Like many of you, I have been struggling with thoughts and words to address the events that have recently impacted our nation and our great city of Chicago. Some of us may be shocked by the images coming through social media and news footage, but we should not feign surprise. If anything, we should be asking why it took so long to face a reckoning that has been kicked down the long road of history, generation after generation. We have been sitting atop the tinderbox for a very long time, blowing out the matches tossed our way, but now we are — literally — out of breath.

Nothing about this is new to us as African Americans. Our communities always fare worse, no matter if the affliction is economic, medical, environmental, legal, political or otherwise.