Black lives matter!

[EgonSpengler]

So while people are protesting for the Laquan McDonald's of the world, they should also not forget about the Tyshawn Lee's.

I agree with you, but I want to point out two things. First, they're not forgetting about the Tyshawn Lees. Spike Lee's "Chiraq" is just the high-profile example, but I think people have been talking about the violence in Chicago for a long, long time (Lee took the name for his film from the name some folks have used for the city for at least a few years now).

Second, the protests about the murder of Laquan McDonald aren't just about the murder of Laquan McDonald. They're about the bigger picture of police behavior and the cover-ups by the city (if anyone thinks this is the first time the city has swept an incident of police brutality under the rug, I recommend Googling it). I forget who it was now, but someone asked the Justice Department to investigate whether the mayor's reelection campaign deliberately impeded the investigation of the boy's death to delay the inevitable outrage until after the election.

 

[Sommerswerd]

What is appropriate for me to call home?

I don't know, your legal residence? Your mailing address? The house/town you grew up in? I'm doing a little tongue in cheek obviously... you can durn well call anything you durn well please "your home" or "stomping grounds"... If you wanna tell me you're from freaking Mordor, you can. If you're asking me what I personally regard as "home" see the above.

A little context that may or may not be news to you... For black people at least, the question of where a person is from can become very touchy, in part I think, because of the "street cred" thing. When people grow up being indoctrinated with how "tough" and "hard" they're supposed to be, the subject of where you're "really from" can become quite contentious.

For example, I noticed in college that people (whites, blacks, everybody) don't tell you the name of their hometown (usually a suburb nobody's heard of) but instead the nearest city. So rather than say "Westbumbleblank, TN" and have people say "Huh! where's that?!?" you say "Memphis, TN" and they say "Oh yeah I know that place"... simple. But for black kids that turned into "Oh yeah? what part of NYC you from? White Plains?!? That's not NYC? Youre a poser!/faker/liar, whatever... the implication being that the person was trying to claim that they were from a cooler/tougher/more worthy place than they really were, and thus more credible/deserving of respect, etc.

It's an old habit... So I'm sorry for projecting that baggage onto you

 

[chijohnaok]

Second, the protests about the murder of Laquan McDonald aren't just about the murder of Laquan McDonald. They're about the bigger picture of police behavior and the cover-ups by the city (if anyone thinks this is the first time the city has swept an incident of police brutality under the rug, I recommend Googling it). I forget who it was now, but someone asked the Justice Department to investigate whether the mayor's reelection campaign deliberately impeded the investigation of the boy's death to delay the inevitable outrage until after the election.

Believe me, I am well aware of the crap that goes on in Chicago. I was born in Chicago and lived there for 35 years. Not just the Chicago Police Department is corrupt and full of coverups; corruption is rampant throughout the government in the City of Chicago, Cook County and much of the state as a whole. According to 2013 University of Illinois at Chicago 33% of all Chicago Aldermen (members elected to the Chicago City Council) between 1972-2013 were convicted of corruption. That does not include additional politicians (state representatives, other city and county officials, US House members (including every US House member from Illinois 2nd District between the years 1981-2012 (either convicted for corruption or cited for ethics violations)], and 3 of the 5 governors that served between 1973 through 2009).

What goes on in the Chicago Police Department is similar to what goes in the the rest of government in Chicago. The difference is that abuses by the CPD can lead to deadly consequences. [Not that other forms of corruption cannot also be deadly. While former Gov. George Ryan was Illinois Secretary of State, some members of his department were selling (accepting bribes) to issue commercial truck drivers licenses to unqualified drivers. Some of those unqualified drivers later caused motor vehicle accidents that resulted in the deaths of other people].

 

[Farm Boy]

Well, Chicago isn't quite Mordor. But the surrounding areas do have to try and plan around how the iron fisted giant to the east is going to decide to act.

It's weird Sommer. You can talk with people from Chicago or the burbs and they'll ask where you're from. You have to start describing it in roads and minutes, and they usually get confused since the world ends somewhere around Aurora. Then there are little separate planets around Rockford and Peoria. There are two options on how people react to your location. Option one, you fall into a generic boondocks classification. Since, you know, there's just nothing out there. Option two, if you're talking with somebody who likes to do agri-tourism, they will generally wax poetic about how lucky and blessed you are to live in such a beautiful area. Since, you know, you can see the sky. Well, I'm inclined to agree with them on the sky being beautiful. So much common ground. You'll have more in shared understanding with somebody that lives out east of St. Louis.

 

[chijohnaok]

Well, Chicago isn't quite Mordor. But the surrounding areas do have to try and plan around how the iron fisted giant to the east is going to decide to act.

It's weird Sommer. You can talk with people from Chicago or the burbs and they'll ask where you're from. You have to start describing it in roads and minutes, and they usually get confused since the world ends somewhere around Aurora. Then there are little separate planets around Rockford and Peoria. There are two options. Option one, you fall into a generic boondocks classification. Since, you know, there's just nothing out there. Option two, if you're talking with somebody who likes to do agri-tourism, they will generally wax poetic about how lucky and blessed you are to live in such a beautiful area. Since, you know, you can see the sky. Well, I'm inclined to agree with them on the sky being beautiful. So much common ground.

I know exactly what you (and Sommer) are talking about.

I was born and grew up in Chicago. When I went to college at the University of Illinois-Urbana/Champaign probably 75% of the students were from the Chicago area. So you would ask someone where they were from. They would say "Chicago". Then you would ask them "What high school did you go to?" And they would reply "Barrington High School", or "New Trier High School", etc. And I would just because those schools are located in well-to-do suburbs that are 20-30 miles outside of Chicago. When a Chicagoan asks another Chicagoan where they were born, or where they lived, you would tell them "3200 north and 400 west", and they would know exactly where you are talking about. When people tell you that they were from Barrington, or Winnetka, or Rockford, your eyes would start to glaze over. If they said they were from Paris, or Rantoul, or Carbondale, well they might as well be from the dark side of the moon . A long time columnist for the Chicago Tribune (it was either Mike Royko or John Kass, I'm not sure which) used to refer to anywhere in Illinois that was outside the Chicago city border as "the land beyond O'Hare".

 

[Sommerswerd]

For every Laquan McDonald that you have in Chicago, you have many many more black homicide victims, some of them innocent children like 9 year old Tyshawn Lee. So while people are protesting for the Laquan McDonald's of the world, they should also not forget about the Tyshawn Lee's.

Laquan MacDonald was a "black homicide victim." Did you mean to say "for every police shooting victim who is black, you have many more victims of black-on-black crime (or something similar) so why aren't people focusing on that instead of/more than the police?"

If that is what you meant, I will say that this is a common response I hear to BLM. However, it is more knee-jerk/apologist/deflection than accurate. I say this because the issue of urban black-on-black shootings get a lot of attention and has gotten attention over the years (Ever hear of the "All-in-the-Same-Gang" album/movement?). It's just that the people who say "you need to focus on black-on-black" crime didn't notice... possibly because they didn't care... Until that is, they see protests of their trusted friends, the police, on the news... then they say "Why don't you focus on the real problem!"

Two things... There are multiple real problems. People can and are focusing on several problems at a time. And these are not obscure, they are front page issues, just as big as anything BLM does. Anytime you hear about the need for increased gun control, or drug legalization or criminalization (that creates the gangs in the first place) or ending the drug war, or increased minimum wages, or funding to inner city schools, or school choice, or music censorship, predatory mortgage lending laws, anti- forclosure laws, emminent domain laws, on and on... all these issues and more are directly related to decreasing inner city crime and shootings etc. People are focused on it.

The second thing is that the disparate treatment of blacks in the justice system (including by the police) is one of the clear root-sources in a multi-chicken-egg problem. The disparate policing tactics cause the disproportionate arrest stats, and then are used to justify even more disparate treatment of blacks in the justice system. And it is that disproportionate focus on blacks in the justice system which in turn creates all the negative perceptions that in turn, lead to poorer job prospects, lower wages, worse schools, on and on... it arguably all starts with the police and how their disproportionate treatment leads to all these other problems... So its as good a place as any to focus attention.

they should also not forget about the Tyshawn Lee's.

More to the point... The people are not forgetting about Tyshawn Lee...

Some of the reasons a child like Tyshawn Lee had to grow up in a gang violence plagued environment, are drug wars that criminalized his neighborhood and created the environment for gangs, poor employment prospects for the people in his neighborhood, leading them to join gangs, poor wages leading to the same, poor schools/education in his neghborhood leading to the same... As I said, all problems which can arguably be traced back to disproportionately negative treatment of blacks by the police (I'm happy to explain how).

So the people are focused on Tyshawn Lee, they are focused on making a better environment overall for kids like him going forward.

 

[REDY]

For me as foreigner it seems that gangs are problem here. They are leading reason of black-on-black violence and tarnished reputation of people in neighboourhood. Arrest/kill all gangsters should help.

 

[Bugfatty300]

For me as foreigner it seems that gangs are problem here. They are leading reason of black-on-black violence and tarnished reputation of people in neighboourhood. Arrest/kill all gangsters should help.

That's been tried before. It's tricky to arrest and imprison someone simply for being in a gang and they're pretty efficient at killing each other, but there are always more recruits. Gang problems are lot more complicated.

 

[Sommerswerd]

The gangs are a form of organized crime, and like all organized crime they coalesce around some conduct that has been made illegal, in this case drugs sales. The gangs exist to sell drugs and protect the drug selling territory from rival gangs doing the same. Legalize drugs and the gangs have dramatically reduced reasons to fight, recruit, exist. Like alcohol prohibition in the US, once the drug (alcohol) was legalized the gang wars subsided and their conflicts were greatly diminished.

Ending the drug war would also help greatly reduce conflict between the police and blacks (and the poor in general), as well as reducing the justification for police trolling black neighborhoods looking for people to arrest/stop and frisk etc. Reduced negative interactions/arrests will eventually help create improved perceptions, leading to even more reduced negative interactions/arrests statistics and so on.

One reason the drug war lingers (there are many) is because of the perception that blacks and the poor in general, "deserve it." The public has a low opinion of blacks because they see them as violent, criminal, dysfunctional, etc... again... because of the disparate arrest statistics etc.

 

[Farm Boy]

I daresay if we dramatically reduced the criminality of "possessions," probably mostly through decriminalization of certain drugs and through legalization of concealed carry, we could evaporate most of the reasons for cops to view poor guys walking around as all probably doing something illegal you just need to catch them. Boy, what would we do then? Have them stop and talk to people, figure out what's going on and if any retirees need help with stuff? Probably too old school. Nobody buys that Mayberry stuff anymore.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I do! A place where the cops actually live in the neighborhood they are policing, so they know everyone, and they think of themselves as protecting their own home, instead of thinking of themselves as doing a job controlling some other community to keep it from endangering their home-community 3 towns over.

 

[warpus]

The best way to get rid of gangs is to invest in communities and give people alternative career options and better role models. And for crying out loud stop ruining the lives of those who smoke weed.. and their families.

 

[Farm Boy]

I do! A place where the cops actually live in the neighborhood they are policing, so they know everyone, and they think of themselves as protecting their own home, instead of thinking of themselves as doing a job controlling some other community to keep it from endangering their home-community 3 towns over.

To be balanced around the tendency of that which is local to become that which is corrupt. Life is fun.

 

[Wolfbeckett]

The gangs are a form of organized crime, and like all organized crime they coalesce around some conduct that has been made illegal, in this case drugs sales. The gangs exist to sell drugs and protect the drug selling territory from rival gangs doing the same. Legalize drugs and the gangs have dramatically reduced reasons to fight, recruit, exist. Like alcohol prohibition in the US, once the drug (alcohol) was legalized the gang wars subsided and their conflicts were greatly diminished.

Ending the drug war would also help greatly reduce conflict between the police and blacks (and the poor in general), as well as reducing the justification for police trolling black neighborhoods looking for people to arrest/stop and frisk etc. Reduced negative interactions/arrests will eventually help create improved perceptions, leading to even more reduced negative interactions/arrests statistics and so on.

One reason the drug war lingers (there are many) is because of the perception that blacks and the poor in general, "deserve it." The public has a low opinion of blacks because they see them as violent, criminal, dysfunctional, etc... again... because of the disparate arrest statistics etc.

I don't often agree with you but in this case you're right on. Legalize and regulate drugs (and prostitution) and you eliminate most of a gang's income stream. Gangs live in the margins, reduce the size of the margins and the gangs won't be able to make a living.

Of course we'll still have a ton of poor people to deal with who joined the gangs originally because they couldn't get a job and needed money, but that's a whole different bag of snakes.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Ultimately we have to employ everybody who is interested in employment (and give them a middle class standard of living, not some minimum wage job). Farm Boy says "send them all to College!" and I say "give them all middle class employable education in High School!", but either way, when they get out of College (or High School) they are going to need jobs, and there aren't any (enough) to go around. And "they" is everybody... poor people, unemployed people spread out need jobs just as badly (moreso in some ways) then people packed densely into cities.

I'm not exactly sure what the solution to that problem, the employment problem, is but I don't think its "Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?" A little Xmas humor for ya there

 

[warpus]

Infrastructure construction/upgrade projects work well for that, I think. And it seems America needs a lot of infrastructure, from new rail lines, high speed rail, new bridges, public transit in city centres and elsewhere, etc.

 

[chijohnaok]

Infrastructure construction/upgrade projects work well for that, I think. And it seems America needs a lot of infrastructure, from new rail lines, high speed rail, new bridges, public transit in city centres and elsewhere, etc.

Congress approved $105.3 billion for spending on infrastructure as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

And how did that work out?:


Link to video.

Spending (ALOt) of money doesn't always yield the intended outcome.

 

[Hygro]

Congress approved $105.3 billion for spending on infrastructure as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

And how did that work out?:


Link to video.

Spending (ALOt) of money doesn't always yield the intended outcome.

it worked really well, we had a massive economic turnaround. Given historical trends if we had, say, acted like we did in 1929 the outcome would have been worse than the depths of 1933.

I remember driving cross country in 201...0? It was so desolate then compared to the same route last year. Most of the vehicles we ran across were doing recovery act high construction.

 

[Sommerswerd]

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

And how did that work out?

2009 you say?

Went over like gangbusters I'd say...

 

[warpus]

Proper and well executed infrastructure improvements are almost always good at stimulating the economy and they always create jobs.