As Chicago swirls slowly around the drain, many of us sit idly by feeling helpless. We are overwhelmed by reports of ever increasing gang violence in our schools, drug abuse, political corruption, rampant racism, classism, and crippling poverty that only leads to more and more crime. We look helplessly out on the encroaching chaos, all the while asking “Won’t someone please do something?”While the rest of us hide in our apartments, acting the victim, wishing these ever worsening social problems would just go away, an ever increasing number of Chicagoans are saying “I’m not going to take it anymore!” A new breed of vigilantism is on the rise in Chicago, and it should give pause to those of us who feel content simply sitting on our couches complaining about the woeful state of our society. In the tradition of New York’s Guardian Angels, a local group of Chicago heroes recently harnessed their righteous anger and empowered themselves to take on the numerous problems facing Chicago. These brave men and women, armed with pails of gravel and tiny shovels, patrol our vulnerable neighborhood streets- often for up to an hour at a time. With unwavering vigilance, they seek out their foe: Potholes. When a pothole is finally located, they spring into action. Not content to twiddle their thumbs and wait for the wheels of Streets and Sanitation to turn, they pour gravel from their pails into to the pothole. Once the pothole is filled with gravel, they pack it down with their tiny shovels and smooth it out as much as they can. In a world of ever increasing apathy, it is inspiring to see a group of individuals stand up and take responsibility for one of our most pressing social dilemmas.
Perhaps this is the new normal. Maybe a trend of grass-roots social change will finally take root. Maybe, one day, our children will be able to go to school without fear of gang violence or drugs. If everything goes as planned, our shining stars of tomorrow will not have to pass metal detectors on the way to class, or be hobbled by an ineffective educational paradigm-because thanks to a select group of hometown heroes, the streets of Chicago are once again somewhat less bumpy.
Way to get your priorities straight douchebags.
-Gabriel Stutz
we already have metal detectors in our school in this part of Georgia and we are a rual area. In regards to the rest of the post, there are not enough people willing to stand up and take responsibility for their actions or even vote based on knowledge (rather than a pouplarity contest)and it is only going to get worse until large groups say, we have had enough.
ReplyDeleteGreat read, thanks for getting me fired up on Government day.