PA Bill Number: HB1661
Title: Further providing for schedules of controlled substances; and providing for secure storage of xylazine.
Description: Further providing for schedules of controlled substances; and providing for secure storage of xylazine. ...
Last Action: Act No. 17 of 2024
Last Action Date: May 15, 2024
Chicago women fight back on gun violence: No guns or no sex :: 11/18/2015
Chicago - Gun violence on Chicago's Southside has been a never-ending and horribly tragic story. The recent shooting deaths of a nine-year-old child and a 20-year-old aspiring model have prompted one woman to take action by saying, "no more guns, or no sex."
By the time of fall's arrival in September, Chicago had already seen almost 2,300 people shot, 400 more than during the same period in 2014. Of that number, 359 were homicides (gun deaths), up 21 percent from 296 the previous year.
But it was the tragic death of nine-year-old Tyshawn Lee, shot multiple times, execution-style, and the shooting death of Kaylyn Pryor, a 20-year-old woman around the same time that inspired April Lawson to get involved in trying to put a stop to the gun violence ripping black families apart.
She told ABC News affiliate WLS she had spotted a whole bunch of guys, casually standing outside a new show store, waiting for it to open. She says she "just lost it."
She told WSL, "You're watching these guys just ... buying gym shoes and carrying on like life is normal." Lawson adds, "Then I saw the trailer to 'Chi-Raq'." Chi-Raq is Spike Lee's new musical, loosely based on the "Lysistrata strategy." Lysistrata is a character in an ancient Athenian comedy who famously ends the Peloponnesian War by encouraging the women of Greece to go on a sex strike.
She says the Spike Lee film is about a bunch of neighborhood women getting together and devising a plan to withhold sex until gun violence ends. "We're going to make sure these fools put down these guns," a character in the trailer says, reports Change.org.
And like life imitating art, that is just what April Lawson did. In her Change.org petition, Lawson writes an open letter to the men of Chicago's Southside. It is a no-holds-barred and to the point plea. She admits withholding sex is not something she wants to do, but drastic times call for drastic measures.
She writes: "No, Chicago men. I’m done marching. I’m fed up with chanting catchy slogans like, “Black lives matter.” My silent protest to fight this battle is by keeping my panties up and my skirt down, one day at a time. My legs are closed to you. IT’S GAME TIME. I’m bringing on some real life Lysistrata in Chicago, and I’m hoping to enroll thousands of other single and married women in this city before the end of this bloody week."
She ends the letter with these words: "GENTLEMEN, THE CANDY STORE IS OFFICIALLY CLOSED. WE ARE ON STRIKE. PANTIES UP. SKIRTS DOWN. Let the lockdown begin..."
