It’s Black History Month, and it has an anthem too many people don’t know

It’s “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” the just-over-a century-old poem set to music that first was intended to be a tribute to the memory of Abraham Lincoln but later became known as the “Negro National Anthem” – then later the black anthem after “negro” fell out of fashion.

The reporter-type person in me often hears the tune sung as part of the program at any type of black-oriented rally I cover, and it is a sweet little tune about people rising above the status in life that some in society would just as soon see them limited to.

BUT IT ALSO is so isolated within our culture. Way too often, non-black people don’t have a clue about the song.

I once recall an editor many years ago that there was “no such song” as the black anthem. He certainly had never heard of it.

Of course, I was equally as clueless. Although I remember as a kid hearing that there was some sort of song considered to be a “black anthem,” the first time I ever heard the song was an instance many years ago at the Cook County Jail.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson was at the jail to give an inspirational talk to the inmates in hopes he could motivate them to get their lives straightened out and make something of themselves.

IT WAS QUITE a sense to be in a gymnasium within the jail and hear inmates singing along to the old gospel-inspired tune, although I don’t know how many of those inmates got the civil rights leader’s message and rehabilitated themselves.

It would be nice to think they did. But we’ll never know.

I most recently heard the tune (or at least a verse of it) this week when the Common Council of Gary, Ind., chose to start off their twice-monthly meeting Wednesday by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance – then singing the anthem.

'Anthem' started as part of Lincoln tribute

Considering that Gary has an overwhelming share of its population (84 percent) as African-American individuals, it shouldn’t be shocking. The ‘black anthem’ certainly wouldn’t be out of place.

ALTHOUGH I ALSO wonder in today’s overly-partisan political times how many people would think it somehow subversive that anybody would think to sing such a tune.

For all I know, the people who go around wearing those chintzy, red “Make America Great Again” caps are probably amongst those who try to deny that a ‘black anthem’ exists and that we’d all be better off forgetting there was ever a need for such a tune.

Particularly when one considers that several of the local government officials chose to wear African-inspired garb as part of a Black History Month tribute, I’m sure the site would have offended the sensibilities of some.

Mostly those whose political leanings are such that the real way to make this nation “Great Again” is to eliminate their very existence.

BUT I’M REALISTIC enough to know that such erasure from our society isn’t going to happen – and that the real advancement for the better is accepting the cultural differences that add a sense of variety to our masses.

Besides, the idea that the poem that inspired the tune was meant to be a part of the program of a Lincoln tribute is something that ought to motivate those of us in the “Land of Lincoln” to take the tune seriously.

It is a pleasant-enough melody that no one ought to be thinking of as an example of political subversion.

That is, unless you’re of the type who seriously venerates the memory of Jefferson Davis. In which case, you really do have some issues to confront about life.

  -30-

EXTRA: Obama will be beloved in Chicago space that rejected Trump

Barack Obama will be in Chicago Sunday, using the UI-Chicago Pavilion to hold a rally by which he tries to spread his beloved status amongst Democratic Party faithful to other candidates running for office in Tuesday’s elections.

This Near West Side-space will host an Obama political rally Sunday … 

I happened to be at the Pavilion Thursday night, and it got me to thinking of how Obama will literally be using the same space that so vehemently rejected the very idea of Donald Trump as president.

REMEMBER BACK TO March 11, 2016? That was the night that then-candidate Trump was in Chicago, and was going to use the Pavilion to try to stir up the masses in favor of his candidacy.

But thousands of people jammed the streets around the Pavilion, along with the hundreds of Trump critics who managed to get inside for the rally itself. Trump wound up having to cancel the event, rather than face a critical crowd that could easily have become a mob!

I’m sure those who approve of this Age of Trump in which we now live view the Pavilion as some sort of horrid place. How dare they be critical of The Donald! The fact that Obama will now be able to come in and get cheers and applause will be the ultimate repudiation of Trump-ism by us Chicagoans.

As to whether all that applause will translate into votes come Tuesday remains to be seen. Because it’s not unheard of that people who were compelled to show up for a rally on Sunday could easily find themselves too lazy to turn out to the polling place on Election Day.

THE SAME COULD be said for the rally to be held earlier Sunday in Gary, Ind., where I understand the tickets that allow people inside the Genesis Convention Center for the political event were snapped up quickly on Thursday and people are being told to stay away from downtown Gary unless they actually have a ticket to the event.

… as will this one in Gary, Ind.

Anyway, we’re bound to see a pair of public spectacles this weekend in which people will be urged to vote against political officials whose presence would provide aid and comfort to “President Trump.”

With this year’s election cycle serving as a prelude to 2020, when we get the chance to “Dump Trump!” himself from elective office. With Trump allies counting on general apathy from the people so as to allow Trump to have another term in office – should he decide that’s what he wants to do!

Would I be in a better mood if the ballgame had had a better ending? Photos by Gregory Tejeda

All of which were thoughts running through my mind while sitting inside the Pavilion, where my alma mater Illinois Wesleyan Titans managed to start off their basketball season by getting their clock cleaned, so to speak, by the UI-C Flames.

  -30-

Immigration detention center project won’t die; just going further south

It seems the powers that be who want to build a jail-like facility for people awaiting hearings on immigration violations (and possible deportation from the United States) are not about to give up.

Will these types of activists express their objections ...

Their plans to build such a facility somewhere in the Chicago metropolitan area to accommodate immigration violators in the Midwestern U.S. are cropping up again.

ONLY NOW, THEY’VE moved not only across the state line to Indiana, but south to Newton County – a place so far south that I’m sure the locals who live there would seriously resent any claim that they’re part of the Chicago area (Wikipedia says they are).

It’s a fairly isolated place with lots of open space, which means it might be possible to build the desired facility in a place where it would have little interaction with the real world – just like more conventional prison facilities.

Perhaps this is what the project’s backers feel is necessary to get away from the objections that have constantly arisen all the other opportunities that this has come up for discussion.

Personally, I remember back when the powers-that-be wanted to build such a facility just outside of Joliet. When locals objected, talks shifted toward building it just south of Crete (which is roughly the southernmost suburb of Chicago) not far from the now-defunct Balmoral Racecourse.

ALL THE HOSTILITY toward the project caused Crete officials to back away, which caused the project’s supporters to shift over the state line into Indiana and there was some consideration to building it in Gary not far from the Gary/Chicago International Airport.

Concerns about the airport’s flight patterns being a potential security risk for a detention facility, along with the outspoken immigration activists who have followed this project everywhere it has gone, caused Gary municipal officials to give up their support for the idea.

... so far distant from Chicago?

Now, it seems the supporters of a detention center have found a place about 65 miles away from Chicago (about as far south as Kankakee) where they hope there will be a lack of opposition to the idea of locking up people who may only be caught up in the immigration bureaucracy because they got pulled over for a traffic violation – and some eager cop was willing to notify immigration to “take ‘em away.”

As the talks proceed toward whether to build such a facility in Newton County -- a place whose total population (just under 14,000) is less than most suburbs. I’ll be curious to see how many of the activist-types will continue to follow this project.

BECAUSE SOME OF the objectors are people with an interest in our nation’s immigration policy, and they have followed it from municipality to municipality.

From Joliet to Crete to Gary, Ind., will they now show up in Kentland (the county seat) to let their objections be known. Or will they figure they’ve pushed this proposed facility far out enough into the “middle of nowhere” that they can live with its existence “somewhere else.”

I’ve heard the arguments on all sides, with the objectors hating the idea of detaining people while the immigration violations are pending. While supporters either aren’t bothered with their incarceration, or they’ll argue that these facilities aren’t really prisons.

Some may even argue that the current status of these violators would improve if they weren’t held in traditional jail conditions (many are sent to the McHenry County Jail in Woodstock, which has a contract with the federal government to detain such people).

PERSONALLY, I’M MOST concerned with the fact that these detention facilities are run by private companies, rather than by a government entity like the federal Bureau of Prisons. Meaning many of the regulations meant to protect the rights of inmates in the federal system do not apply. This particular facility would be built by GEO Group of Boca Raton, Fla.

I don’t doubt that in this Age of Trump that we’re now in, there are some who aren’t bothered by that thought. But we should be. Our “rights” are only as safe as the most vulnerable in our society.

And it may well be that among the most vulnerable are those people whose immigration status is unclear – particularly since there are those who enjoy being able to harass such individuals to make up for the short-comings in their own lives.

So has this project moved far enough away from Chicago that the locals will be willing to tell its objections to “stuff it!” or will the objectors (a combination of religious folks and Latino activists) continue to push to where it eventually becomes an Indianapolis issue, rather than Chicago?

  -30-

EXTRA: Amazon to Chgo – Forget it?

If it's true, will it be governor or speaker ...

There are many municipalities across the nation, including Chicago and even nearby Gary, Ind., banking their economic futures on being able to sway Amazon.com to build their proposed second corporate headquarters building within their city limits.

The Boston Globe reported that it has learned of ongoing talks to lease 500,000 square feet of offices in a Boston neighborhood that already has many other tech companies located there.

... who takes the blame for Amazon loss?

THE LEASE ALSO would have options to double the amount of space in the future. Which the newspaper points out would be enough space for the early phases of the corporate structure Amazon.com wants to build somewhere to supplement their existing headquarters in Seattle.

Would this make an announcement that Boston will be the site of Amazon.com’s dream campus an inevitable event? Can we forget the talk of an Amazon campus being built somewhere along the north branch of the Chicago River? Or at the site of the one-time Michael Reese Hospital? Or anywhere in northwest Indiana or St. Louis (with gubernatorial help)?

And will we soon be getting overdoses of the cheap political rhetoric about how our state’s unsettling partisanship scared off Amazon from even thinking of Illinois?

Will talk of turning the one-time downtown Post Office become yet another Chicago fantasy that never will be?

Which, of course, leads to the next topic of political debate. Who’s to blame – Gov. Bruce Rauner, or Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan! As if we don’t argue that point enough on so many other issues.

  -30-

A decade later, and Chicago still wonderful; no matter what Trump says

Chicago is a wonderful city – the greatest on the planet, if I may say so myself.

And I say that knowing full well its history of crime, corruption, petty partisan and racial politics and the stench that once emanated from the livestock being slaughtered in the Back of the Yards neighborhood but which now comes from the professional sports teams that dare to represent the image of the Second City.

--An Introduction; December 20, 2007

  -0-

Chicago's unofficial marquee

It has been a full decade since the date upon which this weblog was created as part of an effort by myself to tell of the wonders of this great city on the shores of Lake Michigan – one that I honestly believe will always be amongst the highlights of our society.

No matter what nonsense Donald Trump may spew in hopes of gaining political support for himself from those people not fortunate enough to have ever lived here, Chicago is a place with unique attributes.

HECK, I’D ARGUE that Trump let his money speak most loudly when he built that self-monickered monstrosity of his along the Chicago River shores. He must have seen a way to make money for himself in our presence, just as many others have done throughout the decades when they chose to relocate here.

This really is a place where people from across the Midwest, and other parts of the globe to be honest, come if they want to reach greater heights than they could ever achieve in their native communities.

Would Trump have built here if Chicago really that awful?

And for those of us who are native to this place, we don’t really see the need to go elsewhere. Or, if you’re like myself, we move off to places like Springfield, Ill., or the District of Columbia – only to find ourselves become the obnoxious guy who’s constantly telling everybody there how wonderful Chicago is, and we find a reason to ultimately come back.

Now, I rarely venture any further east than Gary, Ind., where I happen to do some work for a local newspaper and I see a community that in some ways resembles the hellhole that Trump-ites would like to think Chicago is.

Holy Name, where mob hit once occurred

BUT EVEN THERE, I see what I sense is an overflow of the Chicago spirit in terms of community officials who would be justified in just packing it all in and heading off for places elsewhere. Yet they haven’t written off their chances of someday rebuilding into something significant.

Which is the spirit I most admire of Chicago – certain people who are always looking forward and how to advance our lot in society.

I’m sure some will say that anything Chicago has, New York has in greater quantities. That may even be true to a degree. Yet I don’t know of many Chicagoans who’d make the move. Or if they do, they always find ways of keeping in touch with their roots.

I’d hope that this spirit of Chicago has come through during the past 10 years, which I’ll admit I never envisioned would occur when I first started writing this weblog.

IF ANYTHING, I figured it was a way of expressing some random thoughts – almost like what I’d do if I were seeing a psychiatrist. Only instead of paying a “shrink” a fee for doctor’s visits, I’m posting for free and subjecting readers to my ramblings.

It helped that this weblog coincided with the Barack Obama years, which put a Chicago spin on many of the nation’s and world’s events. Even more so than what usually exists just because of Chicago’s position within society.

Old Gary post office as decrepit as some think Chicago is

Now, we are the target of political potshots – many from people who I sense are jealous of Chicago’s significance in ways their home communities can never be.

Now I’m not going to deny the city’s flaws. We have our self-serving politicos and certain neighborhoods that the masses are more than willing to ignore in so many ways – which results in the higher poverty levels and Gary-Ind.crime rates that the Trump-ites would like to think are typical of Chicago as a whole.

BUT THOSE OF us who get into the spirit of Chicago being a collection of some 120 neighborhoods and sub-communities know that each and every one of us has a unique version of Chicago in our minds. It’s almost as though there are 2.7 million different takes on Chicago – and that’s a good thing.

That Bear wishes he could become a Packer

This city allows all of us to maintain our sense of individuality without being gobbled up into a mass. Which is something I often have sensed of other communities – which are all too eager to tell certain people they “don’t belong.”

Of course, there are certain things that do manage to unite us. Take the aforementioned sports teams that represent Chicago.

We somehow find a way to continue to care about the Chicago Bears, who haven’t had a winning season in oh so long. And that line in the team’s fight song about the team being the “Pride and Joy of Illinois?” It seems like a fantasy that it ever was true.

  -30-

What should we think of homicide tally – on the rise, decline or nonsense?

The partisanship of politics is going to be played with the violence tallies for Chicago – regardless of how many people are killed and whether that’s less or more than in the past.

Homicide tallies on decline in Englewood neighborhood this year -- will it last?

We’re going to hear tons of rants from all sides over the fact that some 600 people have been killed in Chicago this year. That total was reached last week, and some are more than eager to say that means Chicago remains as violent a place as ever.

ALTHOUGH I COULDN’T help but notice the official Chicago Police Department spin that was placed on the tally. They pointed out the fact that in the Englewood neighborhood, the number of murders during 2017 was only 45.

Which is far less than the 79 murders that took place in that neighborhood’s police district during the same time period last year – a year in which Chicago had 780 slayings, more than in any year during the 21^st Century.

The point being that the neighborhood often thought of as the most violent in Chicago (unless you want to hang on to old memories of the West Side’s North Lawndale neighborhood being the “American Millstone”) is experiencing a decline in urban violence.

A fact, I’m sure, that the conservative ideologues amongst us who want to believe that Chicago is all that is wrong with our society will not want to believe. They’ll want to emphasize that 600-plus tally. Then again, they’ll only want to believe the worst.

JUST AS I’M sure they’ll want to continue thinking of the city to the east, Gary, Ind., as the “murder capital” of the country – even though a raw reading of the numbers don’t back that up (there are more violent places than the one-time “City of the Century”).

Then again, in this era where the “fake news” label is thrown about, they’ll believe what they want.

The reason I bring up Gary is the fact that their homicide tally thus far in 2017 is also 45. As in Gary being as violent in a technical sense as the Englewood neighborhood.

New downtown Gary mural doesn't erase "murder capital" image. Photo by Gregory Tejeda

Should this mean we should disregard claims that Englewood is getting better because it has the same tally as Gary, Ind.? Could bringing that Whole Foods supermarket into the neighborhood be having a slight impact on making the South Side neighborhood a more livable place for its residents?

OR COULD IT mean that numbers can be used to make just about any claim one wants to do? That without context, no homicide tally really means much of anything!

Keep in mind that I’m not trying to downplay the level of violence we’re experiencing in Chicago. Any one death is a tragedy; it certainly isn’t something to be celebrated.

Yet I can’t help but think that many of the people who get obsessed about keeping track of the death tallies for Chicago are more interested in perpetuating the image of Chicago as an excessively violent place that no self-respecting person would want to live in.

Which in my mind is an attitude that discredits itself, and not just because I often view Chicago as being the Greatest City on Planet Earth. I sense that the people most eager to spew such talk are the ones who have no interest in actually resolving the problem of our violence level.

THEY CERTAINLY WOULD be disappointed if our incidents of violence actually declined. They want to keep the image of a “hellhole” alive, and it won’t really matter what the actual numbers are for the homicide rate.

TRUMP: Should we care what his fans think?

My point being that I’m not going to get obsessed with that “600” total that we surpassed last week – other than to admit it is sad to have so many incidents that resulted in families out there losing loved ones.

Nor am I going to over-exaggerate the significance of that 57 percent drop in slayings within the Englewood neighborhood; unless we can see it turn into a trend that lasts for several years.

The real story will be what occurs in 2018 and 2019 and the coming years in Chicago – a long-range view that I’m sure the ideologues amongst us will find to be “boring!” but is more relevant than any of the nonsense they prefer to spew.

  -30-

What’s going to kill Amazon.com chances? We can’t make up our minds

The more I think about it, the more I’m starting to believe that Amazon.com is likely to pick some place other than Chicago to be the site of the new second headquarters they want to build somewhere in the United States.

Could the Amazon.com logo become a part ...

As much as I think the Seattle-based Amazon types would be total lunkheads if they can’t appreciate how wonderful Chicago would be for their corporate needs, I also think we’ll have no one to blame but ourselves for the eventual failure.

FOR IT SEEMS that our political people who ultimately are going to have to put together some sort of package of incentives to entice Amazon.com types to come here are going to get undone by their own indecisiveness.

For it seems we can’t even agree on where we would want to have such a headquarters built – and the various interests who are each touting individual sites seem to think that “compromise” is defined as “Everybody else ought to shut up and do what we think is right!”

Within Chicago alone, there are supposedly six locations under consideration, and I’ve also heard from assorted interest groups who can easily tout locations that aren’t on the unofficial list of a half-dozen prospective sites.

I know that in my own home part of Chicago (the 10^th Ward, or southeast corner of the city), there are people who are getting all worked up that they think the knuckleheads at City Hall aren’t united by trying to entice Amazon.com with the site of the old U.S. Steel South Works plant along Lake Michigan.

THAT’S THE SITE where many developers have talked about trying to develop upscale neighborhoods taking advantage of the lake’s proximity. Although I suspect many of those city officials trying to put together a Chicago proposal want a location more potentially upscale than something at 79^th Street and the lakefront.

... of Chicago cityscape like Walgreen's?

Their idea of a waterfront site for Amazon.com usually talks about the Chicago River, specifically the north branch. Where there are some architectural drawings in existence that show an artistically-spectacular structure that could be erected for Amazon.com.

Or others talk about turning the Old Post Office building in the South Loop into a headquarters – citing how it is historically significant, would be a nice re-use and also would be within walking distance of other prominent downtown Chicago structures and businesses.

Some even speculate about a suburban site, such as the Oak Brook location where McDonald's used to have its 'Hamburger U' where it trained franchise managers. We can't even get our own thoughts together united behind a proposal. Which makes me wonder if the Amazon.com types will just write us off altogether.

YET IT’S NOT just the city trying to get itself involved in the Amazon.com battle.

Gov. Bruce Rauner admits Illinois will be working with St. Louis officials who are trying to entice Amazon.com to come to their city. Rauner figures that it would benefit the Illinois residents of Madison and St. Clair counties (which are this state’s portion of the St. Louis metropolitan area) if the plant were to be located there.

Could Kankakee or Gary, Ind., ...

Yet that may not be the only Illinois alternate interest.

The Capitol Fax newsletter reported this week that Kankakee County officials are trying to persuade Rauner to include their area in any state proposal to try to get Amazon.com to come to Illinois.

A KANKAKEE-AREA based facility would have proximity to the far south end of the Chicago area, while also being not that far from the University of Illinois campus in Urbana.

Then, there’s also the potential political battle evolving just over the state line in Indiana, where Lake County business officials are trying to put together a proposal to try to entice Amazon.com to locate in the Hoosier state, while Gary, Ind., city officials are putting together their own proposal – one that they advertised earlier this week in the New York Times.

... bring Amazon.com into proximity of Chicago?

Both of those groups are claiming their proximity to Chicago means Amazon.com could get the Chicago-area labor without having to actually locate in Chicago.

That’s a lot of confusion, and there’s always the chance of more groups trying to tout themselves between now and Oct. 25 – the date that Amazon.com supposedly wants to have proposals submitted by. Enough confusion that the Seattle types could easily wind up deciding that the New York Times was right in recommending Denver as the best site.

  -30-

Amazon in Chicago – how can they seriously consider any other HQ site?

I have a biased opinion – I think very highly of my home city of Chicago, and think that if the people who run Amazon.com seriously want the best possible location for the new second headquarters they want to build, it’s only a natural they will come here.

Could the 'smile' be on Chicago faces in future?

As in, if they don’t have the sense to realize how wonderful Chicago is, then who needs them anyway?!?

BUT I REALIZE there are a variety of perspectives, and the Seattle-based people who run Amazon.com likely are going to have a variety of communities offering up all the goodies they can envision to try to attract the facility.

Seriously, Chicago officials are eager to have the plant, because it would be a nationally-renowned business that would bring significant attraction to the city’s public image. In addition to the actual jobs that would be created by the need for such a facility to have employees based there.

Not that any of this means a thing to the person who, because they live in the middle of nowhere, finds it easiest to shop for goods through Amazon.com. They’ll buy their products regardless of where the plant they’re dealing with is located.

Now I don’t know what the chances are that Chicago will wind up getting the facility, even though so-called experts can rattle off a list of a half-dozen potential sites – and activist-types can come up with other locations they think are being overlooked.

INCLUDING THOSE PEOPLE who seriously say that Chicago ought to work with people in Gary, Ind., to make the latter a site for an Amazon.com facility. Gary certainly could use a jolt, since there are times when it seems like the only kind of business that Northwest Indiana city can attract are used-car lots.

Some dream of turning Old Post Office building into Amazon.com HQ

I’m sure there are those who will rattle off a “laundry list” of flaws about Chicago and the state political people that they think will scare off the Seattle boys into considering their own preferred site.

I’m also aware of that analysis the New York Times concocted that cited our political flaws and concluded that Denver, Colo., is the logical place for Amazon.com to locate.

I found it a little intriguing to learn that Gov. Bruce Rauner on Monday admitted he’s working with Missouri officials who’d like to see St. Louis become the actual site of the new facility.

Could 21st Century take include Amazon.com logo?

BECAUSE THERE ARE parts of Illinois that lie right across the Mississippi River from downtown St. Louis. The decrepit city of East St. Louis, Ill., is literally in the shadow of the Gateway Arch – that city’s great landmark and supposedly the entry-way to the western United States.

Meaning that if Amazon.com were to locate there, it would be possible for some Illinois residents to gain jobs. Even though I’m sure that Missouri officials would love to concoct some sort of deal that would treat the river as an impenetrable barrier to prevent any of the economic benefits from flowing eastward.

But I’m also sure if Rauner comes out too strong in favor of a Chicago site (or even hinting at cooperation with Hoosier officials to get a Gary site), those people of rural Illinois who always rant and rage about Chicago taking everything would complain. Maybe even turn on the governor at a time when he’s trying to build up a strong “urban vs. rural” dichotomy to get himself re-elected.

So Rauner has to offer up some way of bringing downstate Illinois into the debate. Even if it’s probably a long-shot, and it would be more likely that Chicago would get serious consideration – that is, unless Amazon.com ultimately decides there’s nothing about the Midwestern U.S. that appeals to them.

WHICH WOULD BE a mistake.

Amazon.com retail in Chicago wouldn't be a new concept for the city

The reality is that Chicago has the potential for significant economic benefit due to its location. Major airports, along with highways and railroad lines that all treat Chicago as the national hub. It’s about as close to a central location as one gets.

And anybody who claims we’re too political in Chicago or Illinois ought to realize the ridiculousness of their argument if they’re also amongst those who are talking up the District of Columbia as a potential site.

Besides, just as there was a time in the 20^th Century when people shopped mail-order through the Sears catalog, it enhanced the city’s image that Sears, Roebuck & Co. was located here. Maybe Amazon.com in Chicago is the perfect 21^st Century continuation of that character.

  -30-

Is it ‘fake news’ the way ideologues bandy about the ‘murder capital’ label?

I couldn’t help but be amused by a recent study released by the Pew Research Center – an analysis of the FBI crime statistics of recent years, particularly noting the murder rates of various cities.
 

Keeping the subways safe. Photos by Gregory Tejeda

It seems that during the past two years, murder rates have been on the rise in cities all across the United States. While I’m not trying to diminish the increases we have seen in Chicago during those two years, perhaps we need to study the concept from the national perspective – instead of taking seriously anything Donald Trump has to say about the city.

WHAT AMUSES ME is the way I’m sure those of us who are ideologically-inclined to think about things will want to discredit this particular study. Because it goes so contrary to the nonsense-talk that the conservative ideologues like to spew these days.

The facts just don’t back up their trash. Which I’m sure means the ideologues will try to claim the study is “fake news.” Something that doesn’t fit their narrative. So rather than correct the narrative, ignore the facts.

For what it’s worth, the study ranked the 30 municipalities in this country with the highest murder rates. As in how many people were killed for every 100,000 people.

For the record, Chicago’s rate is 17.52 murders per 100,000, which ranks the Second City at number 25.

THAT’S JUST AHEAD of Miami, and just behind Philadelphia. Places like Dayton, Ohio, Richmond, Va., and West Palm Beach, Fla., all are more dangerous than Chicago, by this standard.

 

Leaving Chicago takes one to more dangerous places

And when it comes to the Midwestern U.S., there are three cities that make the Top 10 – none of which are Chicago.

There’s Milwaukee (Number 10, at 24.15 murders per 100,000) and Detroit (Number 3, at 43.82 murders per 100,000).

And finally, filling out the top slot, is Number 1, St. Louis, with a rate of 59.29 murders per 100,000.

I’M SURE THE ideologues aren’t going to want to accept this one bit! They’re yelling and screaming and claiming there has to be something wrong with a study that doesn’t put Chicago at the top of the list, and one in which New York (with a homicide rate of about 7 murders per 100,000 doesn't come close to ranking on top.

No longer patrolling the 'murder capital'

These people who claim they live in the “real America” of small communities that are isolated from such violence, but really are isolated from many of the benefits of our society, will talk trash.

Of course, my own days as a police reporter came not only at a time some three decades ago when Chicago was routinely approaching 1,000 murders per year (a number we haven’t come close to yet in recent years), taught me that violence and crime literally can occur anywhere, and amongst just about anybody.

Among the Top 10 cities in the Pew study is Salinas, Calif. (Number 9, at 25.29 murders per 100,000), not a place people would typically associate with violence.

ONE OTHER ASPECT amused me – the fact that two Indiana cities made the Top 30 list; and neither one of them was Gary. Indianapolis, at 17.12 murders per 100,000, is Number 28, while South Bend, at 16.79 murders per 100,000, is Number 29.

TRUMP: Crime talk is cheap

Of course, Gary’s overall population has shrunk below 100,000 residents (estimated by the Census Bureau at 76,424 people in 2016), making it too small to be considered a significant-enough city for the study. Although I’m sure there are those ideologues who are going to rant that Gary must possibly be the Murder Capital. That is, if it hasn’t been overtaken by Chicago.

That is just a fact of some people living in the past, and in some cases a version of the past that never really existed except in their own minds, which is the only place they achieved a place of superiority within our society.

Besides, the reality of our society is that these kinds of studies do have a certain pointless aspect to them – in that they try to create a sense that some places are more safe than others. When in reality, ANY murder occurring anywhere is tragic – and is one too many.

  -30-

EXTRA: United States of America presence and ideals for which it stands?

GARY, Ind. -- It’s kind of depressing, if you think about it.

What it once was

But I spent a chunk of my day Saturday in downtown Gary, Ind., participating in a city tour of the area and the many structures remaining that have significant local history behind them -- but in many cases have become decayed and remain in ruins.

What it is today

WHILE IN ROME the millenniums-old Coliseum sports arena’s ruins are regarded as culturally significant, we can’t quite say the same for the structures that remain at the far southeastern corner of the metropolitan Chicago area. Although maybe we should?

I got to see the City Methodist Church whose ceiling long-ago collapsed and now has trees growing inside. There was the one-time Union Station that long-ago quit servicing passenger trains to New York City.

But the ruins that most caught my attention were the ones at 6^th Avenue and Massachusetts Street just off the main strip along Broadway. Those were the ones of the building that for nearly five decades served as the U.S. Post Office for Gary and the surrounding northwest Indiana area.

Inside the Post Office

For like many post offices in smaller cities, the building also doubled as the offices of the U.S. government. Any federal agencies that felt the need to have a physical presence would have their office space on the upper floors, while the first floor was devoted to the delivery of the U.S. mail.

WHICH IS HOW it really breaks down for units of government, which may talk about high-minded ideals but usually have a specific function that most completes their use to the taxpaying public.

Watch your step!

For the state government, that’s the motor vehicles bureau within the Illinois secretary of state’s office. They issue us our driver’s licenses, identification cards and the license plates that we put on our automobiles.

For the feds, it’s the Post Office.

Suggestions for structure's future?

It really is a Federal Offense to tamper with the delivery of the mail, because we’re supposed to be able to count on reliable mail delivery – even though in today’s day and age there are those people who don’t have a problem with paying a larger fee to have their packages delivered by UPS or Federal Express.

YET THE CLASSIC old building in Gary is in ruins. The roof leaks, the upper floor is a wreck, the floor that separates it from the lower floor barely exists and the first floor where generations of people dropped off and picked up their mail is filthy and graffiti-ridden.

It almost looks like some post-apocalyptic vision of the collapse of our society, and these being the remains of the ideal once known as the United States of America.

Kept head safe and sound

The Gary Redevelopment Commission, as part of its preservation tour and with advice from the Chicago Architectural Foundation, actually allowed people to enter the Post Office that has been closed since 1970 – which is how I managed to get these images of the rubble.

Yes, I had to wear a “hard hat” to protect my head from the potential of falling debris (then also sign a waiver promising not to sue Gary, Ind., in the event I got injured).

NOTHING WOUND UP falling, but I did slip on the steps that are so chipped away as to barely be existent. Although if I had been hit in the head, I wonder if the results would have been similar to those of the famed baseball pitcher Dizzy Dean, who upon being hit in the head by a ball during a game supposedly produced headlines along the line of X-rays of Dean’s head reveal nothing.

It also amuses me to see how the Post Office managed to replace its classic structure with something so incredibly blah, and so much like the generic Post Office structures that exist in so many communities across the United States.

An architectural snoozer compared to its predecessor

Is this truly the image we want to give of our nation? Is this what we truly think of ourselves?

How “blah” can we get?!?

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