Race Traitors 2 was my second analysis of the gang violence and murder epidemic that occurred in the City of Chicago in 1974. The initial novel, Race Traitors which was published in 2005 presented a myriad of incidents which described how two African American Detectives, Myles Sivad and Aristotle Ashford, (DoubleA) assigned to the Gang Intelligence Unit of the Chicago Police Department experienced the conflict.
They struggled with the Politics, the Department and the Body Computations as countless black boys died as a result of gang violence. Detective Ashford, a product of the South had a different life exposure than his young colleague, Myles Sivad and he often let Myles know that his generation suffered the brunt of Racial Discrimination and Jim Crow conditions that black people had to endure. He sometimes displayed repressed hostilities because he felt that the present generation took that suffering for granted. Myles Sivad, a member of that generation found himself defending the “Arch” of young Black men who were trapped in that era and labeled as respondents.
They both were imprisoned in the web of violence as they collectively addressed the conflict. Race Traitors 2 picks up on the trials of Black Sonny, (Ivory Gilcrist) for the murder of Franklin Williams in the South Moor Hotel and Felix Hamilton for the murder of Arthur Shelby (Artie the Brute). These Detectives were determined to confront the complexed conditions that surrounded the violence while simultaneously suffering from increased hostilities from the community and personal psychological constraints that forced them to become ensnared in cultural and duty-related variances.
Detective Sivad often found himself overwhelmed with reminiscences of experiences that he treasured that helped him escape the unpleasant moods that haunted him. DoubleA, on the contrary, was a seasoned detective and a proud black man. He was born and raised in Mississippi and he endured a great deal of racism and relegation to the bottom level of humanity. He fled that geography and came north to Chicago. He raised himself and zoomed toward becoming a better man. Sometimes, while cruising through the hood he would say shit like: “They called us Niggers and made us believe that we were from the lower tier of mankind.” They refused to accept the “Evidence” that we are from the land which was the mother of civilization, which taught Greece her letters, and through Greece, Rome and through Rome the world. He knew his Black History and it was disheartening for him to see his people in such a backward spin.
The Chicago Police Department could not address the growing carnage that terrified the city and its residents. To be a black man and to see such conditions was painful, especially when you could see that the victims were often the fruit of our Race and the hope of the future.
Having all of those life experiences, personal and professional, the pain of the reality was something powerful had to occur, or the murders would continue.
SO, what do you think could have been done to stop the carnage? |
