The phrase adapted from William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet.” When Mercutio, a close friend to Romeo and a blood relative to Juliet, is killed, he exclaims with his dying breaths, “a plague o’ both your houses.” If you don’t recall it from your high school Literature class, Mercutio is that one named character with genuine relationships with both the house of Montague and Capulet. He dies in a fray that should never have happened if these two powerful families would end their complete hatred toward one another.

As I drove around the Southside of Chicago in the last 96 hours - by night and by day - watching young people protest in the streets; others looting stores and banks, my soul was crushed.