Monday, July 11, 2005
Beauty and the injection of violenceToday my godmother Katy and I rode our bikes to the Garfield Park Conservatory,
a gem in the middle of the city's west side. It is a spectacular city
park: along with the conservatory, which has a fern room, succulents,
and countless other plants and trees, there is a large landscaped area
with lily pad ponds, wild flowers, and even a demonstration city
vegetetable garden. There were only a handful of visitors today, in
part, I'm sure, because the surrounding neighborhood is notorious. 11:42:59 PM | The drive there and back was interesting but also a little harrowing. We drove by beautiful turn-of-the-century walk-ups that have been renovated in the past few years, and broken-down, burned out apartment buildings wrapped in vacant lots. Unfortunately, Chicago remains a deeply segregated city, segregated by race and class, and this was clear when we rode to Garfield Park. The line is not invisible here. My godmother is part of Critical Mass, an international group that advocates riding bikes instead of driving in urban areas. Critical Mass Chicago has dealt with a couple of tragic losses the past couple of months. A woman my age was killed on Division Street when a truck turned right on a red light, hitting her while she was riding with traffic. And just this past Saturday, a young man was murdered when he and his friend stopped to help another young man who was bleeding. You can read the full story here. The victim, Tombol Malik, was known as a pacifist who did not believe in violence. When he offered his help to strangers, he was met with overwhelming anger which led to his two murderers beating him to death with his bicycle lock. My godmother told me this story when we got back from our ride and I can't shake it from my memory this evening. Sometimes it feels like the whole city is breeding aggression, encouraging it. Imagine how out of control their anger was, those two killers. They acted as one unit against another, thoughtlessly. No matter how much that young man wanted to oppoose violence, violence came to him, tragically. It's not just here, of course. Violence and aggression are everywhere. Why are so many people so angry? How on earth do you diffuse it when it's this overwhelming? I'm thinking about revenge these days after reading a comment on a blog a few days ago. I'll write about it tomorrow, perhaps. 
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Last update: 8/3/05; 12:28:28 AM .
