I’ve been waiting to see other UU blogs talk about the continuing tragedy of gun deaths in Chicago. Doesn’t seem to be coming. (Bill Baar, I don’t mean you)
Here are the facts: 506 people died because of gun violence in Chicago during 2012. 121 of those were CHILDREN. 6 Newtowns happened in Chicago and there was no national outrage or concern about it. And no UU mention of it.
And since 12:00 a.m. yesterday, 3 people have been shot and killed in Chicago. None of the three were children–they were young adults—but they are dead all the same.
Then yesterday, I read this in the New York Times,
Could it be that the laxity of the nation’s gun laws is tolerated because its deadly costs are borne by the segregated black and Latino populations of North Philadelphia and Chicago’s South Side?
which has been talked about openly in many of the circles that I run in.
There’s a whole lot of hot air expelled in UU-dom about social justice work. All that talk seems to ring hollow in the face of what’s going on. But maybe that’s the real issue. It’s NOT going on where most UU churches are. In fact, most UU churches ran away from where this is happening. (Ron Robinson in Turley-North Tulsa and Don Robinson in SE D.C. are the notable exceptions)
So UUs can you all stop talking about “social justice” until you start talking about the children of North Philadelphia and the South- or West- side of Chicago the same way you talk about the children of Newtown.
