Chicago Apartheid City

The epidemic of violence in Chicago has gotten out of hand. There are many reasons for the violence.

Some say it is because the demolition of the projects and displacement of the project residents was not planned. The Chicago projects were run by gangs. Each building had a gang member who all of the residents of that building feared. He was “the man.”

When a young man was shot on the steps of a church after a funeral, we realized that the gangs of Chicago no longer even respected the sanctity of the church.

A favorite pastime of young teens and adults who are involved in gangs is video games, like Grand Theft Auto. In these gangs, the person holding the joystick brutally kills others, day after day. They become immune to the blood and gore. They begin to feel empowered by their ability to take a human life, even if it is only in a video game. Soon they get the urge to do it for real, and so they go out and kill, not only members of opposing gangs, but often total strangers.

The people who run the city of Chicago, Mayor Emmanuel and prior to him, Mayor Daley, have no concept of gang lines, and really don’t care. The decision to change Carver High School – the only High School in Altgeld Gardens – into a military academy to which most residents of the Gardens do not qualify to attend was a senseless and heartless move, and just an example of how either the city planners do not care – or perhaps this is part of their plan.