Your Front Door Responsibilty. Rockford
There used to exist a universal set of laws and polices throughout the "United Streets of America", with one of the most recognized being that women and children were "off limits"... Well recently in Rockford, Illinois a young woman was struck and killed by a stray bullet while at home with her four children, with last year almost to the day an entire family including the children were murdered... and just last night a young teenager's life was taken.
Seemingly "outta control" crime is what happens when rules and regulations no longer exist on the streets, not only are innocent bystanders caught in crossfires but intended victims that should have never been targets. The hierarchy of street structure and gang [culture] was effectively dismantled in the 90's mostly due to the "war on drugs" and the void is still being felt today. If you were "in" the streets you had to obtain permission to strike first or in retaliation to a perceived injustice, and the streets knew everything... we didn't talk, but we knew.
But this isn't about the "good ol' days" because in all honesty they weren't all that good, instead I'd like to explain an aspect of the climate of fear in our community.
In many hoods, most events and actions are permissible unless they happen to you or someone you love. That's why for the most part the City of Rockford has become desensitized by the increase in violent crime. Because if it isn't around your front door, it's more of an issue of "them". And that's where I'm going with this. If it's been made acceptable to continuously commit violent crimes, that means everyone is a potential target [including you]. Let that sink in for a moment, because in Rockford or almost anywhere you don't necessarily have to be doing anything "wrong" to become an intended victim within a culture of violence and fear.
A very important issue is response and timing, in reference to the recent tragedy in Fairgrounds, buying children Christmas gifts to help make them feel better during the mourning of their mother is a beautiful gesture, but if we're honest it's mostly superficial in it's approach and being used as a way to absolve our city as a whole of doing the real work of [community policing] and developing communal responsibility. If all we're going to do in Rockford is buy gifts and pray, we might as well just stay in the check out and prayer lines... because another tragedy and violent act is on the way. While this observation doesn't mean that the children don't deserve to have a joyful holiday, the best gift would include efforts that her killer is brought to justice.
A solution is that we have to make the violence against our citizens the most expensive act on earth, not zero tolerance in a court of law but absolute awareness and increased responsibility on our streets. There are roughly anywhere between 15-20 police officers on patrol during peak hours, protecting over 150,000 people. And we're expecting our new police chief to magically make all of the crime disappear. But if we knew that the safety in the city was our responsibility as well, we'd stop looking outside of ourselves for the savior within ourselves. I know many of us who would like to become actively involved have been made to feel powerless and inadequate, based mostly upon our individual levels of experience, education and socioeconomic positioning. But I'm here to tell you that while Rockford isn't Castle Greyskull "We Have The Power".
There's an unwritten code that's often used to justify the ineffectiveness of policing in the hood, and it's the one of silence and [no snitching]. But silence in regards to an act of violence against a woman or child is cowardice, while on the other side snitching means you were apart of the crime and are now willing to divulge information in hopes of reduced punishment. The thing is, we can handle much of the business ourselves [proactively] by becoming more involved in our neighborhoods and communicating with elected officials-community leaders throughout the city. When we handle our own business we need less police, which is better for everyone. And to be clear, I'm in no means suggesting comic book style vigilantism, but we can't hope to "take our city back" without placing everyone who would be against that progress on high alert.
The West Side of Rockford, Illinois as it stands is under siege, while big businesses and even bigger buildings are going up, the quality of life for many local residents is going down. What we should understand is that if the City of Rockford were a publicly traded corporation posting [consistently] record losses in profit, the CEO/Mayor would have been removed by the Board/City Council by demand of the Shareholders/Constituents a long time ago. A particularly relevant analogy since we've been asked to use the "business approach" to Transform Rockford...
It's time that we look at the City of Rockford as a [Chain] that's only as strong as it's weakest link. We've gotta get out of our churches, boardrooms and basements and into our streets.
Be fearless,
The Civil Collective of TSNE.