One Speech + No Resources = More Death/ The Hurricane Sandy of Black America Continues

Before President Obama's last visit,  Black Chicagoans for over three months, had been calling on him, to return to Chicago, and address the pandemic of Black on Black youth gun violence. 

 

The Calls ramped up -including online petitions- when Hadiya Pendleton- who preformed at the president's inauguration- was gunned down, only blocks from President Obama's south side home.

Some Black activists and citizens, raised the bar, stating the obvious.  That the pandemic of death, that started early last spring and continues on today, should be branded a National Emergency,- comparable to Hurricane Sandy- with resource immediately following, to address the long term systematic causes, before the return of warm weather.  In short, a National Bailout to create jobs and provide suitable education, to rescue the most marginalized Black people in America, and to sustain and bolster the Black working class, including young Black college graduates, who presently are sliding into the economic abyss. 

When President Obama arrived,  the narrative changed.  A muted awe washed over Black Chicagoans 

and the demands for actions simply vanished, replaced by praise and celebration.  Black folk were just so proud, like aged parents, of the famous son who made good, and was finally able to slow the world just enough to return, to the homestead, for a  few hours to smile upon his young sisters and brothers.  The symbolism of  the Black President in a high school on the southside of Chicago, trumped the death and carnage of innocent Black bodies, now and in the future. 

As if to mock our failure and neglect, hours after President Obama, on Air Force One, cleared the Chicago run way, 18 year old Janay McFarlane was gunned down.

Janay McFarlane

She would be buried by family and friends, including her three month old son, and her 14 year old sister Destinie Warren, a Freshman at Hyde Park High School who had attended President Obama's speech hours before her sister would be murdered.

The President's Speech, addressed the need for Black men to be responsible, yet there are no resources or "rescue" in the pipe line. All that he left behind, is the silent and befuddled Black community.

And as the violence continues, America has moved to the National Crisis of "The Sequestration" that has the unreal qualities of the Boggie Man, as far as I'm concerned.