Chicago: ‘where are the parents?’ Hundreds of kids smash car windows in downtown

Everything is subjective. While it is true that kids in places like Garfield Park and Lawndale and Washington Park have access to food, they also have a lot of issues. Drugs, gangs and guns are everywhere. An incredibly high percentage of the kids in these areas have a parent in prison, dead or unknown and if they do not have that issue, they have a sibling dead or in prison.

These kids in some ways have it uniquely bad........ and their lives are widely covered in the media and there is a subculture that follows all the drama across the globe.

 

Na, people like you do this all the time.

Someone you are sympathetic toward = excuses, product of their environment, deflection of responsibility

Someone you aren't sympathetic toward = full culpability, no excuses, no reference to the causes of the way they are

 

I see no utility in stating obvious things like "this guy who committed armed robbery needs to go to prison".

I feel like the people who need this stated when discussing things like wealth inequality and its effect on crime are just racists virtue signaling.

 

The issues in Chicago are largely institutional.

That does not mean that those that murder and commit other violent acts shouldn't be held accountable and go to prison - they should.

However, when you have 80-90% of the violent crime in a city (Chicago) coming from 4-5 neighborhoods and the victims almost all coming from those same neighborhoods, and it has been that way for generations - then there is an institutional issue, and if the real concern is solving the problem, you start with the institutional problems.

Chicago has a fairly unique history.

It is a city that did not really have many black people until the First Great Migration around 1900, and that went very poorly as lynchings and mob violence was common. The established white residents and the police and government did not handle a major influx of black people from the South well. After World War II there was a Second Great Migration, and that was also handled poorly. The blacks had jobs, but were pushed into all black areas of town. By the 1960's those jobs were largely gone, and many black people were in government housing...... gang violence was a bigger issue in Chicago than anywhere else.... the government has tried tearing down the projects, they have tried arresting entire generations or black men..... they have tried zero tolerance........ and ultimately have decided to let these black neighborhoods police themselves, with teenage gang leaders controlling the area... and the cops just come in to clear out dead bodies, and the gangs agree to leave white people alone that go their to buy their drugs and finance the gangs.

So these kids you see lashing out - a lot of them will end up dead or in jail - but they will have enough kids to repeat the patterns.

The plan has somewhat worked as far as killing them out - the population has dropped largely.... but what a nasty thing.

So yeah - I have empathy for a black person born and raised in the inner city of Chicago.... because it isn't easy and it hasn't been for over 100 years.

 

The problem is folks like Mayor-elect Johnson will denounce criminality/poor conduct from some people/groups and in the same breath add in qualifiers/mitigating factors/excuses/explanations for said conduct and not do that for other people/groups.

Does anyone think that poverty/historical racism/lack of opportunity has nothing to do with these youths conduct in Chicago? No.

Does anyone think Trump isn't the way that he is because Fred Trump was an emotionally abusive sociopath? They shouldn't.

Yet, nobody is putting that qualifier in with regards to any condemnations of Trumps conduct.

Whether or not someone chooses to "explain" conduct or add in qualifiers/excuses is a biased choice.

 

I am talking about children that not even born yet - I am saying that the problem is institutional and accordingly, repeatedly arresting people in these neighborhoods doesn't fix the problem.

 

Remind me if I ever visit Chicago, which is not likely to stay away from Randolph Street , heck all of downtown- I would love one day to see the museums..to see Wrigley field, but I would honestly have to do my research on when and where to go if I ever do @Nook

 

they are really worried about the DNC convention, and the fact that the burn, loot and mob teens are promising a part 2

The concern from what I gather is a tremendous hit to safety, business and tourism sectors- the question is who's in charge?

 

"no one is in custody by that attack"- wow
How do you explain that?

 

Spoken like someone that's never been to a ghetto, didn't grow up in one, and has no idea how social dynamics work in one.

For many kids, especially young men, you join a gang or you get beat up or ostracized. You pick a team or you fend for yourself.