The Missing Gang Photo (op-ed)

At the end of 2015 the Baltimore riot will be featured in every periodical’s “year in review”. Each publication will reproduce a popular gang photo that circulated during the unrest.

The photograph captured rival gang members posing with members of the Nation of Islam, some headlines promoted it as a “gang truce” others indicated it was “gang unity to provide safety and prevent looting”.

Ignore the oxymoronic imagery of a separatist group and street gangs combined with the concepts of unity and safety. Never mind the fact that a truce is temporary. Forget the interview with the gang member who said, “We didn’t have a truce or a treaty; we just had men respecting men as men.” (Whatever that means.) Forget the fact that The New York Times reported, a few months after the riot, that murders in Baltimore have “risen to a level not seen in decades”, and ignore the fact that the photo was an example of positive meaninglessness. (This is when intentions are praised for being positive but there is no implementation of anything meaningful. And the promotion of positivity by gang apologist is meaningless.)

The point is the photograph exists, and it will be displayed as a peaceful balance to the violent images associated with the riot.

But there is one gang photograph that will be missing from 2015’s year in review.

Recently Chicago’s police superintendent detailed a murder to the press. He said it was “probably the most abhorrent, cowardly, unfathomable crime” that he has witnessed in 35 years of policing.” (2014 there were 425 murders and that figure is low. In 2003 the count was 601 and each year going back to 1991 the count remained over 600.)

A 9-year-old boy was lured into an alley and shot several times in the upper-body, including in the head and back.

A local priest and advocate against gun violent described the murder as a “new low”. He also said, “This wasn’t a drive-by. This wasn’t a spray of bullets. A baby was assassinated.”

The father of the victim “made it emphatically clear” that he will not cooperate with the police. (I wondered how the mother’s side of the family felt about that.) He stated, “My dealings and what I do has nothing to do with my son.” But the father made it emphatically clear that he wanted to see justice.

But what did this Chicago neighborhood want to see?

There’s an old movie when one gang, who wore red, attempted to murder the wives of their rivals. But for certain members of the red gang the act displayed a depth of depravity they couldn’t muster within themselves and they ended their affiliation and denounced the gang.

That was the gang photograph the neighborhood wanted to see, not one like in Baltimore promoting a meaningless truce for its positivity, but one depicting young men disassociating from gang culture to reaffirm their affiliation with humanity.

That photograph would have made the history books not just some periodical’s “year in review” list. But that photograph doesn’t exist it’s missing from history.

 Now when this murder is mentioned at the end of the year, instead of a historic gang photo, there is going to be a photograph of the Mayor of Chicago stating: Whoever killed this boy is not a human being. I hope they never see freedom. I hope they never see daylight … When you do what you’ve done to a nine-year old, there’s a place for you, and there’s no humanity in that place.

First published in the New Pittsburgh Courier 11/25/15