My colleague and ally, Brian Galaviz, posted some words on Facebook a couple of weeks ago. They are below. He also shared a letter written by some students at the school where he works. I asked for permission to re-publish that letter. The students and their teacher granted my request and I hope that you will take the time to read and think about what they have to say about how the media’s coverage of violence impacts their lives.

Reflecting on being part of healing after Chicago lost another warrior, the word that comes to mind is Grace. It is my favorite Christian word, though I am not. Watching staff and students deal with pain in a way to flip violence. Students using his life and transformative process to continue their trajectory for self/community-realization.

Rudy Lozano Leadership Academy – IDPL is a beautiful organism, and though we lost an Angel, we fight on in his spirit and light.

One way students responded to their friend being murdered was by calling out the Tribune for dehumanizing both our lost loved one and the young man accused of the murder. I am still struggling with sending love to the person who kills and the victim. But I am trying in struggle with students and staff. This is what they wrote:

To the staff of the Chicago Tribune:

We are the documentation team in the class Rhetoric of Change at Rudy Lozano Leadership Academy. We have a weekly newsletter, We Deserve Beauty, Too. As reporters, part of our mission statement is that “[W]e would like to bring a reliable newsletter that will also acknowledge our fellow students and staff leaving behind their legacy.” Tuesday, May 21st, Angel Cano, a student who attended our school, was shot and killed. You wrote about him. We feel like you didn’t do him justice; you didn’t say who he was, what he did for fun, or even what his friends and family lost in this tragic event.

According to your story, Angel was a name, an age, a location, and a victim. He was “Boy, 16”:

“Boy, 16, killed in Back of the Yards neighborhood
May 22, 2013|By Adam Sege | Tribune reporter
A 16-year-old boy was gunned down in the Back of the Yards neighborhood on the South Side, authorities said. Officers responding to a call of shots fired found Angel Cano unresponsive in the 4300 block of South Paulina Street around 5:20 p.m. Tuesday, authorities said. Cano, of the 2200 block of West 50th Place, was shot several times, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office. He was pronounced dead on the scene at 5:35 p.m. An autopsy is scheduled today.”

Yesterday, you published an article about the person suspected of killing him. Though you never published a picture of Angel’s face, you included an enlarged photo of this person. With this photo, you wrote:

“Batalla sent one of the group to a store to buy blunts — small cigars used to wrap marijuana — and someone else began to talk to Cano about the weather, telling him it was “a beautiful day to smoke.”
and
“It’s a beautiful day to get smoked,” Batalla said, then pulled out a gun and shot Cano, prosecutors said.”

We know how we felt when we read each of these articles; it is even more upsetting and hurtful. Your words cause us to feel hurt and anger. To read, play by play, how our friend was killed was agonizing. What do you think your words are doing to communities? You’re responsible to report accurate news but also humanize the situation and the people you’re talking about. We’re wondering how Angel’s mother feels about this depiction of her son. We wonder how it is for her to have to picture the way he looked and felt in your depiction of Angel as “slumped over, [as] Batalla shot Cano five more times in the head,” and to hear the words supposedly spoken at the time of his murder. We also wonder how Joel Batalla’s mother feels reading about the very unnecessary and grotesque details of the actions her son is suspected to have taken. Our community feels such a sadness to lose a member. As you talk about these violent crimes you are also creating a ripple effect for more violence. Think about the message you are sending out to everyone. Your words can create peace or hate in this world.

The Huffpost is the only major news source to include the victim’s full name in a headline. The rest of the headlines of major news sources that we read begin with “Boy, 16.” The articles that follow are all very vague. But what about all the coverage that others get? Those such as Hadiya Pendleton – nine follow up articles have been published since her death by the Chicago Tribune alone. Will Angel and others get the same coverage? Or are there certain requirements needed in order to get full coverage? Does the person who is killed need to be on the Honor Roll to count? Or does the person need to have performed a dehumanizing act and recount that in full detail so that it makes a good story for your audience? As Alex Kotlowitz says when addressing youth violence, “This is your problem too, what are you going to do?” We are deeply disappointed by the role you choose to take in this. Seeing each individual as just another teen, victim, murderer etc, just feeds the tendency of our community to always get used to the violence without addressing that this is an actual epidemic in chicago – an epidemic that begins with real people. As a community we are all entitled to know the stories behind these faceless victims. You have a responsibility to show how these are actual people who deserve to be known as much more than just another statistic.

In order to more accurately represent who Angel was, we revised your report in the following way:

On May 22nd, 2013, a teenage boy who had his entire life in front of him had that life cut short. Responders found the body of Angel Cano, 16, Tuesday near 43rd St and Paulina in the city’s Back of the Yards neighborhood. The body they found did not tell the story of who Angel was to us.

Angel attended a social justice school called Rudy Lozano Leadership Academy. He always had a goofy attitude and a smile on his face. Though he passed all this classes Quarter 3 and was passing all his classes Quarter 4, he was always pushing himself to do better. He was a motivator to many and influenced others to come to school. One student recalls a phrase that Angel always told him: “Stay in school and never give up. Every time we were in Algebra class I could expect him to punch me for not doing my problems.” Interviewing one of his teachers, she was asked, “What will you remember about Angel?” She said, “I remember the last five minutes of class the day he was killed. I remember looking into his eyes and just laughing while arm wrestling.” He loved to listen to and sing Corridos and always knew how to put a smile on someone’s face. According to a staff member at Rudy, “He was a bright light.”

We ask that you publish this information in order to ensure more complete coverage of this story. We would also like to invite members of your staff to visit our school in order to become more fully educated on the impact of the articles you publish.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Ari Franco
Brenda Lares
Jasmine Rodriguez
Tiffany Talley
Cynthia Zarazua
and Rhetoric of Change class

Update: One of the Tribune reporters, Adam Sege, met with the students yesterday to discuss his coverage and their letter. This is to his credit and it is also a credit to the young people who took action when they saw an injustice.