Given the interest of our community lately in both addressing the issue of gun violence and the ongoing special election of Robin Kelly as the anti-NRA candidate in Il-02, this week’s edition of “This American Life” is especially poignant and impactful because it is an in-depth look at how gun violence has become a daily part of life for teens in Chicago.
Ira Glass along with Ben Calhoun, Linda Lutton, and Alex Kotlowitz were given amazing access to the staff and students at Harper High School on the south side of Chicago for five months to create a two-part series looking at the way the faculty and students deal with the constant threat of gun violence and death. “Last school year, 29 current and recent Harper students were shot. Twenty-one were wounded; eight died.”
This story makes me think of a quote from Robin Kelly’s email to the Daily Kos community last week:
In 2012, Chicago and the Southland endured over 500 murders, and yet somehow the NRA thinks that we shouldn’t be taking steps to fix it. That's just wrong. We’re losing a generation of young people. A generation of architects, a generation of technicians, a generation of dreams unrealized and potential unfulfilled. Enough is enough.
This series is giving us an unusual insight into the reality Kelly is talking about- the generation of young people we are losing to rampant gun violence in urban and minority neighborhoods around the country. In the segment, Glass points out that if this were another neighborhood- the reaction would be much more urgent and serious-"If you grafted those facts onto another high school -- in a wealthier place, maybe a suburb ... it would be national news." While Harper High School, isn’t in Kelly’s district, when she says we need to address youth gun violence, her relative location to this epidemic adds credibility to her fight against the NRA.
Please take an hour to listen to this insightful piece so we can understand what this young generation is going through.
This American Life: Harper High School, Part One.
We spent five months at Harper High School in Chicago, where last year alone 29 current and recent students were shot. 29. We went to get a sense of what it means to live in the midst of all this gun violence, how teens and adults navigate a world of funerals and Homecoming dances. We found so many incredible and surprising stories, this show is a two-parter; Part One airs this week, Part Two is next week.
Please support Robin Kelly in IL-02, south of Chicago, so she can continue to fight the NRA and work to prevent gun violence.