Lesson from the street - don’t back down

Chicago Tribune

Brandon Barnes and Derri Enoch squared off in the center of the street, their faces knotted with anger. Barnes, tall and slender, raised his fists and promised to level his close friend with a shot to the jaw. Enoch dropped his hands and dared him to do it.

The fight, which began as boyish horseplay outside a West Side community center, had turned serious.

A crowd of friends tried unsuccessfully to intervene. The grabbing, choking and slamming continued, neither Barnes nor Enoch willing to let it go. After 15 minutes, the pair settled against a parked car, their heavy breath sending clouds into the icy air.

Later that evening, sitting together in the community center’s computer lab, Barnes and Enoch said they never considered walking away. The teens, students at Marshall High School, have learned a maxim on the streets: Back down at your own peril.

Youth violence has claimed the lives of 18 city students this school year and left more than 110 shot. To stem the scourge, the Chicago Public Schools have launched an unprecedented campaign to intervene in the lives of the most at-risk children and create peaceful environments at the most troubled schools.

Among the challenges officials face is reversing a culture of violence that pervades Chicago’s toughest, poorest and most desolate stretches, where pride is a fiercely guarded commodity and showing weakness just invites more trouble.

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