In the past I have compared Chicago and Greensboro. Both are notorious for their machine politics. Both are centers for identity politics. And both have serious crime problems. In these respects, Greensboro is like Chicago in microcosm.
In the most recent issue of City Journal, Heather MacDonald has an excellent article on the awful crime situation in the city of Chicago, particularly on its South Side. She notes that this is the territory where Barack Obama used to be a community organizer; and that his work had virtually no impact in alleviating the crime situation in that part of the city.
It is her point that unmarried pregnancy and fatherlessness have much to do with the crime situation on Chicago's South Side. Community organizing does nothing to address or remedy these dynamics. In fact, it can be argued that the political philosophy that inspires community organizing tends to further these problems.
There are some fascinating parallels between the politics in Chicago and Greensboro. MacDonald points out that blacks attained high levels of political power in Chicago, but it did not stop the spread of crime. That has been true in Greensboro also. I found it interesting that Jesse Jackson is in town for the opening of the museum, and decries the fact that we now have a white mayor. Jackson, of course, is based in Chicago, and is part of the power structure there; but he likely will not speak much about Chicago crime while he is here.
MacDonald also points out that the political philosophy of Alinskyism in Chicago assumes that problems in poor communities come from the outside, and that collectivism is the solution. We hear a lot of this type of rhetoric in Greensboro also. There is a tendency to refrain from confronting the self-defeating behaviors in these communities. In Greensboro, as in Chicago, we particularly fail to confront the issue of fatherlessness.
In Chicago, there have been major issues with school violence and gangs. But just as in Greensboro, the reaction has been to criticize school discipline; and to make things difficult for police and for those charged with the task of maintaining safety. In Greensboro, we are in the midst of a debate about SRO's and tasers in our schools spurred by minority members of the county school board.
In Chicago, as in Greensboro, there has been an effort to understate the true racial demographics of crime and youth violence. There has been a tendency to confront these issues by providing more social services, and by taking a "social sciences" approach.
MacDonald says that Chicago's police culture is not terribly assertive. Check this out:
“We’d marvel at how the NYPD was getting mayoral support” during New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s tenure, says a former Chicago deputy superintendent. “Mayor Daley is not a cop supporter; it’s no secret that he rules the police department with an iron fist.” The South Side’s black ministers, whom Daley does not want to alienate, also act as a check on more proactive policing. There have been few calls in Chicago for a more aggressive stop-and-frisk policy to get illegal guns off the street, and the police department hasn’t pushed to implement one.
Is that not interesting? In Greensboro, as in Chicago, police take a passive approach, and have been held in check by the area's politically active black ministers and by certain leaders within our city.
MacDonald says that in Chicago, there is a tendency among the left to refrain from holding families responsible for their children; but instead there are the usual attempts to place the blame on external factors. Of course, this has been the case in Greensboro as well.
Our politics has been at the root of the problems with the Greensboro Police Department. The problem is that our political environment has been far too similar to that which exists in the city of Chicago. That partially explains the extraordinary enthusiasm we saw for Barack Obama during 2008 among local residents and particularly among key segments of our political leadership.
When you view the world through this particular lens, you will not see the police as a force for good, as a vehicle for reducing crime and establishing order. Instead, you will see them as the enemy, and you will tend to look to other types of solutions to raise the aspirations of people engaging in self-defeating behaviors.
I would hesitate to label the new city council as conservative-- although it is far more conservative than what we have had in the past. But one of the main charges they face is to reduce crime; and their challenge is to achieve this when city revenues are decreasing. Part of this task will involve adopting a better, more proactive approach to fighting crime with the new police chief and the new command staff to be selected. But part of the council's charge is to clean up the department internally. Frankly, I am very concerned that they are going to blow it.
Until this date, the new City Council has been preoccupied with dealing with the mess left over from the previous city council including the aquatic center and the downtown hotel. But they need to move on with key agenda items. Crime and the police department should be high on that list.
When council members earnestly try to tackle these issues, they need to remember that they will be opposed by folks espousing a worldview that is entirely consistent with that which Heather MacDonald describes as prevailing in the city of Chicago. It is the same worldview associated with the "community organizing" that Obama espoused. It is the same worldview that exists among members of the Simkins PAC and the Pulpit Forum members here in Greensboro-- and among those that further their political interests.
Fixing the crime problem and the internal issues within the GPD will be quite a challenge, because there are a lot of wrongheaded, self-interested people out there in our city who wield considerable influence.
Joe, the common sense members of the council do indeed face a daunting task in healing the festering wounds within the PD inflicted by Mitch Johnson and his pals who still seem to be unable to swallow the election results and are obviously intent on undermining him. This should be hardball the Chicago way or at least a civil version of it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g0RLyxP13o
Posted by: Fred Gregory | February 01, 2010 at 01:54 AM
Fred, I agree. This is worth fighting for; and I hope the conservative members of city council will insist on legitimate criteria being used to select a new police chief; a proactive approach to fighting crime; and a determination to clean up the department.
You are right they will face obstacles. And based on the hotel mess, they will likely also face threats and intimidation and demagoguery.
I hope their knees will not buckle, and that they air out all the issues thoroughly.
Posted by: Joe Guarino | February 01, 2010 at 08:32 AM