Flash! Crime terror doesn't grip Chicago

The biggest danger on the Riverwalk is someone stepping on your toe. Other areas of the city have more crime, but all told, Chicago is not the especially violent place it is being accused of being by President Donald Trump, trying to justify sending in the military

     My wife and I took the 2:36 Metra Downtown so I could co-host the Sun-Times Roast of the Chicago Skyline architectural boat tour. We could have taken the 3:36 and still made the boat. But, cautious man that I am, it seemed smart to build in time for train delays. I was worried enough about giving the tour without also having to worry about getting to the dock.
     Arriving at Union Station with two hours to spare, we decided to walk the 45 minutes to the Ogden Slip, so I could eyeball the riverfront I’d be describing. We took the Riverwalk, mobbed with young people on a gorgeous summer day, doing what young people do — drinking and talking and standing around. Some spots were like pushing toward the bar at a crowded party.
     None of this was extraordinary, and I only mention it here because we’ve got President Donald Trump calling Chicago the “worst and most dangerous city in the world, by far.”
     That’s ridiculous, or would be, except fear is contagious. Lots of readers echo him.
     “Hardly a night went by regardless of season that I did Not hear gunshots in Chicago,” wrote Mike Elmore, now a resident of Florida, who lived in the South Loop, two blocks west of Grant Park, and must have extraordinary hearing.
     “People who live and work in Chicago should feel safe there (just like the folks in Washington DC do now),” wrote Patricia Bajek, of the western suburbs, showing a surprising ability to read the minds of everybody in our nation’s capital. “I do not live in Chicago, nor do I visit it anymore. ... My last few times coming to Chicago before pulling the plug, I did not feel safe.”
     Maybe she didn’t. And some people feel unsteady trying to walk across the room. That is not, in itself, an indictment of walking.
     I shouldn’t mock these people — it isn’t entirely their fault. Not with the president slandering Chicago on a daily basis to rationalize sending in the military. Some obviously believe the man, which to me is dumbfounding, akin to sending $3,000 as a sign of good faith to the purported widow of an African businessman who reached out to you via email, trying to give away $200 million in gold bars.
     Throwing mud at Chicago is a kind of armchair sport. Anyone can play.
     “From what I have been told the absolute worst area is the West Garfield Park area,” Dan Baldwin wrote. “It got so bad there everyone moved out. Now nothing but empty building and empty lots. ... It’s a lot worse than anything in Baltimore or DC.”
     He’s never actually been there. I have. Al Raby High School. Garfield Park Conservatory, which is presenting its Artist’s Garden Flower Show until Sept. 14. You might argue that the conservatory is technically across Hamlin Avenue from West Garfield Park. But that is to delve into the factual world. When you explain crime statistics to people, they do not go, “Oh, sorry, I was misinformed.” They take what I’m saying — “Chicago is not an especially violent city; there are dozens of cities more dangerous, many in red states where the National Guard will never set foot” and twist it. “Ohhh, you’re saying Chicago is not violent at all!”

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Why I seldom go on television

     So CNN tapped on my cage Friday morning.
     "I am reaching out on behalf of CNN's show, Newsroom with Kim Brunhuber, which will be simulcast across CNN International and CNN Domestic channels," a producer wrote. "Might you be willing and available to join Kim tomorrow morning (Saturday 30th August) during the 4am CDT (5am ET) hour?"
     Four a.m. is kinda early.  And I'd never heard of Kim Brunhuber. I think the last time I tuned into CNN was for the election in November. Otherwise, life is too short. But with the troops on their way to Chicago, the eyes of the world are fixing on Chicago. Shouldn't I wave back? Do I want to be part of the mix or not?
      "This would be to discuss the Trump administration's preparation to conduct a major immigration enforcement operation in Chicago as soon as next week," she continued, "according to multiple sources familiar with the planning, marking the latest escalation between the president and a Democratic-led city." 
     I decided to play for time.
     "At 4 a.m.?" I wrote back. "Can I be in my pajamas?"
     She took me seriously. 
     "We understand how unsocial an hour it is for your Saturday, but would be incredibly grateful for your analysis on this," she said. "Of course, you can get straight back into bed as soon as the hit is finished."
     Yeah, that is going to happen. Though the idea of my words going around the globe was appealing. Mr. International. I can't both scorn those cringing at the orange menace and then pass on a chance to speak out on a stage far larger than the modest midwestern potato patch where my words glisten like dew three days a week before vanishing. I decided to send it up the chain of command. Maybe they'd say "No" and solve the problem for me.
     "I'm usually up anyway at that hour," I replied. "I've run it by my boss. After 38 years at the paper, I'm trying to last two more and not get myself fired. Sometimes they view TV as the locus of all meaning, sometimes as boosting a competitor. Let me get back to you as soon as I get the go-ahead."
      CNN spooned on the honey.
     "A relief to know that we have some chance here!" she wrote. "If it is any help, we really enjoy your blog, particularly your assessment of pogo sticks... "
     That gave me pause. An obvious lie over a thumb-twiddly bit of nothing I'd tossed on my blog to fill a day. They were flattering me. There's a Lucy-and-the-football quality to these TV shows. I always think they are going to "lead to something" but they never do. Why bother? Alas, my boss was all for it.

     I replied:
     "I talked to my editor, and we're good to go. The pogo stick post was filler (I write every single day, without fail). If I seem reluctant, it's because my experiences with TV are almost invariably bad. (Here's a post more illustrative of that, you might enjoy). So let's go ahead and do it."
     The link I sent was about going on the BBC last year to talk about "Hatless Jack," a book about how John F. Kennedy didn't kill off men's hats. Not that the BBC knew that, and no amount of my trying to tell them seemed to matter. They don't really care what you have to say; they're just filling time. 

      She didn't appear to look at it. Now that I was on the hook, time to consider the segment.
     "Please send through any thoughts you might wish to share with the team on what the latest reaction is/ your own take," she wrote.
     "My take?" I replied, "The tyranny playbook tells would-be dictators to start at the margins — thus immigrants, like trans folks, who are viewed with fear and suspicion by their base, can have their rights curtailed. The rest of us come next. Chicago had 3 million residents in 1950. Now we have 2.7 million. We welcome immigrants because a) it's good for the economy; b) it's good for the culture; c) it's the morally right thing to do. Trump has long used Chicago as a racist dog whistle — it's America's great Black metropolis — and wants to break the city the way he's trying to break prestigious universities and medical science, so there will be no one to oppose him when he scuppers elections. Roughly that."
     That seemed clear and succinct, to me, but apparently did not give them a sense of what I had to say. Another producer chimed in with:
     "Would you be able to send some bullet points/thoughts at some point today? Can be short - just to help Kim form his questions."
     For what they no doubt pay Kim, I'd somehow manage to conjure up a few queries based on what I'd already sent. It's not like I'd sent some ball of mystery. By now it was 1:35 p.m. I answered this way:
     "It's a broad topic, but something like:
     "— Immigrants are and always have been vital to Chicago. Get out of downtown, and it's one ethnic enclave after another.
     "— The city was completely correct to try to mitigate the human suffering caused by busloads of immigrants that Texas started sending here.
     "— Chicago is completely within its rights to refuse to cooperate with masked ICE agents seizing residents from the streets without any kind of due process of law.
     "— There is no need for the National Guard or the Army here — we can pick up our own garbage, thank you. Crime is at a historical low, and the military doesn't offer an actual solution anyway. Gov. Pritzker insists that this is all part of a Trump plan to use the military to squelch voting, something any decent, patriotic American must oppose.

     "How's that?"
     Two hours passed, then they had a concern:
     "Thanks Neil, one more question — just for clarification, are you saying illegal immigrants shouldn't face enforcement proceedings?"
     That out-of-left-field question gave me pause — a chill, really — and reminded me of right wing hosts playing gotcha. Putting words in my mouth. I had read somewhere that CNN was drifting to the right, trying to peel viewers from Fox News.
     "No, of course not," I replied. "I'm saying they shouldn't be snatched off the streets in extra-judicial kidnappings by masked thugs and shipped to prisons in Africa. Nor should they be demonized as violent criminals when most of them are not."

     Just the question got my back up.
    "Is this too far outside CNN's new business model?" I continued. "We don't have to do this. You asked me. I don't want to be yelled at and have my words twisted."
     At this point a third producer called, and we had a long, lovely chat, which set my mind at ease. Though a few minutes later, I got this:
     "Unfortunately, due to the developing story on Missouri redistricting, our programming has been adjusted, and we are no longer doing the segment on Chicago immigration enforcement as earlier planned. Please stand down on this request for now."
     "Stand down"? Military jargon. As if they were my superior officers. With an echo of Trump's wink to the Proud Boys: "Stand back and stand by."  

     I wondered whether I had talked myself out of a five to seven minutes of a global speaking gig, whether they had rejected me because of the clear-eyed Midwestern truths I was ready to utter. 

     Nah, a scheduling change sounds more likely. Either way, I have to admit, I was greatly relieved. Even happier when I woke up Saturday at the leisurely hour of 4:12 a.m. and realized I'd slept later than if I'd done the show.

     Note to self: next time TV asks, just say no, right off the bat. It saves time and effort.

Flashback 2012: The whole world is watching — even if we aren’t

Paris catacombs

      Last week Donald Trump referred to Chicago as a "killing field" and "a disaster." More lies designed to justify his sending in the National Guard and federal law enforcement. Part of his general program of corrupting the military and turning it into a private army so he can squelch opposition when he corrupts the 2026 elections. But also playing to the long-standing slander that Chicago is a blood-soaked city. It is not; its reputation is.

     Earlier this month, men wearing balaclavas and carrying assault rifles burst into a jewelry store in Grenoble, France. They fired into the glass cases, clubbed the jeweler with a rifle butt, grabbed the loot and fled with a hostage.
     “It’s worse than Chicago!” one bystander told the Le Parisien newspaper.
     One of the many ironies of Chicago’s deadly summer is that while many here expend scant concern about the problem — no worries, not my part of town — the world is gazing at it with horrified fascination.
     “Velkommen til dodens by” a recent headline in Norway reads. “Welcome to murder city.”
     “Chicago gang crime murder out of control,” announces a headline, in Chinese, on the SinoVision.Net website. The story begins: “This summer, Chicago is filled with blood, sweat and tears.”
     That’s a common mistake. To assume the city is in a general grief state — it must be, given the toll — and miss that Chicagoans who aren’t themselves in high crimes areas seem willing to shrug off the problem. Abroad, neighborhood distinctions that help Chicagoans feel secure fly by observers, who treat the city as if it were one unified place.
     “Nine dead, thirty-two wounded in an exchange of gunfire,” began a story in Le Monde, as if they also all occurred at once. “This is the heavy toll of last weekend.”
     Chicagoans know to remain mute at the racial aspect of the killing — it goes without saying. Not so in other countries
     “A total of 433 people died on these streets last year, most of them African Americans killed by African Americans,” explained a story on the Australian Broadcast Corporation’s website titled, “Murder City.”
     That story ran May 29, before the lethal summer even began, a reminder that one reason our murder epidemic so resonates abroad is because it meshes with the “rat-tat-tat” view the city is already saddled with.
      “ Ti aspetti la citta di Al Capone,” is the first sentence in an Italian journalist’s 2004 book about Chicago. “You expect the city of Al Capone.” Well some do, obviously.
      At times, the foreign press seems so shocked it has to stretch the facts.
     “Forget the Windy City or the City of Broad Shoulders,” the Australian story reports, fancifully. “The people who live here call it murder city, or Chi-raq.”
     Since when?
      While the local media focuses on detailing the drip-drip-drip of shootings, abroad they seem more given to general shock. We forget how rare murder is elsewhere. More murders have occurred this year in Chicago, with a population of 2.8 million, than were committed last year on the continent of Australia, population 22 million. Nearly twice as many, and it’s still August. Our murder rate is 10 times theirs. Yet there can be this strange disconnect. Just as soldiers and their families bear the brunt of our wars, so members of the blood-soaked communities grieve and suffer while the rest of the city turns a blind eye and goes blithely about its business.
     I drove the length of Chicago on Wednesday, to Hegewisch, which to a foreigner might seem directly on the bloody South Side. To a local, it’s a world away, a sleepy enclave as menacing as your grandmother’s sewing bag. The threat of crime never crossed my mind, until I got home and read an email from a concerned reader in Norway that ended, “hopefully u n ur family r safe.”
     In Northbrook? Safe as can be. Not everyone is so lucky. The media hasn’t been indifferent — the Sun-Times certainly splashes the story over the front page with sickening regularity. But if people aren’t actually being killed en masse the night before, the sense of urgency falls away. A 15-year-old kid shot a cop Wednesday night and the cop shot him back. And that was a mild night, relatively.
     Part of it has to be racial. If those were white people dying the media would be far more worked up. One 23-year-old athlete from Wheaton killed in St. Louis got more attention than a dozen 23-year-olds killed on the South Side receive. Part has to be the problem is so entrenched. What can be done? Putting cops on the street can thwart it for a while, but the underlying issues remain, ticking. Cops can’t be on every corner 24 hours a day. Crime is both the symptom and cause of every other social problem — no jobs, poor education, bad parenting, drugs. We’ve tried to address them before and failed, and now the poster boy for ignoring social issues, Mitt Romney, might just end up president.
     If blood on our streets doesn’t bother us, maybe blood on our reputation will.
     “Called the deadliest ‘alpha world city’ — with that title comparing it to global cities like New York, London, Los Angeles or Tokyo — Chicago has seen 19.4 murders per 100,000,” London’s Daily Mail reported.
     Why do I suspect that some people will read “deadliest world city” and come away thinking, “Hey, Chicago’s a world city! Cool.”

     —Originally published in the Sun-Times, August 31, 2012

"Stop! This is the empire of death."