From ChiRaq and the Boogie Down

This week, we went to go see ChiRaq, a Spike Lee film about gun violence in Chicago.  Lee himself says that he made the film "to save lives", and the film focuses around the murder of one girl who was killed in the South Side of Chicago and the family, but in addition to the usual marches and rallies that communities host, the twist in this plot is that the women of the community also engage in a sex strike, based on the play Lysistrata.

It is set in current day Chicago, and begins with a song about violence in the city, the lyrics written in red on the black screen.  Then Lee contextualizes the film by explaining that the city's nickname "Chiraq", which many criticize him for using as the title, came from gun violence statistics. Currently, more people have died from gun violence in Chicago than U.S. soldiers have died in the war in Iraq, and many ChiTown based rappers make reference to this in their songs.

It is an important film, in the sense that it attempts to spotlight gun violence, gang violence, economic violence against urban neighborhoods (from Chicago to the Bronx, from Oakland to the Detroit, and beyond). It is important in that the women of the community take the lead from Leymah Gbowee and the Liberian Mass Action for Peace.  I am moved by the mothers, daughters, sisters and aunts of a community uniting to show their power.  But our power is beyond sex, our power is to give life.

So I ask you, as we reflect on this film, how do we give life to a new movement for peace and prosperity, in our BAL community and the neighborhood?  Please respond to the film below, using the prompt questions as needed.  I look forward to the movement we're creating!  UP4life! 

1.  What's one scene or section of the film that stands out to you as especially important?

2.  How can we connect some ideas from the film to our activist work?

3.  What's one action or creative activity that you would like to participate in to speak out against gun violence after break? 

What UP Means to Me - Danny's Story

When I first got introduced to United Playaz, it was by Ray Figueroa, a boss/worker in Brook Park, around a year and 1/2 ago.  When I first got to U.P. I was fresh coming from upstate, where I served 8 months for possession of a deadly weapon; I also got sentenced to 18 months probation.  Ray introduced me to Amelia, and I told her some of the obstacles and problems I was having, and little by little, I was fixing it, with the help of U.P.

For example, Amelia helped me enroll myself back to school.  When I started going to every meeting of U.P., in the beginning I thought it was going to be boring and people were going to talk about nonsense, but I actually noticed that the stuff they talk about was going to help in the future.  The way I saw it was that I could learn from others and not to make the same mistakes they have done.  If I do end up making mistakes, then I could learn how to fix it, or live with it.

My greatest moment with U.P. is when I got my official U.P. shirt.  I really felt like the man when I was walking toward the shirt.  The shirt represents all the hard work and effort that I have done with  U.P. and for myself.

What does UP mean to me?

United Playaz was described to me by one of my students as "a gang against gangs", and I was curious about what that meant.  I now understand that we are sometimes seen as a gang, because we have unconditional, family love for one another, that goes deeper than the way we're used to connecting with people in a place like school.  When I became a member of UP, I was dealing with my father's heart attack and being far away, unable to ask questions in the hospital room or laugh with him when he tried to convince the family to bring beer into the hospital.  An inability to be there for my own family was the catalyst to get me to finally start going to meetings.

I am close to my family, the people who share my blood, but I am also close to my family, the people who share my vision.  I may look different from you, may reap the privilege that my skin affords me, but I am here to try to give YOU voice.  This is not about me.  So I'm writing what UP means to me, but I'd like your stories to be the focus of the blog, because this is YOURS.

UP has become a part of my soul, and it is what I teach, despite my need to also prepare you to jump through the hoops that the institution has set up for you.  I want to teach you to work the system, but not to rely on it, because we have our own solutions and we are powerful.  I learn more from you on a daily basis than I can ever hope to teach you, but I am humbled by these lessons, and I come back to teaching each day, each week, each month, each year, with a renewed sense of being an eternal student, with hoping to learn and grow even more.

I guess what I'm saying that UP is my family, it is my island sisters, and my US Muziq brothers, my Young Fresh and Conscious cousins, my Banana Kelly children, my Bronx Letters founders, the lovely two souls I have birthed myself.  UP is a melding of all of my worlds, it is youth becoming the teachers and showing us how we will solve the violence in our communities, because we deserve and must make better happen.   I am so blessed to be here learning from you; to me, UP means your success, however you define that for yourselves.

-Lauren Fardig-Diop
one of the chapter founders

The Voice of the Playaz

We are young people.  We are thrown into the world without knowing what is in store for us.  We have yet to live, but we have already been killed.  Shot down because we are minorities.  We don't get the chances we deserve.  Our dreams and goals don't succeed because we are young, and we are minorities.  We have so much to give, and so much to lose.  We lose more than anything though, because we are labeled as violent, dangerous criminals.

We are stereotyped and killed by society before we can go through individuation, before we can find ourselves.  We aren't given a voice, or a choice.  We're brutalized and traumatized.  Terrified of standing up against our oppressors.  Those who oppose us.  We fail to realize the young ones aren't the enemy.  We are a family.  We are a voice.  Together we write and stand up for what's right.

-Amina F.