Leaderboard

Admittedly my " informants" are middle-class professionals; mostly my in-laws, one of whom is a niece by marriage and is a TV anchor on a local station. Maybe I should say that they are more concerned than caring, because crime is spreading to all the neighborhoods via robberies, home invasions, physical assaults and of course murders. Everybody is encouraged by the alternative programs and services for young people who are seeking a haven from the mean streets. White Catholic priest and Spike Lee confidant, Father Pfleiger, who is an outspoken thorn in the side of The Establishment, gets good marks for keeping Mayor Emanuel on the hot seat, along with the black columnists in the Chicago newspaper i subscribe to, all 4 of whom have good street credentials and great credibility. Jesse Jackson's Operation Push and the Urban League and particularly a group called Cease Fire do what they do, and what they do is positive and productive when it comes to steering young people on a different path, giving moral support to victims. Certain black Aldermen serving in the city council also hold the mayor's feet to the fire and he is in serious trouble if he has any plans about running for a 3rd term, although he is desperately trying to clean up his act, making all kinds of promises for reform. Those creating the Chicago's violence are an underworld of outlaws, who strike fear in the whole south side. So it's not as if the populace is apathetic, because no longer is anybody immune to what used to just happen in the poorer neighborhoods. (I don't know what happened to all the people displaced when all the projects were torn down. Guess they just gave them section 8 vouchers and told them to find their own housing.) From what I hear and see, you are definitely on the mark when it comes to the planned gentrification plotted by Chicago's movers and shakers who do have big plans for crowding out poor blacks and taking over what has become prime real estate ripe for lucrative development. Who knows what will happen? I don't.

@Pioneer1 I hear you about "winning" versus justice, but you'll see that the arc of history is long and it does bend toward justice - DESPITE the legal system. I contend that as the man on the street starts to really analyze the legal and other words we all take for granted (like in the Pledge of Allegiance), they begin to question the system. Change comes from below, from fearless individuals (like Kaepernik, the man who stood in front of the tanks in Tiananmen Square), not through the lawyers, who get lost in the shuffle of justice and/or who tend to lose sight of what brought them into the profession in the first place.

Cynique is probably an element of truth in what you say in regard to lead and toxins having an adverse effect on blacks. But why does this only affect certain ones? Not all black males in the ghettos embrace the thug life and some do escape their dire circumstance and go on to lead rewarding lives. For the same reason that we KNOW smoking cigarettes causes lung cancer but not all people who smoke cigarettes will get lung cancer nor can all cases of lung cancer traced to cigarette smoking...... Some people have a stronger constitution than others and can be exposed to the same levels of toxins and they not have an adverse effect on them. We KNOW lead causes aggression and low IQ levels....we KNOW this. There is no doubt about it. We know that the lead contamination levels in the United States are highest in the inner cities where the oldest pipes are. If you look at the lead levels found in the water supply of urban areas of the United States there is almost a direct link between it and the levels of violent crime. We need to also look at the VACCINES being administered to so many children now a days and how that is also affecting their behavior. Numerous studies have linked certain vaccinations to autism and other behavioral problems in children born after 1970.....especially in Black boys. Now I'm not saying these are the ONLY causes of the violence in the ghetto but I believe they are the MAIN causes. At the very lease there can no acceptable solution to the violence in America that doesn't include removing the old lead pipes from not only the water systems but every household's plumbing as well as all of the old paint from buildings similar to what was done with asbestos. And forget about the police solving this problem. Chicago's police aren't commited to lowering the crime and violence rate in Chicago's Black neighborhoods...they're just committed to CONTAINING it and keeping it in the ghetto and away from downtown where it can affect business and tourism. Typical third world style policing. Troy We should be used to White people not caring about Black lives by now. But the problem is a lot of BLACK PEOPLE don't even seem to care about their own lives and the lives of their friend and loved ones anymore. As the example you pointed out about drugs being brought into the Black community. This has been well known since the 90s yet you have so many Black folks who STILL use and sell drugs not seeming to care that it's part of a plan to destroy them. And the same can be said of gangsta rap and other negatives that have been introduced to the community. People are even getting shot and killed at PEACE RALLIES that were put on to end the violence.....damn! Besides the lead poisoning and other toxins in urban environments such as the vaccines that have been linked to violence and aggression, we should also look at the lack of strong POSITIVE Black men that exist in most urban neighborhoods today and how their absents is causing things to spiral out of control. Back before the 80s, when most poor and lower middle class Black people were forced to live in the same neighborhoods you had a lot of decent working Black folks who wouldn't allow certain things to take place. That old Black woman who sat on her porch all day wouldn't let children cuss on her block and would spank them or call their parents if she saw them doing something wrong. Hard working Black men with rough hands would be quick to organize and beat the hell out of a man who went around the neighborhod breaking into houses or messing with young girls. Now that many middle and working class Black folks have moved out to the suburbs, the inner cities have become an oasis of crime and moral decay. Even among criminals and hustlers, if you look at the 70s and further back many of the stronger more dominant criminals kept order in the ghetto and wouldn't allow certain things like rape and harming children to take place. But they got locked up. Now you got a new group of hustlers and criminals with no moral code and anything goes. Remember back in the old days when people who drank liquor didn't do drugs, and those who did drugs didn't drink? Even among substance abusers there was a code. Not anymore.....now they're doing EVERYTHING....lol. I believe I mentioned this several times before. I don't believe the violence is going to end until POSITIVE Black men stand up and organize a group to go into the urban areas of this nation and secure it themselves. We can forget about traditional law enforcement doing it. The most they'll do is CONTAIN the violence and try to keep it in the poorer areas....a tactic usually practiced in most third world nations.

in the year 2016, there are organizations and leaders including religious ones who do care about what's going on in Chicago because it's affecting them. They recognize the problems created by lack of jobs and poor schools and a flawed criminal justice system, and are speaking out trying to attack the problem at a grass route level with whatever resources they can muster. The Mayor is under intense pressure to decimate the problem, and is promising reforms and resources. He fired the old business-as-usual-police superintendent, replacing him with a black veteran cop from the ranks, whose mantra is to get guns off the streets, and hire more cops to patrol the neighborhoods. He also wants laws put in place to prevent the early release of repeated offenders who go back to their old criminal ways once they are paroled. Police morale is so low they aren't efficiently doing their jobs because they're damned if they do, and damned if they don't. Race, of course has reared its ugly head creating a rift between anxious cops and the suspicious communities they are hired to serve and protect. If you listen to the inner city residents who are besieged by what's going on, they will say that's it's the outcasts within their midst who are to blame for what's going on because they have no regard for human life, and weren't raised right or taught any better. It's as if the problems that plague all urban areas came together in Chicago and produced a climate that gave rise to a perfect storm. And 500 murders is the result. IMO.