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I think that programs are not cool enough. You need to get some of your celebrity’s in there. Do you really think that Snoop Dog would get shot, if he went there. Rappers should be Cool. Who else would they respect. Street artists! You cannot let them think that it is reform. It is something to belong to. A place that is cool that they can go, and talk with some brothers, that they think are dope! Then gradually, you add people who may know about the psychological problems, of being abandoned, Having to be a momma’s boy is not Ok. Then it can turn into a Boys Town, once things get better. First, they have to believe in something bigger than themselves. Eventually, they should feel free to open up to, dance and sing. Singing is really great therapy, even listening to music that is inspiring. Not just hoodlum rap, but, maybe Tupac. He was a rebel but a role model with his poetry. You tell them, they are listening to poetry. I understand their pain. They are crying out! Walking with a gun is self destructive. They would probably be suicidal if they could not let it out. They do this instead of being wasted. Or maybe, they are that as well.

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Thanks for this illuminating discussion. I’d like to very briefly point out a somewhat different approach to bringing change. Violence prevention programs are often aimed at changing attitudes and more generally the culture that surrounds them. Clearly behavior is related to this attitude/culture complex so at some level this approach offers possibilities. However a pretty strong finding in social psychology (my field) is that it is easier to start the change process at the behavioral level rather than the attitudinal one. In other words, viewing behavior change as the independent variable often works best. For example rather than trying to convince folks that settling disputes in a nonviolent way is best, it might be better to create situations where groups/individuals are rewarded for using nonviolent approaches.

There are a number of theoretical approaches that support the above, such as self-perception theory which assumes that we assess our attitudes/beliefs in the same way we assess those of others, by observing their/our behavior.

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Thanks for this illuminating discussion. I’d like to very briefly point out a somewhat different approach to bringing change. Violence prevention programs are often aimed at changing attitudes and more generally the culture that surrounds them. Clearly behavior is related to this attitude/culture complex so at some level this approach offers possibilities. However a pretty strong finding in social psychology (my field) is that it is easier to start the change process at the behavioral level rather than the attitudinal one. In other words, viewing behavior change as the independent variable often works best. For example rather than trying to convince folks that settling disputes in a nonviolent way is best, it might be better to create situations where groups/individuals are rewarded for using nonviolent approaches.

There are a number of theoretical approaches that support the above, such as self-perception theory which assumes that we assess our attitudes/beliefs in the same way we assess those of others, by observing their/our behavior.

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I lived on the south side, in Kenwood, for 20 years, but I finally gave up and moved to Houston. I agree with everything I heard said in the 13 minute video I listened to, though I think the situation is hopeless, at least in the productive years I have left. The kept democratic voting blocks, the public unions etc., have relegated the underpriveledged, and consequently basically everyone else, to indentured servitude, essentially.

The companies I worked with and for in the 30 years I lived in Chicago created thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars in new revenue, maybe in the low billions, including across the south side. I sat in Preckwinkle's office in the early mid-nineties and got her buy-in for a store I was responsible for opening at 53rd and Lake Park Boulevard. In my memory she was imperious and dismissive, (I was also young and nervous) but we got that store (and several others) open in Hyde Park. In the ensuing years taxes and regulations exploded, permitting time frames became unmanageable, and at the same time services degraded and crime went through the roof, etc. (one night about eight years ago, while I was travelling on business, two kids machine gunned each other in front of my house on Woodlawn).

It's heartbreeaking. Chicago was filled with hope in the '90's. It's hopeless now. I don't see how it can climb out of the hole, because there is no way to bypass the entrenched pols and bring in competent leadership. It's heartbreaking. I joined the exodus and voted with my feet after years of effort. My wife and I built our lives together and raised our children there (who both took their youthful energies and passions to other cities after graduation from college). What a bummer.

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$80 million on "programs"? What is in these programs that is so expensive and why do they fail to achieve anything?

As a kid I was the benefit of zero programs and support; I was just expected to go to class, work a bit on the side, and not get into trouble. I could have greatly benefited by community help in better understanding finances and investing, planning a career, and some mental health insight. Even if I got only a few hours of each I think it would have greatly helped my life, but there was nothing. I only met with my high school guidance counselor once (a pointless meeting), yet made it to college. Refugee classmates with much less than I had somehow also went on to make something of themselves.

As with the homeless industrial complex, we just continue to waste money on programming that somehow only seems to make things worse. It would probably be better to take those millions, invest $10,000 for each kid, so that in the future--when they finish college or get out of prison--they at least have a nest egg to rely on.

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I grew up on the S.S. also in the Englewood Precinct. I left when I turned 18 and never looked back. My brother also left and now we both live safely, peacefully in White neighborhoods where we can walk the streets alone at night, we don't have to stay away from the windows in our homes for fear of being shot on purpose or by a "stray" bullet etc. None of our children were ever recruited by a gang nor did they experience fighting on a daily basis.

I don't think that there is anything that can be done for the inner city community because the people are incapable and unwilling to do anything for themselves. You are correct that things have gone from bad to worse. Blacks are the only ethnic group that have performed that trick of actually being worse than they were before. I astounds me to see this happen but it has.

I did some research years ago on why Black children perform so poorly in school and in the process I came across some research that was done in which the academic performance of Black children of enlisted parents in the U.S. Army who were stationed in Germany was compared with Black students in America.

The author of the study found that there was no difference between the academic performance of Black students in Germany and their White peers whereas there was a big gap in performance between Black students in America with their White peers.

He attributed this difference to the fact that the Black students in Germany weren't exposed to a Black culture as the the Black students in America were. In other words there's something rotten within the Black community that harms the mental growth and lives of its young people. I concur with this author.

I am a former teacher and I have observed the same thing with it comes to Native American students when you compare the academic performance of Native American children on the reserve with those who don't live there. Native American students who don't live lives immersed in the Native American community can perform much better than those who do. And this is true even when you are comparing family members who've been separated. Those off the reserve do better than those on it.

As an adult I've not met a single White person who moved out of his community because it was a dangerous place. I did move out of Chicago because it was dangerous. I figure that the odds are good that I would've been shot or killed by now i I'd stayed on the S.S.

I wouldn't say that I'm unscathed from spending 18yrs growing up in Chicago. I'm pretty sure that I have PTSD from always living in fear. There are ways of thinking about safety that I still haven't shaken off and it comes through when I'm talking with my friends and neighbors who grew up normal.

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You guys are arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

A human sacrifice is now a part of their culture.

In LA in the 90's they curbed this with 4 things. Stop and frisk, prison, 3 strikes, shooting them. All other progressive programs did not work. Good luck.

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At some point the solution has to be people capable of murder have a change of heart and values. Enforcement provides incentive. Life is very unpleasant in prison. We want Raskolnikov’s cheesy change of heart, and not Bigger Thomas telling the Jewish lawyer there is no promised land. Kendrick gave us something like it in Blacker the Berry but it needs more saccharine sweetness. This is a Scrooge/Grinch moment, adults should scoff at it, and children should defend it. Moonlight?

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