CHICAGO—On March 24 for the second year, churches and community groups gathered for a joint celebration of Palm Sunday determined to reaffirm the “Good News’—announcing a better way of living—a salvation.
Violence is a daily occurrence in Chicago and throughout the country. In 2013 the Palm Sunday celebrants were determined to address the causes. No longer willing to accept the status quo, the speakers discussed poverty, joblessness, incarceration, school and service closings, deportation, and militarization as real world causes of violence in our communities; problems that could be immediately addressed by reordering society on the basis of human need.
A few weeks prior to the event, a baby was deliberately gunned down with her father in the streets of the city. Yes, the individual who pulled the trigger was depraved, but he, like the gun, was made in the U.S.A. Just locking him up or executing him does not address the destruction of society that is going on.
Lisa Lustt, a spokesperson for Alliance for Local Service Organizations (ALSO), explained from first-hand experience how the schools are increasingly a “pipeline to prison.” Students are taught to get used to being “handled and harassed by the police and criminal justice system.” They are automatic suspects in and out of school. With the dropout rate as high as 40% in many minority neighborhoods, these disconnected ill-prepared youth have little chance at jobs and end up in the street. From there it is a short step to prison. The hopelessness only increases upon release. Most employers will not hire ex-offenders and the budgets have been cut in critical areas of rehabilitation.
If we really want answers and a solution to violence we need to deal with reality. Incarceration, budget cuts, austerity, and deportation are currently solutions offered by people concerned only with profitability. These are not answers at all. They just preserve the position of the wealthy.
The people of Chicago’s Logan Square and other communities across the country are opening their eyes. They know that we can’t end violence unless everyone has the opportunity for a safe, healthy productive life with equal access to education. The resources needed to provide this abundance will have to be distributed without regard to who makes a buck off it.
The Palm Sunday gathering believes this vision is possible today. It is the “Good News” that we long to see.
