First off I'd like to say that this particular hub is solely my opinion on a matter that made News Worldwide. The fact that it happened in 'my backyard' so to speak doesn't change how I feel. It could and does happen across the US pretty much on a daily basis, it just doesn't always make the news.

On Sept. 24, 2009 kids, in Chicago, leaving an after school activity witnessed something most of us never will. A street brawl that lead to the death of a young man.

Someone actually stopped their car, got out and recorded the brawl on their cell phone and then, knowing a young man had died, posted it to You Tube. Some say that it was posted in order to identify those involved, but I've seen it and I don't think anyone can really be indentified. What is disturbing are the comments made by the individual/s who made the recording and are heard in the recording. Comments like, 'get closer' and 'do me' (in what I believe was in referance to an individual who came into the shot and hit someone) and 'just leave him there' (after the young man was pulled into a building which I believe was a Community Center near the school). Cars are driving through this brawl, blowing their horns. Kids are yelling.

It has been reported that earlier in the day a shooting occur at the school. Where were the Police? It can't be that they didn't know there would more then likely be trouble stemming from the shooting. What about those that drove through? Did any of them even call 911? So many questions. Some which will never be answered, I'm sure.

This young man's funeral was attended by over 1,000 people, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan and various officals of Chicago's school district. Even the White House has issued a comment on this story. This tragic event has led to comments like 'In 1957, the National Guard was needed to escort black students into a previously all-white Arkansas school to provide them with safe passage."We need the same intervention today," Jackson said, to cheers and shouts of "amen" from the crowd. "They did it in Little Rock. Do it in Chicago!"' and 'Rage killed Derrion Albert. It is the same rage that once led angry mobs of whites to lynch innocent blacks as law-abiding citizens watched. The same rage once erupted into riots that drove young black men to burn and loot white-owned businesses, as residents hid in their locked homes.'

I beg to differ here. This isn't one race against another or one religion against another. Or anything like that. These are children (were talking 14, 15, 16 and to me those are children still), Kids afraid to walk to and from school, who become involved in a gang or loosely affiliated with them just so they can get to and from school without the threat of violence. Who think nothing of hurting each other, killing each other simply because they live in a different area (a key reason kids from the same neighborhood 'gang' together, maybe).

What is wrong with this picture? As adults isn't is part of our job to protect children? To instill in them that life is meant for living? For achieving dreams? For being kind to others? But most of all "treating others as you would what to be treated" ? How many more children will die before this country as a whole wakes up? Chicago spent millions of dollars trying to bring the 2016 Olympics to the city. I've heard that Mayor Daley can't imagine why they were voted out in the first round. Are you kidding me? Chicago can't keep the children of their city safe, how would they keep all those who would come safe? Maybe those dollars should of been spent right there at home.  Sadly, it's not only Chicago.  This happens all across the US, day in and day out. 

These children are our future. Just where are we headed? I seriously worried about the kind of world my granddaughter will live in. Maybe it's time to go back to basics. Maybe everyone needs to pull together and get these kids to understand that the lives they are living now isn't what it's all about. Maybe the human race hasn't come as far as we like to think. I remember a time when children had respect for adults and each other. When adults had respect for each other. When neighbors helped each other out. When and more importantly how did we let that go by the wayside? I don't know but something, somewhere has to change or the future of this Country will be on very shaky ground. we, all of us, need to do whatever it takes to stop this downward spiral the youth of today seem to be on. Our children deserve better from us.