Very recently in Chicago, a murder occurred that seems to have been forgotten as quickly as it occurred. No, it was not the murder of a black male by a white man or the police, it was the senseless killing of a 7-year-old child named Heaven Sutton.
Heaven Sutton was with her mother when someone walked up to another group of people and opened fire down the
street. The girl was struck by a stray bullet as she ran away. She was selling candy at a stand in front of her house, when someone on the street opened fire. Jerrell Dorsey, a 26-year-old suspected gang member has been charged with first-degree murder and aggravated battery in the shooting death of the 7-year-old. He is a black male.
Heaven’s death was one the latest of more than 280murders so far this year in Chicago. During the week of President Obama’s visit to Chicago, 35 were hurt and 7 were killed in Chicago shootings. Prior to that, the week in which Sutton was murdered, a 3-year-old boy was among at least 17 hurt and nine killed in a weekend of gun violence. The weekend prior to the president’s visit, 40 shootings occurred with 9 dead including a six-year-old girl. The week before that, 15 people were wounded and 1 dead in a single night of
shootings in Chicago.
In total, since 2001, 2000 troops killed in Afghanistan by gunfire compared to 5000 killed by gunfire in Chicago, where only 30 percent of black males graduate from high school, and of those only 3 percent obtain a bachelor’s degree by the time they’re 25.
As the parent of a 7-year-old daughter, what is just as disgusting is that it seems on the surface that African Americans are silent,
comparatively speaking, when compared too the death of Trayvon Martin. As a parent, I worry and would cry the same tears whether my child was murdered by a white man or a black man. But in the public opinion of African Americans, it appears that one has more value and needs more attention if they are killed by a white man than a black man. This saddens me. Yes, we are all Trayvon Martin, but we equally are Heaven Sutton. But she was killed by a black man so we forget about her and continue to keep Trayvon Martin alive.
