Today, September 1st, marks the 15th anniversary of the death of Robert "Yummy" Sandifer. "Yummy" as he was affectionately called because of his love for sweets, was a young child, who died at 11, partly because he was a misguided youth without direction, who got caught up in the gang culture on the southside of Chicago. Yummy was gun downed by his fellow gang members because when he was instructed to kill a rival gang member, he failed to do so and killed an(other) innocent child, making his gang a target of the Chicago police force. Because of this, he was brutality gunned down in the area of Roseland. Unfortunately, although this happened 15 years ago, this trend has not stopped. Most from Chicago will tell you that they know a young man similar to Yummy now, or maybe they were that child. The sad reality in Chicago, and other inner cities, is that children grow up believing that your options are either, joining a gang, or playing basketball. And when most of our males, and children in general, lack guidance from their fathers, they are more likely to get caught up in what Lupe called "the cool." Even though I'm from the southside, I didn't learn about this story until about a year ago while I was browsing on FakeShoreDrive and I haven't stopped thinking about it since. I'm in grad school now, and when I get my teaching degree, my main goal is to go back into the city where I was born and help our children go down the right path and reach their full potential. Oh yeah, I wrote a song about Yummy too (something Tupac has also done), but really, I just want YOU to learn about him, whether you read the TIME article or check out my song. PEACE!
Read the TIME article HERE
Special thanks to ALL the sites that have posted this story and my song:
FakeShoreDrive
TheHipHopUpdate
GoWhereHipHop
SoSnewty
DudeGotBars
