Crime is a byproduct of systematic, state-supported segregation that started when the first blacks arrived from the South and were hustled into areas to quickly create homogeneous neighborhoods and into fire trap and otherwise dangerous homes in the south part of the city, forced to live where the Eastern Europeans who previously lived there abandoned as part of the white flight that took root over a period of 15-20 years. Shit, go do research on the history of who the first inhabitants of public housing in Chicago were.
Black folks, like we always do, made a way out of what was no way, literally confined to one part of town (still ain’t even comfortable for black folks North of 63rd TODAY) yet had businesses, schools, hospitals…..all while working in the meat packing, auto and steel mills and factories earning less than whites, not able to get benefits as war veterans, all of it.
80s hit, the jobs went away, crack and a ton of guns “mysteriously” hit the streets and a generation of folks who’d been beaten down but always found a way to make it suddenly had no way to do so, and the city stood by while the dope game became some folks only means of sustenance, or of escape. Gangbanggin’, all that shit took root to take control. It all went south. Now youve got 2-3 generations that have known nothing but state-sponsored despair and poverty.
I tell wypos all the time, the Chicago Democrat is just like the NYC, Boston and Philly Democrat, the white ones are Democrats in name only because they control the unions and the jobs and money and power on contracts and bidding and as vendors and the like that come with them, it’s why you have 4th and 5th generation white cops and firefighters, kids and grandkids are locks to have a job, and the OT and the benefits that come with it while being around a majority of their racial peers. A cop or firefighter can clear $150k-$200k and retire with a full pension at or near their highest last wage! Hell of a head start especially the generations past doing it with a HS education, meanwhile black men with DEGREES couldn’t get on! Without that, they’d all be Republicans and many vote that way nationally, knowing that black folks will carry the local D water and keep the money and jobs flowing for THEM.
All that said, Chicago’s issues are so multifaceted that they’ll never be fixed in my lifetime. Hell the city can barely pay its bill, it’s out of stuff to lease or sell (water, sewer, toll roads), taxes on everything from hotels to restaurants to Ubers are criminal, and that’s before you get to the ills of black folks. A decent public school system would be a start but no one’s trying to go teach in CPS (insane pension benefits thought , but that system is in the red too). Reparations are about the only thing that would be a start, and they won’t make up for how far the city has put folks behind IMO.
