So Sad

I often thank my lucky stars not to be bombared with horrible local news from Chicago or New York. It's just so depressing. But once in a while a story that hits real close to home makes it to the international news and today when I had CNN on, I almost wished I wasn't watching.
A 15 year old boy in Chicago, Alex Arellano, was beaten with bats, hit by a car, shot in the head and burned on Saturday by a gang. His family claims that he wasn't in a gang and was out of school since September because he was bullied.
Alex also happened to have a learning disability...and he wasn't in school since September? What is happening in Chicago? His family wanted to send him off to another school but his family had financial problems.
We can't hear a story like this without wanting to put the blame on someone. A way of making sense of this horrific situation. Everything from beginning to end; not being in school, the boys who did this, the actual crime, it just doesn't make sense.
In a taxi today, the driver asked me where I was from. I answered that I am Mexican-American. We talked a little about the swine flu and he went on to say that Mexico was still beautiful in his eyes. He might have seen my hesitation to talk about Mexico because of all the recent negative attention. But he said that Singaporeans have this attitude of peacefulness and they don't like to blame. It made me think about Alex and how quickly I wanted to blame his mother, the teachers, the gang members the community leaders. He went on to talk about how things just happen. But I don't think that in this situation things "just" happen. I want to blame someone for poor Alex.
Anderson Cooper went on to say that this is the 34th student-victim of crime in the city of Chicago in this school year alone. Up 7 from last year. A board member was quoted saying that it was an insult to the families to put a number on the victims.
I could go off on many tangents with this one but don't we need to be aware?
What is happening in Chicago?