It seems from the breaking news that the body of Jennifer Hudson's nephew, Julian King was found. That's a relief as it was just about certain given the dynamics of the victims and the killer that the boy, the murderer's stepson, had no chance of survival.
This story broke into public awareness at about 3 p.m. on Friday. However the forced-entry shooting through the home's front door occurred at about 9 a.m. Friday morning. Neighbours told police that they hear gunfire "all the time" so took no action when they did. Stopping right here for a second. Gunfire in this residential neighbourhood is so common that people ignore it. I realize this goes on but why is it not a critical issue? This is happening just a stone's throw from the "civilized" part of town. It is a situation that repeats itself in the pockets of blight around large US cities--it's black on black crime and if gunshots were not a normal, everyday ocurrance might the boy have been found in time?
I've listened in dismay to stories like this all my life. Usually they have no connection to famous people so the stories don't even warrant news coverage in the eyes of the news companies.
The story as it has unfolded goes like this. Jennifer Hudson's sister Julia had a son with her ex. That relationship ended. She took up with the suspected killer of her son, William Balfour, a criminal on parole having served 7 years for attempted murder and other serious charges. As cold-hearted as this sounds I'm going to say it. She married him, a dude still on parole for attempted murder. She was a dumbass. What a horrible price to pay for that.
Sister finally realizes this is not a good guy--they separate--though he is still -currently- her husband. There's been acrimony that for unspecified reasons bubbled over to Friday morning when Balfour shot his mother-in-law and brother-in-law and kidnapped his step-son, killing him at some point before being taken into custody Friday evening. Note #1: People on parole are not allowed to have guns. Note #2: In the US "they will take away your gun when they pry it from your cold, dead hand."
Black on black crime is so common in the south Chicago suburbs that while they were looking for the missing boy on Sunday they found an 18 y.o. woman shot to death in an unrelated crime--in the same neighbourhood.
This is my point. Why is it OK? And if it's not OK why are the powers that be not giving law enforcement and community services and the myriad other factors that need attending to the resources to do so?
Why just let people live miserable gang-infested lives only to barely make it to age seven or even 18 before getting shot to death?
When I was young I was very much an idealist. As the years have passed and one human atrocity piles up upon the next I've moved away from idealism to realism--though perhaps questioning why this violence is OK makes me naive and not quite a realistic enough realist.
I refuse to give in to pessimism and defeatism but I do not have any idea how I personally can help to save the black community from preying upon one another.
In closing I must look back longingly to the time when I was an idealist and state that it is my hope that by electing Barack Obama and putting in the White House a family not of privilege but of strength of character and a sense of purpose, that a spark of hope can be ignited in the black community that they do not have to be resigned to being "use to" the sounds of gunfire. That they deserve better. That their commander-in-chief a man of mixed race, proves that there is no magic wand to stop the perpetuation of poverty and violence.
There must be a unified sense of hope in the black community and it's my feeling that a black man and his family in the White House is cause for such hope and could be that spark.
Sadly for Jennifer Hudson--a self-made black woman, hope must be in short supply right now.
