It pains me to write this. As a person born and raised in Chicago, I know the devastation that is plastered all over cable news isn’t something that just happened. It has been this way for decades and has become progressively worse.
Let me take you on a journey through my lens. I am an African-American Republican man, who was born in Chicago in 1986, and I perceive two notable things in my city: not many fathers at home and a lot of mothers addicted to crack cocaine and/or heroin. My mother was addicted to both.
My blessing was that, although my parents were not married, my father remained a part of my life and picked me up every weekend to spend time with him and his parents. This is where I learned how small businesses operate and how to earn an income legally. I was very young when my mother checked herself into rehab to beat her addictions. She gave temporary custody rights to her mother while she recovered. My grandmother took on her five grandchildren while also working as a private duty nurse. But a car accident changed her life. She was forced to survive on disability and welfare while struggling to make ends meet and raise children she did not birth.
The fight I faced living in a crime-ridden community where violence was the norm, not the exception, wasn’t rare for many African-Americans living in Chicago. In fact, if you didn’t live in those conditions you were one of the very few, or perhaps what we would call the “elite.” The reality for many Chicagoans, especially African-Americas is gangs, failing schools, crime, shootings, daily violence, high unemployment, few opportunities, and a high rate of hopelessness.
Does this narrative sound familiar? If not, this is what Donald Trump has been saying since he decided to run for President.
Many in the African-American community were upset that Donald Trump painted the African-American community in such a dark picture. I do agree that he painted the overall African-American community with a broad brush by saying, “You take a look at the inner cities, you get no education, you get no jobs, you get shot walking down the street. They’re worse — I mean, honestly, places like Afghanistan are safer than some of our inner cities,” he continued. “And I think it’s resonating.”
His comments came despite the fact that African-Americans in the US have faced dramatically worse circumstances throughout history — from slavery to Jim Crow laws. This kind of rhetoric is dangerous and stoked long-standing fears within the African-American community. These are a strong reminder of Jim Crow and years of oppression many African-Americans still feel through institutional racism and other tools of oppression.
However, Donald Trump’s commentary is spot on when it comes to my hometown of Chicago.
In Chicago, you can literally be shot watering your grass. Just like the shooting of Federico LaGuardia, age 71, while he was outside his home in the 7000th block of South California Avenue just after noon on September 6, 2015. LaGuardia was shot in the abdomen and robbed. If you are not safe watering your grass what are you allowed to do in Chicago in peace?
On January 24, 2017, President Trump tweeted “If Chicago doesn’t fix the horrible ‘carnage’ going on, 228 shootings in 2017 with 42 killings (up 24% from 2016), I will send in the Feds!”.
Recently on Fox and Friends, I debated the issue with Democratic Strategist Richard Fowler. Fowler said he believed that Trump sending in the federal government would be an overreach and that putting tanks on the streets of Chicago isn’t the answer.
My retort was simple, Trump never said anything about putting tanks in Chicago. However, if he did, Trump would be doing it at the request of a Chicago Democratic State Representative from the West Side of Chicago named LaShawn Ford, who in 2010 along with another Democratic state Representative requested the National Guard’s help in preventing the violence in Chicago. The people of Chicago have been hurting for many years. President Obama ignored the violence and called for help in his own adopted hometown.
We now have a President who wants to do something about the systemic problems facing Chicago and other cities like it. I, for one, would like to see my hometown, which my family still lives, led by a President in the White House willing to send resources which are greatly needed for a city that has been ignored by the federal government.
Clearly, the elected leaders haven’t been able to gain control. I urge all of my fellow Chicagoans to encourage their elected officials and local leaders to work with the President to solve these issues. It could be decades and a lot of lives lost before we get another opportunity to have a willing leader in the White House again.
