Chicago‘s Choice: Break the Cycle of Violence or Bury Your Children
Mama Duck‘s steely voice cut through the din of news crews clustered outside the Cook County Courthouse.
"We have to stop this killing because it doesn’t make sense," the mother of slain Chicago rapper FBG Duck pleaded after his accused killers were charged. "There’s no way we can get even for the lives lost. The only way we can get even is with forgiveness."
Her words echoed loudly in a city starved of moral leadership. While politicians and clerics have pled fruitlessly for peace, the cries of grieving mothers like Mama Duck speak the loudest.
Carlton Weekly, known by his stage name FBG Duck, was shopping on Chicago‘s famed Oak Street on August 4, 2020 when two cars pulled up. Armed gunmen leaped out, firing indiscriminately. The 26-year-old was shot several times along with two bystanders. The killers drove off gleefully, leaving chaos in their wake.
Duck‘s murder was captured on chilling surveillance footage. But tragedy long ago lost its power to shock in Chicago. The city tallied 797 murders in 2020 alone. Dozens more rappers have perished since Duck, part of a ceaseless bloodletting fueled by unresolved beefs, social media trolling, clout chasing, despair and lack of opportunity.
Chicago native Randy Williams, who mentors youth in violence prevention, has watched helplessly as the death toll climbs. He‘s pleaded with young men to lay down arms, only to preside over their funerals weeks later.
"Our children‘s lives are nothing but collateral damage,” he laments. “Killing is now recreational. These young boys have no guidance — and they think this street stuff is gonna last forever.”
Tale of Two Cities
Chicago is strictly segregated by race and class. The city‘s wealthiest and safest neighborhoods, downtown business districts and toniest tourist attractions border blocks that resemble war zones.
Kids growing up in volatile South and West side areas face soul crushing poverty, domestic turmoil and the ever-present lure of fast money through drug dealing. They witness violence frequently and lose friends and family early. Trauma begets trauma. The thirst for revenge is unquenchable.
By contrast, North Side enclaves boast top-ranked schools, banks, offices, restaurants and prosperity. Private security keeps trouble at bay. Some wealthy streeterville residents sought permits for personal bodyguards last summer when crime ticked up downtown.
For their South Side peers, violence is an inevitable presence. Carolyn Johnson raised eight children in West Englewood. All survived run-ins with the law or became victims of gun violence. She describes hearing shots daily like it was birds chirping.
“Either the slayings happen in front of your house, behind your house or next door to you,” Johnson said. “You could be living somewhere 20 years and not know your neighbor‘s name — he could be a dope dealer."
Police made an arrest this month in her son Charles’ unsolved 1995 murder. But justice delayed is justice denied for most South Side families. Over half of Chicago murders go unsolved, leaving survivors desperate and killers undeterred.
Music Mirrors Reality
Art imitated life in shocking detail during gang wars of the 1990s that begat drill music. Nihilistic rap mirrors the hopeless void facing Chicago youth trapped in cycles of violence and poverty with no mobility or vision.
Drill pioneers like Chief Keef first transmuted trauma into art. But mainstream hip hop‘s embrace of the gritty sound popularized tales of guns, drugs and urban dystopia globally. Recording tracks conveys status for would-be gangsters. Online streams bring cash and cred.
“Gang violence and drill music are one and the same – these rappers are aspiring to be the people carrying out violence or the victims of it,” declares social worker Tio Hardiman, one of many fighting Chicago’s violence epidemic.
FBG Duck was among hundreds of young rappers conveying chilling visions of their communities. Some even taunt rivals openly in songs, video appearances or on social media. Disrespect demands redress. Lyrical feuds spill readily into the streets.
King Von, an upstart rapper and Black Disciple gang member, exemplified this link. “All my life, I had to fight/Left some people dead in the street,” he rapped candidly. Von‘s rap sheet included murder charges. FBG Duck dissed Von and his O’Block crew relentlessly in tracks prior to Von’s 2020 death.
Rappers dead today still speak via online channels. Some gained more followers posthumously than when alive. Their grim legacies secure mythical notoriety that outlives them on T-shirts and RIP murals memorializing fallen members.
But at what cost?
The Deadliest War Zone in America
Chicago recorded 797 homicides in 2020 – a 50 percent jump over 2019 and more than New York and Los Angeles combined. August was its deadliest month in 28 years. 103 were shot over one July weekend. The most dangerous pockets on Chicago‘s South and West Sides eclipse America‘s most violent cities in per capita murders.
Englewood native Deon Patrick lives far from his old neighborhood now. But death still stalks through texts and Facebook posts of fallen peers back home.
“I have a friend who was killed for every letter in the alphabet,” the 29-year-old laments.
August 2020 was Chicago‘s bloodiest month in decades. FBG Duck bled out that month at Oak Street and Michigan Avenue in the heart of downtown’s richest shopping district – another grim reminder that everyone floats in the same boat.
Overall crime rates have dropped substantially since their early ‘90s peak during Chicago‘s crack epidemic. But recent violence has ignited fresh urgency as cities nationwide address economic disparities, institutional racism, mental health resources and public safety reforms.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot rose to power decrying gun violence on the campaign trail. Yet the death toll still outpaces her tenure‘s early years under former Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Critics pan her billions in borrowing as failing to stimulate job growth and opportunity in downtrodden areas.
“To stem violence, Chicago must grow its tax base by luring more businesses and helping communities transform themselves,” argues DePaul professor Ethan Michaeli.
Break the Cycle
"Chicago needs healing – our young people need healing,” declares peace activist Diane Latiker. Her kids program in violence-plagued Roseland provides mentoring and life skills for youth with no other outlets.
A dozen comparable neighborhood organizations target job training, arts, mental health counseling and conflict resolution. But cash-strapped non-profits beg supporters for survival and compete rather than collaborate.
Public health approaches to violence emphasize collective focus on root causes over incarceration. Poverty, hopelessness and lack of services in victimized areas prove greater predictors of violence than race, warns Dean John Rich of Chicago’s School of Medicine.
“Provide economic opportunity, jobs, psychiatric care, hope – if healing happens, violence will go down,” Rich urges. “If not, Chicago will keep seeing soldiers marching to their deaths.”
The COVID pandemic dealt a devastating economic blow while further isolating vulnerable young people. Homicides increased nationwide but surged extraordinarily in Chicago as other violence plateaued.
Parent Monique Harden sees generations wasted by divestment in Black and Brown lives across Chicago. Her son survived a shooting but struggles finding work. She worries for his survival, not success.
“Our communities look like trash but it’s not because we don’t know how to do better,” Harden stresses. “But we can’t rise above our oppression without opportunities.”
Chicago kids dealing drugs aren’t hopeless cases but rather hopeless enough to risk jail for money their communities lack, community organizer Ethan Ucker argues.
“Chicago is basically a failed state for youth on the South and West Side. They know college won’t change outcomes so getting arrested seems like a more logical risk,” he says.
Overall numbers belie shocking variance in neighborhood conditions. Several South Side communities endure 20-25% unemployment and 40% high school dropout rates. Homicide solve rates languish below 30 percent as witnesses remain silent rather than invite retaliation.
North Side kids flourish with premier schools, jobs programs and activities as violence persists remotely for their South Side peers. Both deserve to feel safe at home, school and play.
Healing Begins with Justice and Opportunity
slab bearing King Von‘s name, age and RIP birth/death in a South Side cemetery hints at the scale of loss, where space constricts from Chicago‘s mounting body count.
Mothers of slain rappers join those of everyday victims in desperate demands for justice, both systemically and for their departed sons. For most, neither arrives.
"It’s just overwhelming to see people that look like you who won’t stop until you are fully dead," laments Mama Duck.
Her son promoted violence that sealed his fate. But structural violence sealed it long before. Failed by society, FBG Duck embodied complicated truths – both perpetrator and casualty of intertwined forces cyclically harming people that look like him.
Duck shot daring music videos blocks from where he died. And though his music now lives online, its creator came home in a box – another young Black life mourned, unfulfilled.
Though his alleged killers face justice, righteous indignation proves fruitless without tools to alter what fuels the violence. The hoods are not inherently bad but rather left bad deliberately through divestment and indifference.
As Chicago struggles to reclaim peace and prosperity across neighborhoods, there exists a choice – either break the cycle condemning disadvantaged citizens to violence or keep burying our children.