matthewmilam.com

In 1988. Richard Marx released a song that 22 years after it’s original release is still tinged with the sound of summer. The title tells it all – Endless Summer Nights. In Chicago, anthems of this type give you the false impression that a summer night is breezy and somehow separate from the harsh realities of life. Sadly as Chicago Breaking News will let you know, the Chi is hardly a place for that kind of summer night.

At 10:28pm today, an 18-year-old was shot in the neck at Parkway Gardens on the South Side.

At 5:19pm today, a 50-year-old man from Lawndale was shot and killed.

On July 16 (Friday), a shooting rampage started across the city that left 18 shot which ended early Saturday morning. Two of those 18 died.

You can find headlines like this all day long in every city. The sensitive point that I have towards the reporting of violence in this city isn’t that it’s reported. Blood and guts sell newspapers and ratings. My issue is that no one has really taken a hard look at what could be the cause of all this violence.

We keep saying things such as lack of education, lack of a stable family and my personal favorite, the lack of families attending church that causes these kinds of situations.

Could it be simply that these the young children of Chicago don’t really any place to have fun? I’m not just saying this for people who live on the south side where this is more than evident, I’m saying this for everyone in Chicago. The lack of places to go and relax from the stressful ordeals of life often mean that people end up succumbing to more violent extremes.

One of my mother’s favorite movies is a film directed by Spike Lee’s brother Malcolm called Roll Bounce which centers a group of black kids in the 1970’s from the south side of Chicago who are forced to stake on the north side after their skating rink closes down. Think of it as Saturday Night Fever with an all-black cast. Although the plot is borrowed and the soundtrack is made up of familiar 1970’s dance hits, the film is unique if you look at today’s world and perhaps even today’s Chicago.

I believe that kids back in the day of my parents time actually attempted to have some fun that didn’t involve violence all the time. I believe that once people started taking away those places for kids to have a good time, the generations after who had no options to go anywhere ended up trying to find activities in the street. I believe this is what’s leading to the headlines you see on the Chicago Breaking News site.

We need to create the kind of ideal summers that Richard Marx created with Endless Summer Nights, we need to return the fun to Chicago and make it so that the violence will not be the highlight of our city. Of course this will only happen, no maybe’s, if we get off our butts and do something about it. It has to be done.

How many more children have to die? How many more people have to die?

You tell me.