has no place in a civilized society. We’d expect to hear educators at Chicago Public Schools say they’re ready to meet that challenge, and we’d expect our political and community leaders to demand that they do so.
That hasn’t happened either. We wonder why.
Finally, we’d expect gay people throughout Chicago to be outraged. This type of vicious, premeditated hate crime should provoke our community groups to take to the streets. We’d expect a vigil or march in this neighborhood to show those who would try to kill us that we belong everywhere, that we will not be intimidated or silenced.
We haven’t heard of that happening yet. We wonder why.
Maker no mistake—this was a horrible crime. The people who carried it out believe that they can get away with it because nobody cares about gay people living on the South Side.
We’re waiting for someone to prove them wrong.
Copyright by The Chicago Free Press
January 3, 2007.
Around dawn on New Year’s Eve, as reported in a news story in this newspaper, two masked gunmen kicked in the door of a South Side apartment full of people partying and opened fire with semiautomatic weapons.
Six people were shot; amazingly, none of the wounds was life threatening and no one was killed.
The evidence isn’t in yet, but it appears that the party was targeted because most of the people there, along with the people renting the Avalon Park apartment, were gay. The people who lived there had moved in last April and reported being constantly harassed by area residents over being gay.
In the wake of the shooting, TV news crews even interviewed neighbors who complained that the gay men living in the apartment shouldn’t have been there—one said matter-of-factly that the neighborhood was for “normal people, you know, straight people.”
Wow—so this is still, in 2007, what some people believe? Wasn’t it just a few decades ago that white people in Chicago were saying the same sort of thing whenever black people attempted to move into some neighborhoods?
And what—are we to believe that this then is how “normal people” react toward gay people? By getting out the guns and firing away?
We’re waiting to see how Chicago responds to this.
Specifically, how will official Chicago react? One supposes that if members of one ethnic group had fired away at a gathering of members of another ethnic group, the city’s political leaders would be up in arms. There would be City Council members and County Commissioners on the scene demanding some type of action. State senators and representatives would be there to console the victims and their families and to denounce the hate that had spawned such a crime.
None of that has happened. We wonder why.
We would also expect a response from other leaders, especially religious leaders. There’s no shortage of noted religious figures with large constituencies in the area where the shooting occurred—people such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Rev. James Meeks and Bishop Larry Trotter. These are leaders who’ve shown their concern when similar events involving hate have taken place in their communities; we’d hope they’d be aghast at people being targeted for such violence just because they’re gay and we’d expect to hear them voice those concerns publicly.
That also hasn’t happened yet. We wonder why.
We’d also expect people to wake up and realize that our schools need to get involved and do more to teach this generation of young people in that neighborhood that gay people are just as “normal” as anyone else, and that anti-gay hate has no place in a civilized society. We’d expect to hear educators at Chicago Public Schools say they’re ready to meet that challenge, and we’d expect our political and community leaders to demand that they do so.
That hasn’t happened either. We wonder why.
Finally, we’d expect gay people throughout Chicago to be outraged. This type of vicious, premeditated hate crime should provoke our community groups to take to the streets. We’d expect a vigil or march in this neighborhood to show those who would try to kill us that we belong everywhere, that we will not be intimidated or silenced.
We haven’t heard of that happening yet. We wonder why.
Maker no mistake—this was a horrible crime. The people who carried it out believe that they can get away with it because nobody cares about gay people living on the South Side.
We’re waiting for someone to prove them wrong.
posted by Carlos T Mock @ 2:27 PM
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