Open Letter To Mayor Daley, Senator Durbin On Proper Appeal To Federal Government On Addressing Rise In Shootings!!!

Marksallen on 07.29.10 at 3:36 PM | no comments

One of the first community organizers to work with Barack Obama in Chicago for over 20 years. Now Associate Editor of The South Street Journal Newspaper and 37 year activist/journalist, recently selected as 2010 Who's Who In Black Chicago. (312) 624-8351 or cell (773) 392-0165

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Dear Mayor Daley and Senator Durbin:

It is disturbing to hear current appeals to the federal government and FBI with regard to solutions to the dangerous rise in Chicago crime in urban neighborhoods when people like myself, Wallace "Gator" Bradley and others have been reaching out as grassroots activists with over 60 years of cobined experience from working in the streets and offering grassroots suggestions that continually fall on deaf ears. And Senator Durbin, you made a mistatement in your testimony before the FBI seeking help by saying "all that could have been done, has been done," when you have not met with grassroots leaders like myself to hear what we have found as solutions at the grassroots level.

Mayor and Senator, first and foremost, you CANNOT resolve a historic desperate economic condition that plagues our inner city communities with just an increase in local and federal law enforcement and not with an economic solution, for it is the desperate economic conditions that is at the root of the tensions and their un predictable violent flare-ups across our urban communities, and no matter how many times Chicago Police Chief Weis makes these announcements on his new levels of police intelligence and dispatching that it is not followed with even more shootings and violence.

People in the streets feel the ignorance of them when the can watch how easy it is for billions of federal dollars and resources can be immediately dispatched to the Gulf to help address the threat to the life of that regions wildlife and NOT the same economic response and resources to the saving of human lives in Chicago!! Isnt human life worth saving as much as the gulf wildlife.

Mayor Daley, Wallace "Gator" Bradley approached you at the recent gun bill signing at Cole Park and he told you of our efforts and said you would listen, but I have heard of no such meeting actually being confirmed!! And I stood and marched with you with Father Pfleger and shared reading the community pledge where we said we would fight for real resources to help with local job creation and other crime intervention and prevention efforts, but again, WHERE is the follow-up?

Wallace "Gator" Bradley and I were also with Rev. Jackson and other local leaders in Cole Park TWO WEEKS BEFORE the killing of Officer Thomas Wortham IV and Rev. Jackson issues a public call for you to respond to this current State of Emergency by convening the same kind of funders that you did when raising almost $50 million dollars just to LURE The Olympics and that we needed you to create that same kind of "Olympic" type funding to deal with the desperate economic conditions and deadly tensions in Chicago's urban communities, but again, NO REPONSE from you on when we could meet to plan such a thing? So HOW can we say we are doing all we can do if you and others never meet with us to "think outside the box" with other recommendations to deal with stopping the violence other than just our usual marches and vigils saying so.

These street tensions and acts of desperation are getting worse by the day and again, saying "Stop The Violence" is NOT enough. I am making this desperate public appeal again for us to meet and talk through some of the innovative ways that w e canb deal with the desperate economic conditions thats at the root of this urban violence and the everyday stats will keep proving that no amount of Chicago police or Federal Police can overcome the desperate economic conditions that keep driving far too many of our urban families and individuals who in their despaeration have sought the gang, drug and other illegal street economies as the conomic answer for them to provide for themselves and their families.

Can we talk these things through, and talk "to" each other and not "at" each other. Talking to each other we can come up with a real grassroots plan so we can save some lives

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