Stop focusing on guns, focus on the criminals
If Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot would stop trying to be the icon of several “movements” and start acting like a leader who can recognize the real problems, maybe Chicago wouldn’t be making headlines every week with record shootings and a growing list of gun related fatalities.
By Ray Hanania
If Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot would stop trying to be the icon of several “movements” and start acting like a leader who can recognize the real problems, maybe Chicago wouldn’t be making headlines every week with record shootings and a growing list of gun related fatalities.
Lightfoot keeps asserting the problem is guns. I wouldn’t mind that if she acknowledged the rest of the problem. Chicago’s street gang problem and the sympathy many of these gangbangers get from the people in the neighborhoods that they infest.
Chicago saw at least 76 people shot over the 4th of July holiday, and 14 of them died. It has been like that almost every week prior.
Police car, this one from Chicago. Photo courtesy WIkipedia
Lightfoot tweeted in response, “Tonight, a 7-year-old girl on Austin joined a list of teenagers and children whose hopes and dreams were ended by the barrel of a gun.”
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Lightfoot’s lame respoknse to the violence focuses on the politics of the murders, the guns, But the real problem goes deeper.
People living in crime infested neighborhoods are afraid to speak out because they fear being punished. In other words, there isn’t enough of a support system to support identifying, prosecuting and imprisoning the street gang murderers.
Several years ago I helped an African American woman living in the heart of what used to be a great neighborhood when she first moved in, to set up a blog so she could share details of the violence and the drug activity that takes place every night, not just on weekends.
She told me everyone knows who the gangbangers are but fear retaliation if they speak too loudly and identify them. Why? Because no one gives them support to crush the street gangs and dsrug dealers.
Instead, every time a street gang member is killed, they become the icon for a movement, one that Lightfoot champions. They roll out the gangbanger’s high school graduation picture in cap and gown – off course he’s not wearing the backwards baseball cap or a hoody, shorts down below his ass-crack, and a scowl of anger.
The families then hire a lawyer, surround themselves with “activists” who exploit the tragedy for publicity, and then “win the lottery” by filing a lawsuit blaming the Chicago Police for killing their drugged-up, weapon-toting, past curfew violating child-aged thugs.
No child should be outside after curfew, that’s the first rule. Parents can’t hide behind the excuse of broken families or poverty to shrug off their responsibility to know where their kids are at, what they are doing, or making sure the kids are at home on time.
I grew up in a poor family. My immigrant father would have beat my ass if I stayed out late into the evening, used drugs or carried a weapon pretending to be a “tough guy” that I am not.
In fact, my dad ordered us to be home when the street lights turned on at night. And we were home. Doing our homework. Watching TV. Sitting with family.
If you don’t know where your child is at by the time curfew hits, that’s the first problem.
The second problem involves parents who are in denial. Deep down they know their children are in street gangs. They know the gang clothing, colors and lingo. Don’t tell me you don’t have suspicions. Hoping there survive is not good parenting.
The third problem is Cook County’s failing judicial system under State’s Attorney Kim Foxx who does nothing to crack down on crimes. Instead of increasing prosecutions, Foxx is raising the criminal tolerance level claiming the jails are overcrowded.
So now, you can steal up to $1,000 before you have to worry about being arrested or charged. Foxx is prosecuting criminals less, defending the criminals like the lying hoaxster Jussie Smollett, playing into a political base where most of the crime that she doesn’t prosecute takes place.
Former prosecutor and Cook County Judge Pat O’Brien is challenging Foxx in the November elections. The first step in ending the crime is replacing Foxx with someone who will take crime seriously.
Only a loser would blame the violence on guns.
Hanania also writes about Middle East issues for the Arab News, and The Arab Daily News criticizing government policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
A critic of mainstream news media bias, Hanania advocates for peace & justice for Israel & Palestine, & the empowerment of Arabs in America.
Click here to listen to Ray's Political Podcast.
Hanania's columns are archived on his personal website at RayHanania.com. Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.
Hanania is President/CEO of Urban Strategies Group which provides communications services to governments and private businesses, and hosts writing training workshops, and publishes books.
Email Ray Hanania at rghanania@gmail.com.
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