Monday, December 23, 2024
Tags Posts tagged with "Chicago"

Chicago

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President Donald Trump has been warning the world that he is willing to send armed troops to the city of Chicago, Illinois in order to place a tight grip on the violence that has plagued this city for decades. Cook County Commissioner, Richard Boykin sat with the United Nations this week to suggest a plan similar to that of President Trump. Boykin’s idea is instead of sending in the United States National Guard, get the United Nations to send in peacekeeping troops who have been deployed around the world, for the sole purpose of keeping peace.

Boykin doesn’t buy in to the fact that the United States National Guard in trained in peacekeeping; however, U.N. peacekeepers are specifically trained to establish peace.

“The United Nations has a track record of protecting minority populations. There was tribal warfare between the Tutsis and the Hutus in Africa, and they deployed peacekeeping troops there to help save those populations and reduce the bloodshed. We have to do something — black people in Chicago make up 30 percent of the population but 80 percent of those who are killed by gun violence.”

Commissioner Boykin is also convinced that U.N. peacekeeping troops are seemingly less threatening than the U.S. National Guard. The soldiers of the U.N. where sky blue peacekeeping paraphernalia, as opposed to black/green military riot gear that we are accustomed to seeing in the U.S.

Boykin sat down this week with the U.N.’s assistant secretary-general for peacebuilding support, Oscar Fernandez-Taranco to discuss these options, and to discuss what he calls Chicago’s ‘Quiet Genocide‘ within the black community. Boykin seems to have lost patience with the mayor and chief of police in Chicago’s attempt to resolve the issues of violent crime, and believes the United Nation’s counsel may have better ideas on how to establish peace in the city streets.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel has not responded to the suggestion of U.N. troops entering his city, but he has stated there have been improvements in the city’s crime statistic reports.

It’s almost unbelievable that in 2018, we are willing to bring in foreign troops into a United States city in order to get our young men and women to stop killing each other. This was not a part of King’s dream.

Source: Chicago Tribune

Syllabus Magazine, the Carolina’s source for Music, Culture and Fashion

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If there is ever a time when you can find some kind of good stemming from the violence ravaging this country, then it is a must for the story to be told. The gun violence in inner cities across the country has been devastating communities for decades. For the past few years, the focus has been on the city of Chicago, a city that had over 700 homicides, a twenty year record, in 2016.

The story of Takiya Holmes left many readers disturbed, although Takiya is not the first child to lose her life due to the gun violence in Chicago. However, though still sad, there is a glimmer of hope that still shines from a silver lining caused by the death of this 11-yr-old girl.

While sitting in a family van with her 3-yr-old brother, gang member Antwan Jones, opened fire on rival gang members across a Chicago street. Antwan missed all of his rival targets, but managed to shoot Takiya Holmes directly in her temple, killing her instantly.

Takiya was placed on life support, but shortly after she was removed from life support; at this point, her family made the most difficult and most selfless decision a family could make. The family made the decision to donate Takiya’s organs to 6 people in need; one of these people was a distant relative of the family and the other five were strangers.

Takiya’s heart, pancreas, lungs, and kidneys were given to six recipients. While this does not ease the family’s pain of their loss of a precious 11-yr-old girl; they are grateful for the joy that others have received due to their loss.

“It brings us peace to know that she’s living in someone else, the fact that she extended another person’s life and helped give them quality of life, we can live with that,” explain the Holmes family.

African Americans receive twenty percent of all transplants, while only sixteen percent of African Americans are transplant donors. An large majority of these operations are kidney transplants, due to the epidemic of diabetes in the black community. Even though there is a need in the African American community, stigmas and fear have made people hesitant when it comes to organ donations.

We are thankful for Takiya and the Holmes family for overcoming the stigmas, and taking their loss to create hope and happiness for other families.

Syllabus Magazine, the Carolina’s source for Music, Culture and Fashion

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