Children at Prayer Vigil

Yesterday at the MICAH prayer vigil for a young man who was another homicide victim in Milwaukee, there was a large group of children in attendance. They were from a nearby Lutheran Church summer camp. For the most part children are not present at these prayer vigils. It is usually the regular group of persons and often family and friends. Frequently the victims are young adult African American males and the friends are sometimes other young men. These young men are usually congregating nearby and when we invite them to join the prayer vigil they do. After the prayer vigil I have stayed to talk with them and usually they are, like many of the young male killed, unemployed and in fear of dying themselves or seeing more friends die from gun violence on the street.

Tonight’s TV news was about many shootings that occurred yesterday and today. Fortunately they were not fatal but the victims were most young African American males. I heard these young man called an “endangered species” but unlike other endangered species there is not much being done about it.

I have had African American adults tell me that when they were young how there was organized activities, good places to hang out and jobs were not so scarce. Before the present depression the news reported that 54% of African American male adults were unemployed in the central city. I am afraid of what the number is now.

I do not have the answers of what to do about violence with young adults in the central city. I do know that the easy availability of hand guns, the lack of jobs and educational opportunities is costing lives and proposes danger to our society. If a fraction of the money we spend on prisons and wars were dedicated to these young men, and if guns were not so readily available, there would be less violence in this group and we all would be safer.

In a garden and most of life we learn by doing, making mistakes and correcting them. Somehow in America with violence we do not learn. The more gun violence there is we produce more hand guns. The more our war violence produces violence the more we do more violence to others. The more prisons we build we need more prisons. The more we ignore treatment and care for persons addicted to drugs and alcohol the more we have persons addicted.

How many young men must die before we learn?

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