Chicago: The Killing Fields
So my family and I had the pleasure of travelling to another major city this weekend. It was a fun time had by all but something strange kept happening. Whenever we told anyone we were from Chicago, their faces became downtrodden like we had just returned from a war torn country or something. "How to you survive out there?" or "How to you cope with all the killing happening all the time?" I understand that Chicago is getting a pretty bad national identity and most of it is naturally deserved but people need to understand some fundamentals about the city. This may help them to understand why the problems exist and more importantly, why the problem continues.
Chicago is a segregated city and I mean that in the most brutal way possible. You have the Caucasians, African Americans, Latinos, Asians, Russians, Middle Easterners, and Polish all occupying a defined area in the city with very little commingling. Couple this with financial segregation which limits the ability to change the area you exist in or more accurately, venture into one of the other areas. After these dynamics take hold, you have to also realize the Chicago police don't protect people as much as they protect assets. So areas are more valuable and some people are more valuable and the police police these locations differently. Once you start integrating these ideals, hotspots for crime, violence, and social injustice are formed. Everyone who lives here knows where the "BAD" neighborhoods are located and the violence tends to only makes the news when it shows up in a neighborhood or around people that have accepted the violence only when it exist in its designated locations. And that is the issue...
Hilary Clinton famously said "You can't keep snakes in your backyard and only expect them to only bite your neighbors." This analog applies to Chicago's violence. We have become accustomed and desensitized to it. We all seem to go on with our lives until the issues we refuse to actively address find its way into our lives. We try to protect our borders and we don't concern ourselves with our fellow Chicagoians. Just like the segregation breeds independence and selfishness, our ideals have been so self involved that we don't recognize it is a catalyst for our current issues. The more we separate, the more we'll suffer
Chicago is a segregated city and I mean that in the most brutal way possible. You have the Caucasians, African Americans, Latinos, Asians, Russians, Middle Easterners, and Polish all occupying a defined area in the city with very little commingling. Couple this with financial segregation which limits the ability to change the area you exist in or more accurately, venture into one of the other areas. After these dynamics take hold, you have to also realize the Chicago police don't protect people as much as they protect assets. So areas are more valuable and some people are more valuable and the police police these locations differently. Once you start integrating these ideals, hotspots for crime, violence, and social injustice are formed. Everyone who lives here knows where the "BAD" neighborhoods are located and the violence tends to only makes the news when it shows up in a neighborhood or around people that have accepted the violence only when it exist in its designated locations. And that is the issue...
Hilary Clinton famously said "You can't keep snakes in your backyard and only expect them to only bite your neighbors." This analog applies to Chicago's violence. We have become accustomed and desensitized to it. We all seem to go on with our lives until the issues we refuse to actively address find its way into our lives. We try to protect our borders and we don't concern ourselves with our fellow Chicagoians. Just like the segregation breeds independence and selfishness, our ideals have been so self involved that we don't recognize it is a catalyst for our current issues. The more we separate, the more we'll suffer
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