Wildin' Out Where It Don't Matter

The hip new trend in Chicago the last couple of weeks is what some refer to as "Wilding" and others "Flash Mobs." This is when a few to about 16 or so young people converge upon an area and start mugging people en masse. Because they're such a large group, when they find resistance, they fight back, violently and ruthlessly. And they flee usually before the cops can get them.

photo © 2005 Yo Hibino | more info (via: Wylio)
What's particularly news-worthy about this is that they're doing it downtown. And in the Gold Coast. And on the Magnificent Mile. And at North Avenue Beach. (And we all know that it's Black-on-White violence, amirite?)

This has become our Windy City Nightmare.

Of course, not the fact that teachers' pensions and rights-to-arbitration are on the chopping block. Not the fact that our city is being sold, block-by-block, to the highest or most-connected bidder. Not the fact that there are very few jobs available in much of the West and South side neighborhoods so young adults from those neighborhoods have to go downtown or to the North side in order to find barely minimum wage jobs in the first place. If they're fortunate enough to have a job, that is. Not the fact that mega-conglomerate/uber-rich corporations are getting tremendous tax breaks at the expense of social programs, schools, and homeowners. Those aren't nightmares to the power brokers and gate-keepers that get to define what is and isn't a nightmare.

The fact that few impoverished adolescents of color are afforded the kinds of opportunities that those of us of White heritage take for granted - and that Chicago is geographically segregated by those opportunities - is the long, horrible nightmare to me...

Which isn't to say that Wilding isn't important. Nor that it shouldn't grab headlines (besides, how else are you going to sell newspapers these days? You can only talk about Sarah Palin so much, y'know). But it would've been nice to see those headlines and to hear the desperation in the police superintendent's voice way back when the incidents began and these kids were almost exclusively terrorizing black men, women, and children in the South and West sides.

But then, the local media and the city's halls of power would have to acknowledge that African Americans are real Americans and citizens, right? Not just votes to discard after election season...

Jena All Over Again

photo © 2006 James McCauley | more info (via: Wylio)
No evidence. People locked away for life. Over drugs. But no evidence. Air and ground raids.

"This is serious business what we're fixing to do," said Sheriff Franklin. "If you think this is a training exercise or if you think these are good old boys from redneck country and we're just going to good-old-boy them into handcuffs, you're wrong. These people have nothing to lose. And they know the stakes are high."

No evidence. Sunrise raid.

LaSalle Parish is a politically conservative enclave located in northwest Louisiana. Former Klansman David Duke received a solid majority of local votes when he ran for governor in 1991 -- in fact, he received a higher percentage of votes in LaSalle Parish than in any other part of the state.

The only witness is a criminal. Locked away for life.

photo © 2008 smlp.co.uk | more info (via: Wylio)

The Parish became famous in 2007 for the case of the Jena Six. In demonstrations that were called the birth of a 21st-century civil rights movement, an estimated 50,000 people marched in Jena -- nearly twenty times the population of the town. They were protesting a pattern of systemic racism and discriminatory prosecutions. All six youths, who once faced life in prison, are now either enrolled in college or are on their way.

Pointing guns at children and threatening them. All white juries for nearly all-black defendents.

The Sheriff told the Jena Times that he began preparing for Operation Third Option in November of 2007, less than two months after the historic protests. The raid occurred just a few weeks after the Jena Six cases were finally settled.

Racial retaliation for Jena Six trials. Activist started as a result of Jena Six trials.

Catrina Wallace, 29, was sleeping in her bed with her youngest child when her door was broken down and she awoke to the feeling of a gun to her head. When she opened her eyes, her small home was filled with police. "I never seen that many police at one time," she recalled. "Everywhere I looked all I saw was police. There were six or seven just in my bedroom." She says police pointed guns at her small children and wouldn't let her comfort them.

Locked away for life. No evidence, except for the color of their skin.

Chicago Tuesdays: Why Chicagoans never get good things, pt. Q

Chicago gang leaders met with top cops last week. Past and present members and leaders held a press conference a couple days later to denounce that meeting. Aldermen also denounced that meeting. Of course, the reasons for denouncing that meeting were myriad and diverse. But they also demonstrate substantial problems within the city and the tense relationships between those in power downtown, those who are supposed to serve and protect, and those that arise out of an economic/power vacuum. And, more to the point, those put in their crossfire.

Here's a few of my questions. Please feel free to add your own. Or to address them to those who can do something about them (CAPS meetings, POs, gang leaders, etc.):

1. Since the fatalities in the city are not statistically worse than before, why does the city wait until now to take such desperate measures?
2. Apparently, the gang leaders were roped into this "summit" under false pretenses. And the pretense of this actually being any sort of dialectic summit is also false. Does the CPD understand that they need to actually build relationships? Does the CPD understand that they're largely ineffective in the same communities where gangs have a strong hold because the police are untrusted in those communities? Does the CPD really think the solution is to break down what little trust is still there?
3. RICO. Gang leaders/proxies say that this is a violation of their rights. Do they have a point? The violence here is systemic and much of it is directly gang-related. They do have a point that much of it is more directly related to drugs, but their deflection is - to say the least - lame. Since the violence is intrinsically related and fundamental to how gangs operate in Chicago, is it wrong to implicate the entire structure and those who prop up the violent structure?
4. Speaking of violence... The biggest and most accessible complaint at the press conference is that the biggest crime is the scarcity of jobs available for potential gang members. This is something that Daley and city council has had ample opportunity to turn around if they were willing to fully leverage TIF funds from the downtown districts to community development in the West, Near North, South and Far South sides. If Daley is serious about reducing crime and violence done in those areas, then shouldn't he be serious and creative about reducing the crime and violence done to those areas?
   
5. Children learn from their community. Unfortunately, a disproportionate amount of Black and Latino adult males served time locked up and away from their communities. And when they returned they found fewer options to get straight than when they left. With depleting jobs, decreasing social programs and a wide reticence (however understood) to hire ex-cons, the temptation to return to the same patterns is stifling. While many young men in the area are steadfast in their determination not to become the men they see and know, it's near impossible to not become like most of the people you've ever met/seen/talked to, despite what we want to believe. How can we expect better from the next generation if we continually ostracize the current adult population? Don't we recognize the forces of internalization when we see it?
6. What's with the aldermen getting their bunchies in a bunch over the idea of talking with gang leaders? "We don't negotiate with terrorists..." Stupid. Lame. No wonder nothing works here...

Next, I want to highlight some local stories that I think ARE working in this city (and in others). Hopefully, I can get some stories for the upcoming Christian Community Development Association conference starting in the city tonight I'm going to try to make it to the film fest sometime during the week. If any of the LeftCheekers are wont to go, hit me up here and we'll see about making a date about it!

Chicago Tuesdays

As much as I rag on the Evangelical movement, there is much that I love about it. Namely, its feet-on-the-ground approach to working with outcasts in society. The churches that I have been a part of all work regularly with the homeless and poor in their surrounding areas. Unfortunately, the communities have not always been receptive of that work.

So, it's a good day when many in the neighborhood are pouncing on an opportunity to share with their local church in the good work they do. Our current church in Logan Square, the Urban Vineyard, is gathering a toy store for families in the neighborhood. According to Pastor Ray Maldonado,

We have identified 50 families that we have been helping with food and clothes throughout the year. Almost all are from Goethe and Chase Schools. We ask our church members and anyone else that would love to help to bring new toys and/or items that they believe would be helpful for families. One church is giving us 120 coats. While we give away the toys or items that are designated to only be given, the toys and other items are sold at 15cents on the dollar. This does two things, it encourages the families who love the idea of "buying their children Christmas gifts" at a fantastically reduced rate and secondly, the money is used to buy more food for these same and other families in need.

If you, while reading this, are hit on the head with an idea or feel inspired to give in a similar

fashion, I won't stop you. Also, if you live in the area and would like to give or help out with this specific ministry (or even similar ministries), you can check out here or email here.

In other local nooze:

Cops really seem to have their priorities straight, right? Bros before justice. Wonder where the gangs get that mentality from....

Looking for original but cheap art? Anywhere from 0-200 buckaroos at the Seeking Art Bargain Basement on Saturdays at the Co-Prosperity Sphere. (via CRblog)

And, once again Ben Joravsky, the Chicago Reader's resident expert on the mangling of Chicago's taxes and local bodies that is known as the TIF is trying to spread knowledge - this time to the not-so-knowledgeable people who are supposed to be running the show. That would include the mayor, the Department of Community Development (who give us all the propaganda piece entitled, "The ABC's of TIF"*) and the city's Chief Financial officer.

*Which, by the way, was passed out to audience members at two different meetings I was involved in within the last year and both by people who have something to gain from the partial information inferred in this document.