They’re Both Right and Wrong

This story begins with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, with his characteristic tact, blaming the homicides on the South and West Sides of Chicago on “lack of morals”. As reported by the Chicago Tribune this has prompted a heated response from Illinois state senator Kwame Raoul, presently contending for the job of the state’s attorney general:

Democratic attorney general candidate Kwame Raoul on Thursday criticized Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s focus on a lack of morals in African-American communities struggling with gun violence, calling that approach “outright wrong.”

During an appearance at the Illinois State Fair, the Democratic state senator from the South Side also disagreed with Emanuel’s opposition to a proposal that would require Chicago police officers to document every instance in which they point a gun at someone.

The criticism represents a prominent establishment African-American distancing himself from some of the mayor’s positions on policing and gun violence at a time when he and African-American opponent, Republican Erika Harold, are courting black voters across the state. Raoul’s comments also come at a time when Emanuel is working to rebuild his once-solid support among black voters, which has waned following the Laquan McDonald police shooting controversy.

Emanuel has called for more attention to be paid to the lack of morals behind gangs and continued gun violence on the city’s South and West sides, saying it often makes it difficult to apprehend shooters.

During Democrat Day at the Illinois State Fair, Raoul was asked if the mayor’s remarks amounted to the mayor “talking down to black people.”

“I think for the mayor to make a generalization about a community is more than just misspoken, it’s outright wrong,” said Raoul, who holds former President Barack Obama’s old state Senate seat and has received his endorsement in the attorney general race.

“We have communities that have not been invested in. We have communities where mental health services have been depleted. We have communities that have suffered as a result of the budget impasse in Springfield. All of these combined, along with the closing of schools, what does one expect?” Raoul said. “What does one expect to evolve from these communities if you don’t invest in these communities and you don’t invest in the children within those communities?”

I think that both of them are right and both of them are wrong. It can hardly be denied that the communities on the South and West Sides of Chicago where nearly all of the homicides are taking place have experienced the closing of mental health facilities and had schools consolidate, a consequence of declining enrollment and, too, the mayor’s apparently conscious strategy of devoting an increased amount of the city’s resources to encouraging gentrification.

But Mayor Emanuel has a point, too. The homicides are the work of gangs. The gangs aren’t amateur theatrical societies. They’re criminal groups engaged in illegal and immoral activities. Why do the gangs hold such sway? At the very least a partial factor is the decline of the family in the black community.

In 1940 14% of black children were born to single mothers. By 1960 that had risen to 25%. Now it’s over 75%. Call that immoral or call that a life choice but it’s a dysfunctional one. It is not working for black folk and the death tolls in the Austin and Englewood neighborhoods are grim testimony to its consequences.

I have a question for Mr. Raoul. Citywide the on time high school graduation rate is 75%. In the neighborhoods most affected by violence, it’s closer to 60%. How will more empty seats in schools—because that’s what he’s talking about—change that? What services will help people who won’t avail themselves of them?

Another factor, unmentioned by either Mr. Emanuel or Mr. Raoul is the lack of jobs. Our economy is creating too few entry level jobs or jobs requiring only a high school education for the number of people seeking entry level jobs or those requiring only a high school education through a combination of trade and immigration policies and the vast subsidies being given to jobs that require greater skills.

We need a change to the ways in which our policies are structured. Environmental and workplace regulations are good but when instead of mining and processing coal or rare earth metals here we import them from places that have looser environmental regulations than we do, we aren’t improving things. We’re just putting the abuses delicately out of sight.

The population that we already have and the distribution of ability within that population tells us that we need more jobs for people with entry level skills or high school-only educations not fewer, even at the expense of jobs that require PhDs. Failing to address that problem will result in the homicide rates rising in cities other than Chicago, Baltimore, and St. Louis.