The Most Important Story I've Never Told

"Time and again, I've been drawn back to Chicago. The first time I went, more than a decade ago, it was to report on gun violence as a generational curse. I wanted to show how gun violence spread from family to family, neighbor to neighbor. I'd come across some research that likened gun death to a communicable disease. The closer you are to a gun violence victim, the more likely you were to become a victim yourself."

"The young brother paralyzed by a party-crashing gang member. The young sister left handicapped in an attempted hit on her boyfriend. The mother who'd lost one son to gun violence and another son to prison for a separate shooting, her mind racked by the emotional chaos of it all. The wheelchair-bound former drug dealer who turned his life around, but not before his own son was shot and left paralyzed."

"The mother whose daughter was shot and killed in a robbery, whose grief settled so deeply inside of her that to this day she carries the girl's ashes around in a gold urn. The white police sergeant who was so blinded by his blue loyalty that he struggled to separate Black perpetrators from Black victims and Black innocents. The mother who watched a stray bullet crash into the windshield of her parked car and strike her 10-year-old daughter in the head, killing her instantly."

Gun violence in Chicago spreads like a communicable disease, with proximity to victims increasing the likelihood of becoming a victim. Violent incidents concentrate in a few blocks within historically segregated Black neighborhoods shaped by redlining and restrictive covenants. Personal consequences include paralysis, permanent disability, murder, incarceration of family members, and lifelong grief. Individuals affected include former perpetrators turned community members, parents carrying children's ashes, and police officers who struggle to distinguish victims from perpetrators. The cycle of violence produces deep emotional chaos, physical injury, intergenerational trauma, and a pervasive sense of fear and loss across communities.

Read at The Nation