Drove through the west side ghetto of Chicago over the weekend - observations

How would you like to be a postal delivery person in these areas???

Serious question as someone who has never been to Chicago, but has researched extensively (thought about moving there at one point) - Do you think they are moving in the right direction in terms of South/West side violent crime containment, or do you think they have passed the point of no return?

Do you think the violence will consistently start spilling over to the nicer neighborhoods on the north side? (Old town, Lincoln Park, et al)

Went to a record store in this hood few years back. On my way there (took a bus) I was told twice that I shouldn't go further west and should head back. Had a block to walk from the bus stop, I was mostly shocked by how empty the streets looked, except from some zombie-looking dudes. Got some great records at that store.

Mr. Obvious wrote:

War on Ramadan wrote:

I am not claiming that the police have never done anything wrong, lol. What I am wondering (not claiming) is how much of the negative PERCEPTION of the police by blacks is driven by the media.

Are you claiming that the locals would prefer a gang presence over a police presence? Serious question.

I don't know personally what locals would prefer.

Based on the reporting, I would guess they wouldn't see much difference between the two.

Hence my point. Check my pending response to agip.

agip wrote:

War on Ramadan wrote:

I am not claiming that the police have never done anything wrong, lol. What I am wondering (not claiming) is how much of the negative PERCEPTION of the police by blacks is driven by the media.

Are you claiming that the locals would prefer a gang presence over a police presence? Serious question.

the trick here is how bad humiliation is. Feeling occupied by armed outsiders is humiliating. Humiliation is a great driver of human activity. Terrorism, trump voters, Brexiteers, southerners who fly the battle flag....they are being driven by humiliation.

so on the surface it may make no sense for non-criminals to resent a police presence...it still grates on them terribly. Not a simple question you are asking.

I get that. Where I went to school, "respect" was the end-all be-all for minorities (mainly, but not wholly blacks). Just a completely different culture. Anything taken as a "dis(respect)", be it someone looking them in the eye, a correction from a teacher, even a (friendly?) touch on the arm by an authority figure, could lead to posturing and escalate to violence.

On the other hand, it isn't unheard of for gangs to "protect" their turf, including protecting law abiding citizens from outsiders. Bottom line: gangs don't want police snooping on their territory, so it makes sense to keep petty violence (unconnected to anything that makes money for the leaders) to a minimum. Maybe the gangs are the Devil they Know, and the police are the Devil they Don't Know?

The trade-off is crack-whores, liquor stores, and pawn shops on every corner, with ne'er a Macy's to be found within several miles.

Which side? wrote:

Failed State wrote:

Chicago is a FAILED STATE

Mayor, CIty Hall, Police, should be disbanded, every employee fired and banned from Chicago for life.

Is the mayor a republican or democrat? I'm honestly asking.

Its Obamas neighborhood.

exthrower wrote:

Ain't diversity great?

Actually, the neighborhood is not diverse at all. 98% black.

NotEvenOnce wrote:

exthrower wrote:

Ain't diversity great?

Actually, the neighborhood is not diverse at all. 98% black.

Thank you for posting this. I am so tired of people erroneously labeling places that are nearly 100% black as "diverse". It is counterproductive.

agip wrote:

I just 'drove' through that strip on Google Maps...always amazing to me what places called "america's worst slum' look like...in short, they look pretty much like middle class neighborhoods, with a few more empty lots and crappier retail.

it' basic america. I didn't see any boarded up buildings, rubble fields, fallin down structures, abandoned blocks...

I even drove up some side streets. They were usually leafy and green and decently tended to.

I understand the murder problem, but American urban poverty just isn't all that bad.

I suspect 90% of the murdered people are gang members....sad, but not tragic like an innocent losing her life.

It's bad. I met a journalist from Ethiopia. He moved to DC. He came to my hometown of Baltmore and wanted to drive here on the backstreets from DC. He called me, "I can't believe you lived there. I was scared to death I would be taken out of my car and killed. Thtat's worse than Nigeria. There were men just standing in the middle of the streets."

Here is photo of something like what he was experiencing

!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s8O0is54OFptFetMWiBM8pg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1

War on Ramadan wrote:

Mr. Obvious wrote:

I don't know personally what locals would prefer.

Based on the reporting, I would guess they wouldn't see much difference between the two.

Hence my point. Check my pending response to agip.

Yes, I'm sure nobody in the neighborhood knew the cops were crooked and on the take before it was reported... :eyeroll:

exthrower wrote:

NotEvenOnce wrote:

Actually, the neighborhood is not diverse at all. 98% black.

Chicago as a whole is a great city.

"I can't believe you lived there. I was scared to death I would be taken out of my car and killed. Thtat's worse than Nigeria. There were men just standing in the middle of the streets."

Yep. Lawlessness. You may think standing or walking down the middle of the street is minor but it is indicative of an overall lawless climate. Broken windows policing works and we'd better get back to it quick or people will be pulled from their cars.

Since you mentioned it wrote:

exthrower wrote:

Chicago as a whole is a great city to use as a reference to other crapholes.

Rojo,

"Hometown" implies where you are from. You ain't from Baltimore. Living there doesn't count.

Aside from that, your post does have merit. Parts of the city are like war zones.

Y'all are so clueless, it ain't even funny. Understand what it's like to grow up in these neighborhoods and you might understand why things happen like they do. Understand before you judge. They ain't a place for ghetto tourism; real people live here with real lives, and most of them don't partake in the violence or want it.

And hundreds of years of history doesn't erase itself so quickly. Things go in fits and starts, sometimes not always in a positive direction.

I don't have time to go any further, but please ahead and call me the usual labels (liberal, bleeding heart, snowflake, SJW, apologist, whatever). Y'all should read some Ta-Nehisi Coates, he has way more writing talent and powers of observation than most of you.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/01/my-president-was-black/508793/

https://www.theatlantic.com/author/ta-nehisi-coates/

[quote]vivalarepublica wrote:

Y'all are so clueless, it ain't even funny. Understand what it's like to grow up in these neighborhoods and you might understand why things happen like they do. Understand before you judge. They ain't a place for ghetto tourism; real people live here with real lives, and most of them don't partake in the violence or want it.

And hundreds of years of history doesn't erase itself so quickly. Things go in fits and starts, sometimes not always in a positive direction.

I don't have time to go any further, but please ahead and call me the usual labels (liberal, bleeding heart, snowflake, SJW, apologist, whatever). Y'all should read some Ta-Nehisi Coates, he has way more writing talent and powers of observation than most of you.

/quote]

"You understand why things happen like they do?" I'll guess you never lived there and have no idea. By the tone of victimology that you use, you're part of the problem.

My parents lived above a business on that very stretch of Madison just before I was born. It was a nice place to live. The people in the apartment next door had five kids and my mother would baby sit them at times. Their family is still close friends to mine.

Madison was a thriving commercial strip. Many of the Madison Street businesses were owned by Jews. Benny Goodman and the world famous "Austin High gang" are some of those that came from this area right along Madison.

Our family moved to mid Austin to a bigger apartment, then several years later to a house a couple blocks away. Today the Chicago murder machine is in full flower through the streets of each of those homes.

Many of the businesses on Madison were torched during the riots in '68. The businesses didn't return. Those vacant lots today are the result.

Someone in the thread noticed that there were surprisingly nice homes on some of the side streets nearby. Exactly right. No homes north of Chicago Ave and few north of Lake street were burned. You can guess why.

The single family homes were well built and were popular with large families because of their size. There was, and is, a nice variety of apartments to rent mixed in. The Catholic elementary schools and the public high school were held in high regard in the city. It was a great place to raise a family.

What happened? What changed? No one has to tell you.

The housing stock didn't immediately change. The schools had the same buildings and teachers. Same corrupt cops. Same streets and alleys.

The people changed. The attitudes of the residents changed with the rapid swapping of mostly Irish, Italian and Polish Americans (99 percent white in 1960) to black Americans.

Right at the time the progressive political leaders began to shovel money to build their "Great Society."

It's culture. An ugly political system mixed corruption, race baiting, community organizing, welfare and the resulting irresponsibility to create a toxic stew of broken families, ignorance, crime and nihilism.

The lefties and Democrats can try to ignore this but they are almost as responsible as the gang banging jackasses who shoot one another. Ultimately, they're probably more responsible.

Deflect all you want ("hundreds of years, ya'll this/ judge that"), but blacks were not killing each other like this until about starting only about 50 to 60 years ago. It's now the third or fourth generation of your experiment, and it's failed.

But at least you people on the left can feel morally superior because people suffer, and you care.

Not really, my point is if you want this cycle of poverty and violence to move in a different direction, it takes understanding with open eyes, ears, and minds, rather than a know-it-all attitude. That goes for everyone, including many of the commenters in this thread making judgements from afar or condemning by category.

vivalarepublica wrote:

Y'all are so clueless, it ain't even funny. Understand what it's like to grow up in these neighborhoods and you might understand why things happen like they do. Understand before you judge. They ain't a place for ghetto tourism; real people live here with real lives, and most of them don't partake in the violence or want it.

And hundreds of years of history doesn't erase itself so quickly. Things go in fits and starts, sometimes not always in a positive direction.

I'm not reading any tripe from Ta-NaRaceBaiter Coates, thanks though.

Question for you: My ancestors were German immigrants that settled in Wisconsin after the civil war. They likely never saw a black person in their lives and any they met were free men. At best, they benefitted from slavery in a very, very indirect way. But 99% of their lives and prosperity had nothing to do with slavery.

Should I, as their descendant, be responsible to pay black people for repirations?

Vivalarepublica wrote:

Not really, my point is if you want this cycle of poverty and violence to move in a different direction, it takes understanding with open eyes, ears, and minds, rather than a know-it-all attitude. That goes for everyone, including many of the commenters in this thread making judgements from afar or condemning by category.

You live there? Or are you making judgements from afar?

At least most of the commenters have driven through and live or work nearby. That means that at a minimum at some level they have to deal with this mess.

Here are three questions for you and the rest of the alibi making left.

1) Why is the violence that plagues black ghettos in most large cities so much worse than it was from 60 to 150 years ago when blacks on average were much more poor?

2) Why is the murderous violence in Austin and Englewood today so much worse than in most other black neighborhoods in other cities?

3) Why shouldn't the most racist organization in American history - the Democrat Party - be held morally responsible for its historical oppression of black Americans and current destructive policies?