KTS Dre is Dead

KTS Dre is dead.  I had not heard of him before his name appeared in the news today.  He was released from Cook County Jail wearing an ankle monitor, and immediately gunned down in the street.  He was shot about 60 times.

KTS Dre was a rapper known in the Chicago area.  He probably had ambitions of being known more widely.  I guess now he is.  I wondered what KTS stood for, so I went internet searching.  KTS is a gang acronym for Kill To Survive…only he didn’t…survive, that is.  I suppose his murder was related to gang affiliation.

It makes me incredibly sad that there are young people in this world who have no hope, who see no future.  Their minds are filled with the chaotic noise of despair. They never make the connection between education, honest work, and success. They are looking for shortcuts to fortune and fame.  Do they really believe that one must kill or be killed?  That taking another’s life is the only way to guarantee one’s own survival.

 I wonder…did he grow up without a father?  Did he have a single mom who struggled and brought him up in poverty?  Did he see no way out?  Did he never hear the name of Jesus as anything other than a curse word?  Did he never have the opportunity to know Jesus and the freedom that relationship brings?  Was he unable to make wise choices…too overwhelmed by the tyranny of surviving in the moment to see the big picture?  Who taught him that KTS was an appropriate mantra?

How does one break the awful cycle of poverty, despair and violence?  The BLM movement is not going to accomplish it.  Regular infusion of money from the government is not going to accomplish it.  Free housing, education, and healthcare are not going to accomplish it.  The problem is in the heart of mankind. But fewer and fewer people believe that, and those of us who do are labeled as lunatic fringe.  I am not saying that we should abandon programs which meet human need.  I am saying that they do not touch the greater need of finding meaning and purpose in life.

I wish this young man had had a moment of mental clarity, had seen the possibility of being set free, had known Jesus.  He was busy wasting his life, but He was a black life that mattered to Jesus.