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Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
It’s in these, the most ravaged of our communities, among the most desperate and forlorn, that we can come to understand the makings of who we are as a nation, a country
marked by the paradox of holding such generosity beside such neglect.
In other words, these are young men and women who are burdened by fractured families, by lack of money, by a closing window of opportunity, by a sense that they don’t belong, by a feeling of low self-worth. And so when they feel disrespected or
violated, they explode, often out of proportion to the moment, because so much other hurt has built up and then the dam bursts. They become flooded with anger.
what I’ve come to realize is that if you’re black or Hispanic in our cities, it’s virtually impossible not to have been touched by the smell and sight of sudden, violent death.
In Chicago, the wealthy and the well-heeled die headline deaths and the poor and the rambling die in silence.
In a good year in Chicago, roughly 2,000 people get wounded by gunfire, or five people a day, give or take. Some years the number has risen to over 4,000, or roughly one person every two hours. These are the survivors, the ones still standing, more or less.
“The closest bonds we will ever know are bonds of grief. The deepest community one of sorrow.”
His overweight six-year-old Lab, Lucky, lies on his bed in the living room, and
Do you know Cheap Charlie’s? Thomas nodded. Cheap Charlie owned the corner store by the school.
In a nation that likes to see itself as forgiving, we are mulishly unforgiving of those who have committed a felony, which could be anything from selling drugs to street robberies to murder. A felony marks one for life. In some states you lose your right to vote.
For certain felonies you can’t receive
federal loans for college and are barred from federally funded housing. You can’t legally buy a firearm. In many states you can’t get a license to become a realtor or stockbroker or nurse or teacher. You can’t work in child care. Potential employers can lawfully ...
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The shooting doesn’t end. Nor does the grinding poverty. Or the deeply rooted segregation. Or the easy availability of guns. Or the shuttered schools and boarded-up homes. Or the tensions between police and residents.
