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Many people continue to dismiss Rev. Jesse Jackson as irrelevant to this generation, but when it comes to some issues, the Reverend still goes hard.
Two years ago, Rev. Jackson stood at the entrance of a Riverdale, Ill., gun shop in protest of the store’s retail practices. According to Jackson and the crowd of supporters accompanying him, this particular establishment had been knowingly selling guns to Chicago gang members, thus adding to the youth violence and overall detriment and destabilization of the black community. Though he was arrested on one count of criminal trespass, Rev. Jackson’s fight didn’t stop there.
Today Chicago, like Los Angeles, is under an intense microscope regarding its gang culture. The issue of who’s to blame for rising violence ignited in the press when it was reported that during the 2008–2009 school year, 500 Chicago schoolchildren were shot, leaving 36 dead. In addition to its toll in lives, gun violence is also estimated to cost the city an average of $2.5 billion a year, and it seems the easiest thing to do is blame gangs.
Rev. Jackson, however, believes that the violence in the Windy City, and elsewhere, shouldn’t be seen as simply a “ghetto” issue.
“Even in these ghettos — we don’t sell guns in these ghettos, we don’t manufacture guns in these ghettos, we don’t manufacture drugs in these ghettos,” Rev. Jackson said. “These guns and drugs are a part of a target market scheme to let people kill each other.”
While several lawmakers, community leaders and political pundits have been quick to call the alarming number of deaths in the city’s poorer neighborhoods characteristic of the environment, Rev. Jackson insists that it is more a reflection of America as a country.
“Thirty thousand Americans die a year from gunfire, only 4,600 died in Iraq in six years,” he said. “We’re the most violent nation on earth — we make the most guns and we shoot them. We make the most bombs and we drop them.”
Rev. Jackson argues that before new regulations and policies are made, the average American needs to develop a sense of responsibility towards their fellow countrymen. Regardless of whether one lives in the relative security of the suburbs, or in the lower-income areas where a lot of the incidents occur, every citizen should understand that the leaders can only do so much.
“We would do well to be part of a greater movement of people who are fighting to revive the ban on assault weapons,” says the civil rights stalwart. [We must help] revive American industry and stop the imminent flow of drugs, which is becoming such a destructive force in all of our lives.”
