In the same city, the same windy city, where young Barry Obama walked through the streets to organize a community…the same city where Walter needed a Refrigerator to win a Super Bowl…the same city that in ‘68 made students run for their lives…the same city that needed Common Sense to understand the Twisted rhymes of a rapper…a city whose doors were opened up by Mr. West…a windy, cold city that we call “The Chi.” In this same city, Chi-Town, The Windy, The Chi, Chicago — this same city…has been brought to her knees…and we fall right there with her.

My body shakes. My skin tightens. My head aches. My eyes tear. My heart hurts. Because on the streets of the Chi, we witnessed hope lost. We witnessed the result of a heavyweight championship match. Ali vs. Frazier. This was no “Thrilla In Manila” or “Rumble In The Jungle” – this was a defeat that pains every bone in the body. A defeat of humanity. A defeat of our people. A defeat of our nation. A defeat of our hope.

I remember sitting on the steps of an abandoned house in Little Rock, Arkansas in 2002, having a conversation with Leifel Jackson, better known on the streets as “OG” aka Original Gangster. I was there to produce a film for HBO about the 10-year street war between the Bloods and Crips in Little Rock, which at one point at a higher murder rate (per capita) than LA and New York. Leifel, the leader of the Crips and who had a federal number for 10 years, was back in the hood, trying to uplift his people in a positive way. And during that conversation, he said to me (and I will never forget it), “a hopeless kid in America is the most dangerous kid in the world.”

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