Why Does Chief Keef Scare People?

 Nightline with Diane Sawyer visited and reported on the insane amount of gang violence controlling the streets of Chicago, IL and the communities that are affected. More deaths took place in the streets of the city than U.S. troops died fighting in Afghanistan, with over 400 deaths in a year's time. Families have lost love ones who were innocent bystanders and victims of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Children, grandmothers, college bound teenagers and scores of others have lost their lives due to gun violence in Chicago.

During Sawyers report, up pops Chief Keef's music video for "Don't Like" as an example of what the gang culture looks like. Keef, a 17-year-old rapper signed to Interscope Records, is a known gang member and suspected of being involved in the murder of another young Chicago rapper, Lil Jojo who was only sixteen at the time he was killed. Keef's vented his satisfaction of Jojo's death via his twitter account leading police to investigate his ties to the crime. As disturbing as his feelings may be, Keef and his music are more the result than the problem.

While the deaths of the innocent bystanders are heart wrenching, the majority of Chicago murders are of young adults with many of them being members of the city's numerous black and latino gangs. We're talking about young people whose talents are wasted and who never really get the chance to become productive members of society. No matter how hard Chief Keef seems to some, technically he is still a child that is playing in a man's game that he probably has no choice in just from living in a certain neighborhood.

Chicago is receiving national and international attention for the gun violence but every major city and even rural areas are now feeling the effects of gangs and the easy accessibility to guns. What Keef represents is a generation of males of color that are basically products of what those who came before them created. We recognize the problem but finding long term solutions has not been so easy. He was not the first rapper to discuss violence, murder, and drugs and he is not the most influential rapper that does but his ties to Chicago, a city that is under fire, makes him the easy target.

A question we should ask ourselves is how can be offer our youth the opportunities to become something other than a Chief Keef, regardless of the neighborhoods they live in or the colors they wear?