southside chicago, ice cube style

At the end of last year, I saw "Chi-Raq", which was Spike Lee's message to world about the death totals in Chicago.
Its message was meant for the twenty- and thirty-somethings, primarily. Lots of club scenes, lots of sex, lots of blue language.
"Barbershop 3" speaks to the family side of the issue of black-on-black crime in the Windy City. Barbershops, schools, parks, and the streets in between are the setting.
Here's the thing, though.
Whether you're talking about southside Chicago or westside Savannah, the end result is the same: groups of young men with weapons, with too much time on their hands and too much misinformation in their minds.
Individually, a person with a gun is scary enough. However, when you change it up to a group of uninformed and idle people, now heavily armed... then innocent folks are going to get killed. All it takes is for one person in that group to come up with a bad idea, that's all it takes. The other group members will follow along, not wanting to be perceived as weak or different from the others.
Crazy.
It doesn't even matter that we're talking about civilians, not militia.
It doesn't even matter about the color of their skin.

The sad part is the false logic behind the actions of the groups.
They see themselves as the defenders of a piece of turf. The turf is always defined as being between this street and that street, from one corner to another corner.
Generally, they are talking about property which belongs to the public.
They're including property that someone else is paying taxes on.
They're not talking about property they actually own.
So, they're fighting because of a false sense of ownership. Most likely that's because they have nothing of their own. No house with a water bill in their name, no apartment with an electric bill they pay each month.
No sense of responsibility toward a community.

The members of the group are all single people.
They have no one who holds them accountable,
nor anyone for them to hold accountable,
except the others in the group.
No family they hold dear.
No children providing a hope for the future.
Only these other single people,
all running headlong toward jail or death,
as fast as their feet will take them.

Here's the message, one more time.

WAKE UP!!!