Two Englewood columns this morning...

In as little as nine days two young girls one a freshman in high school and the other no more than 7 years of age were gunned down in their homes for nothing more than being too close to a window. We're talking about the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago which has claimed so many victims over the years. Remember Ryan Harris who was murdered? What about those boys police were going to charge with her murder? All in Englewood.

It seems that progress that should come to Englewood enventually can't move fast enough. There are plans for job training, new housing, and finally getting these people to work so that they can go from being renters to becoming property owners. Still there is a long way to go to get a handle on crime.

This morning Mary Mitchell has a column about the situation in Englewood. She closes her column by saying...

It is the cowardice of the young black men who sought cover in a crowd of children; it is the cruelty of the other young black men who were determined to kill them anyway.

That's who we must hold accountable for this wave of destruction.

The more interesting column is from the Sun-Times' Mark Brown. He printed excerpts of letters from Englewood teenagers griping about the problems they see in that area. I just couldn't help but notice this and Brown did place this disclaimer before I read the excerpts...

I've chosen to leave the spelling, grammar and punctuation uncorrected, because there's an implicit message in that, too. For that reason, though, I've omitted the writers' last names.

Now I wonder what they're teaching those kids in Englewood. They don't seem to know how to spell and their vernacular seems to be pulled directly from the Roots miniseries. These letters are from 2003 and they write as if they were the slaves from Roots. That's the best comparison I have and this seems unfortunate. I also wonder if it is possible that the quality of life in Englewood just doesn't leave a lot of time for learing how to communicate in writing.

Either way, the messages in what these individuals write are very understandable despite the spelling and grammar mistakes. And it's truly sad to see this. The point of Brown's column is that apparently not much has changed although we know what goes on Englewood. I want to show you a very libertarian idea to solving the problems in Englewood...

Anthony: "I think if you want to make Englewood a good community I think you
should legalize all drug use and all drug parafanelia."

I wonder if this kid has been watching C-Span or heard some libertarians speak. Other than that this kid is thinking. I don't agree with the legalization of drugs however. Here's another good quote that may very well explain the reason for this senseless violence...

Ciera: "Every day I see people "gangs", getting into it for no reason at all. Sometimes they will get into it because the "STONES" will come over in "Central City" over on the Southside and shoot at the GD's because one will come over and start something, and go back and tell it's crew a lot of lies that didn't happen and they will come over and start shooting and will miss. Then they will shoot the wrong person or a child that had nothing to do with what they have going on between the two of them. People kill people every day, sometimes because they are mad at one of there family members or they are depress or someone killed their child and they wanted to get back at that person."

I put my emphasis in italics. This may not be the whole story but at least there is an idea about what is going on in Englewood or any other community plagued by gun violence like this. Somehow we need to work on putting a stop to this.