If you grew up in Millard, the idea of clear backpacks and metal detectors probably sounds more like a prison than a school. But for millions of high school students living in Chicago and in several other urban areas, those standards are their reality.
I am lucky enough to have spent the last few years of my secondary education here at MN. However, this has not been representative of my entire educational experience. For my first two years of high school, I attended a public school in Chicago. The contrast between these two is outstanding.
My freshman year, our principal came on the intercom and announced that a student had been shot and killed on the way to school. My senior year, the idea of losing someone to gun violence is completely foreign to most of my friends.
As a freshman, I was expected to wear an identification badge at all times and periodically asked to take my backpack off and walk through the metal detectors when entering the building. As a senior, I walk freely in and out of the front doors of the school without a second glance.
Recently, increasing discussions of gun violence have brought the disparity between suburban and urban schools to my attention.
The differences between life for high schoolers in these two places are undeniable. However, we need to get rid of the misinformation that surrounds inner city schooling and the shock that their descriptions are met with.
Much of the rhetoric around gun violence in Chicago is sensationalized and overplayed. Gun violence is a real threat, but it is not so overpowering that one cannot step outside without expecting to see a shoot-up.
Contrary to popular belief, Chicago is not a lawless wasteland where violent criminals run rampant with no morals. Rather, it is a big city where many young, valuable, high-potential low income and minority students are born into a cycle of gang violence and poverty and often funneled into prisons.
On the other hand, suburban schools are not without their own particular lacks. Many people scoff or gasp at the conditions my old school found itself in, but how can you weigh the prevalence of gun violence with the humbling economic and racial diversity that my Chicago school provided?
The reason Chicago’s gun violence rates are as high as they are in the first place is because of the long standing existence of cyclical gang violence and poverty that are especially insidious in minority populations.
In fact, the demonization and fear-mongering surrounding descriptions of Chicago are just another attempt to attack weak and vulnerable populations that are already fighting a war against generational cycles of violence and poverty.
We need to bridge the gap between suburban and inner city schools. This starts as simply as centering our discussion about gun violence around the people who are most affected by it and recognizing the way we can address this violence at the root of the problem.