Violent crime in black neighborhoods price of debts unpaid In 2014, Chicago is more than a city name; it’s a metaphor for urban perplexity. The word simultaneously evokes a glittering urban sky-scrape of festive commercialism and a fetid, murderous underbelly. More than a tale of two cities, those contradictory images reflect a perplexing refusal to recognize the connection of poverty to community dysfunction. Chronic poverty is criminogenic; the links are thick and reinforced by rigorous scholarship. In Chicago’s communities, rates of violent crime correlate to poverty rates in ways that make that point irrefutable. There is little dispute that if violence prevention is the goal, reducing poverty is the most effective tactic. But it’s a tactic that would require enormous resources that we (Chicago, Illinois and the feds) claim we don’t have. And even were the resources available (which they are, re: war, bailouts, bond sales, etc), it’s unlikely that most Chicagoans would be willing to expend them on compensatory programs for black communities. But according to a major article in a recent edition of The Atlantic magazine, such expenditures are not only needed to help vitalize Chicago’s poverty-racked black neighborhoods, they also are owed to those communities as reparations. Ta-Nehisi Coates’ much-discussed essay in The Atlantic’s June edition [...] ilinnews/violent-crime-in-black-neighborhoods-price-of-debts-unpaid/
Posted on: Sat, 12 Jul 2014 04:30:38 +0000
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