Isaiah 3:12 says: As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths. I was in the process of writing the next lesson for my blog, but the spirit had led me in a totally different direction. I don’t know if what I’m about to write is a lesson or a rant, but I really need to get this off my chest, nonetheless. Tuesday was Halloween, and I basically saw my life flash before my eyes on that day.
It wasn’t the typical Tuesday that I had normally planned because I’d routinely been downtown in the Chicago Loop working, but I had to take an FMLA day in order to drive my mother to her doctor’s appointment. She scheduled it for 11:00 a.m. at Northwestern Hospital in the North Loop, and it was a challenge to get there on time due to road construction on Lake Shore Drive. However, we arrived at the hospital with three minutes to spare, and she was able to check in without any complications. Her checkup went smoothly, and we were out in fifteen minutes.
Our day was shaping up to be a good one, and we had decided to have lunch at a Longhorn restaurant in Orland Park, a southwestern suburb of Chicago. There were snow flurries off and on, but it didn’t make driving too hazardous. It only took me forty-five minutes to get there, and we were able to get a table at the restaurant in no time. The food was good, and we ordered some to go for my dad, who’s rehabbing in a nursing home from a mild heart attack and fluid on the lungs. We then visited him for an hour, and then we left so that I could get my mother home before dark and pick up my wife from the train by six. Here’s where my afternoon got interesting to say the least.
The plan was for me to stick around for a half hour or so to run the engine of my dad’s car in order to keep the battery fresh and then head home to pick up my wife from the Metra train. I saw that a childhood friend’s car was parked in front of his parents’ house when we arrived, so I proceeded to walk to the opposite end of the block where they lived to visit him once I started my dad’s car in the garage. Suddenly out the blue, a black sedan with four young black males sped down the block and started shooting at me, as I was the only person outside at the time. I remember thinking at that moment, is this how it ends? I fell to the ground after the first shot hit the back of my right biceps, and I yelled out in pain after the second shot hit my left index finger. I didn’t realize that I’d been shot with paint balls until the third shot hit my upper left thigh. All I could hear was their laughter as they sped away when I jumped to my feet. I was at the highest level of absolute rage in that instant, but at the same time, I also felt completely powerless in my situation. The block that I grew up on had been my refuge for over fifty years, but that safe haven was taken away from me in one swoop yesterday.
This terror dome that was once a thriving community on the southside of Chicago didn’t happen overnight. I had a front row seat to watch my city be destroyed brick by brick and earn its horrible reputation in roughly two generations. The drugs, the guns, the violence, and the dismantling of two-parent households all played a role in the destruction of our neighborhoods; but we weren’t solely responsible for our own demise. It started with the welfare system in the late 60s and early 70s that didn’t allow the man to be present in the home in order for the woman to receive monthly benefits, and the crime and murder rate had escalated in Chicago as well as in every major city in America from that point on. Those degenerates who shot me are the result of sixty years of failure in the so-called Black community, and now I fully understand why the Lord has to completely annihilate this place upon His return. All praise, honor, and glory go to Yahawah Bahasham Yahawashi.