The People's Record

On May 17, 18 & 19 hundreds of people including parents, students and teachers have taken to the streets in Chicago, US, to protest against local education authority’s plan to close public schools
May 19, 2013

The protest, organized by the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), started on Saturday and is set to last until Monday evening.  This comes after the Chicago Central District released a list of 54 elementary and middle schools to be closed before the next school year. The Chicago Board of Education is planning to vote on the closures in the coming days. 

City officials say the closures are needed in order to deal with a one-billion-dollar annual deficit. In March, thousands of activists, union leaders, teachers, parents, and students participated in a similar protest in the city.

The closures involve the highest number of schools to be closed down in a single year in any city in the United States. The plan will shift about 50,000 students to different schools, while threatening the careers of more than 1,000 teachers.  Over the past decade, at least 70 cities in the US have closed down public schools. 

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Capitalism’s austerity is diminishing our education infrastructure. I desperately hope to see an escalation of education activism in this country – from unsustainable student loan debt to busted teachers’ unions to mass school closures & the school-to-prison-pipeline. We need a movement to demand massive, drastic, radical reform to the way we address education in this country. I think it’s obvious that people’s frustration is growing. 

Fast food strike wave spreads to Detroit, St. Louis
May 10, 2013

St. Louis, and last month’s in New York and Chicago, today’s work stoppage is backed by a local coalition including the Service Employees International Union, and the participants are demanding a raise to $15 an hour and the chance to form a union without intimidation.

Organizers say that over a hundred workers joined the St. Louis strike between Wednesday and Thursday. That included a group of Jimmy John’s workers who alleged that management humiliated them by requiring them to hold up signs in public with messages including “I made 3 wrong sandwiches today” and “I was more than 13 seconds in the drive thru.”

“Sometimes I walk for more than an hour just to save my train fare so I can spend it on Ramen noodles,” St. Louis Chipotle worker Patrick Leeper said in an e-mailed statement Thursday. “I can’t even think about groceries.”

A spokesperson for Jimmy John’s declined to comment on Thursday’s strike; McDonald’s and Wendy’s did not respond to inquiries last night.

As I’ve written elsewhere, the fate of the fast food strike wave carries far-reaching implications: Fast food jobs are a growing portion of our economy, and fast food-like conditions are proliferating in other sectors as well. Organizers say the fast food industry now employs twice as many Detroit-area workers as the city’s iconic auto industry. These strikes also come at a moment of existential crisis for the labor movement, a sobering reality that was brought into sharp relief in December when Michigan, arguably the birthplace of modern US private sector unionism, became the country’s latest “Right to Work” state.

Along with a shared significant supporter—SEIU—the campaigns in New York, Chicago, St. Louis and Detroit have apparent strategies in common. Rather than waiting until they’ve built support from a majority of a store’s or company’s workers, they stage actions by a minority of the workforce designed to inspire their co-workers. Rather than publicly identifying the campaign and its organizers with a single international union, these union-funded efforts turn to allied community groups to spearhead organizing. Rather than training all their resources on a single company, they organize against all of the industry’s players at once. And—faced with legal and economic assaults that have weakened the strike weapon—these campaigns mount one-day work stoppages that are carefully tailored to maximize attention and minimize, but not eliminate, the risk that workers will lose their jobs.

Whether these strategies can ever compel a fast food giant to negotiate with its employees remains to be seen.

“After what I would consider well over three decades of wage suppression, workers in this particular industry—and then I think it’ll go to others—are realizing that their only way up the wage ladder is through their own organizations,” CUNY labor studies lecturer Ed Ott said Wednesday. Ott, a board member of the community organizing group that spearheaded the New York fast food strike, added, “The only way these workers are going to be able to advance these jobs is through unionization. And I think that idea has finally gotten traction.”

Update (9:15 AM Friday): According to the campaign, a walkout by twenty workers at Detroit’s 10400 Gratiot Avenue McDonald’s prevented the store from operating. Some workers brought in as strikebreakers to replace those striking workers chose to join the strike instead.

Organizers say that by day’s end, today’s strike could be the largest fast food work stoppage yet, topping last month’s 400-strong strike in New York.

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the-lone-pamphleteer:

Meet Network News Service, the ABC-, CBS-, and Fox- owned cooperative that brings you the same canned local news, no matter where you live or what network you’re watching
May 1, 2013

If you’ve ever seen the video above, or this one or this one, you’ve probably wondered just how it happens that local news stations on different networks around the country report the same stories… in exactly the same ways.

Wonder no more, because the lone pamphleteer did some digging and and came up with some pretty interesting dirt on the Network News Service (NNS), a “pioneering” organization formed in 2000 by ABC News One (owned by Disney), CBS Newspath, and Fox News Edge with the goal of cutting costs for all three networks by pooling resources and sharing footage. Over 500 affiliates of the three networks were members as of 2005, meaning they receive the prepackaged footage, soundbites, and scripted leads to which the local stations could add their own original spin.

To get around the appearance of colluding (and presumably to avoid criminal liability for anti-competitive behavior) NNS doesn’t allow the same footage to flow to two competing affiliates in the same city, although affiliates of each network could play the same footage at the same time as long as they are all in different cities.

Much of this information comes from a very revealing CBS blog post about NNS from 2005, which relates the obvious reasons for why all three networks would want to enter into this deal. They only have to set up one camera at events, for one, and they all tend to voluntarily share with each other “because of the cooperative nature of NNS”— “they know they must participate in order to reap the organization’s benefits.” And, of course, it gives the three networks a competitive edge over NBC and CNN.

Three of the largest American media conglomerates cooperating in the production and distribution of news sounds like a great business plan to me, but doesn’t that violate Federal Communications Commission rules about competition and monopoly? It probably would have before the FCC deregulated the telecommunications industry, first under Reagan, and then further under Clinton following the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

Now, as this chart demonstrates, a handful of massive corporations owns and controls most of our media, from initial production to final distribution— and with little regulatory oversight. And, lest you think we might start correcting this dangerous course soon, this just in: Obama’s new pick for FCC chairman has been a top lobbyist for the cable industry since 1979 (and more recently for wireless companies), probably championing a lot of the policies that led to such drastic consolidation.

In an even more dystopic twist on its business model, NNS began employing what appears to be robots in 2008 (or earlier). Generation Technologies Corporation (GTC) provides NNS with its “next generation network newsroom and affiliate content management system. The system known as NIM™ is based on GTC’s Newsroom Information Model.”

[GTC’s products] include software and hardware for all aspects of managing a network television newsroom from the assignment desk to the contribution and distribution of video clips and news wires. GTC provides industry tested bundled solutions using a standards-based, open-architecture framework.

If you can figure out what that means, let me know.

Unsurprisingly, in 2010, TV Newser (slogan: “And Now the News… About TV News”) reported that NNS was laying off a number of (living) employees as part of a series of “’sensible adjustments that reflect the partners’ needs as NNS evolves,’ and that new IP transmission technology changed the needs of the organization.” I think that means computers took over the production and distribution of the news, but I could be wrong. According to another press release,

Generation Technologies will use a combination of NIM ‘n-tier’ newsroom technology, Microsoft’s NT and Microsoft’s SQL replication technologies and will provide the main Fox News Edge, CBS Newspath and ABC NewsOne affiliate newsrooms with full metadata replication. Generation Technologies will be interfacing to NNS’s high end Montage video servers.

Again, let me know.

I’m not quite sure what to make of my new found knowledge about Network News Service or the murky underworld of corporate news manufacturing that it reveals, but it certainly deepens my distrust and skepticism of the mainstream media. Meanwhile, it looks like the Koch Brothers are about to buy up the Tribune Company, which would include The Chicago Tribune, The L.A. Times, and The Baltimore Sun. I bet that’s one headline that won’t be syndicated ad nauseum on the news tonight.

-The Lone Pamphleteer

This is so terrible. But thank you, the-lone-pamphleteer, for your hard work on putting this together & posting this.

Chicago is having a busy, revolutionary day today. From worker walkouts due to the terrible working conditions in the service-industry sector to this:

HAPPENING NOW! Hundeds of Chicago Public School students walk-out of testing day in protest of over-testing and the impending mass school closures to happen the beginning of next school year.

SOLIDARITY!

Source

Three killed, 13 injured in weekend gun violence in Chicago
April 22, 2013

Three people have been killed and at least 13 others wounded in gun violence throughout the city since Friday afternoon.

Donald Holman, 37, was shot three times in the legs about 7:45 p.m. Friday in the 1100 block of North Menard Avenue, authorities said.

He was taken to Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, where he later died.

Lucas Zimmerman, 34, was found unresponsive with multiple gunshot wounds in a convenience store parking lot in the 3900 block of North Kimball Avenue shortly after midnight Saturday.

Witnesses told police Zimmerman was shot in an alley in the 3300 block of West Irving Park Road before stumbling to the parking lot, police News Affairs Officer Hector Alfaro said. He was shot in the arm and face, Alfaro added. Zimmerman was pronounced dead at the scene.

A male was shot to death in the 1700 block of West 44th Street about 4:49 a.m. Monday in the Back of the Yards neighborhood, police said.

He was taken to John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County in critical condition, but died shortly thereafter, police said. The Cook County Medical Examiner’s office confirmed the death, though the male’s identity was withheld until his family could be notified.

At least 13 other people were wounded in gun violence throughout the city this weekend.

The most recent non-fatal shooting happened about 6:12 p.m. Sunday, when two men were shot in the Calumet Heights neighborhood. Both men were shot multiple times in the 9000 block of South Kingston Avenue, police said. They were both taken in “stable” condition to Advocate Trinity Hospital.

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Most often the gun violence in Chicago disproportionately affects young people of color. Here is some background on the violence in Chicago:

Since 2008, more than 530 young people have been killed in Chicago, making it the youth murder capital of the country. The vast majority of these deaths—almost 80 percent—have happened in 22 Black and Brown majority neighborhoods. In 2010,nearly 700 Chicago school children were shot, and 66 of them died. Last year, 24 school children were killed and another 319 were injured by gunfire.

“It’s never stated, but clearly understood: If 530 white children had been killed in a five-year period in any city in the U.S., it would be considered a national emergency. When white children die, it prompts press conferences, soul-searching and demands for change. When Black children die, it is dismissed as “Black on Black” crime and met with calls for more police or finger-pointing at Black parents.” - Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

In April, education movements are gaining full steam
April 20, 2013

Fighting against austerity measures and racist educational policies, the political pushback led by students and teachers has reached new levels of resistance this April. Global student movements are in full bloom, from Indiana University to the streets of Santiago, Chile, where students are exerting their power against the barriers that stand between them and their future.

Thousands flood Chile for free education

As many as 100,000 protesters filled Santiago, Chile last week demanding fair and free education for all, in what was the first nationwide protest of the year. Police officers responded with water cannons and tear gas as they detained more than 100 protesters.

Under-funded schools have forced poor and working class students into shanty schools after massive privatization efforts. Students who are fortunate enough to attend private universities are fighting against tuition hikes and the poor quality of education they receive. Chile’s education system is known to be one of the best in Latin America, but it is also among the most expensive, making it available to only a select percentage of students.

“Education should be equal for everyone, it should be free — we all have the same rights,” said Valentina Ibañez, a first-year student at Universidad Alberto Hurtado. The two-year struggle for education reform has gained momentum in recent weeks with revitalized protests and even larger turnouts than previous years.

Indiana students and teachers go on strike

Students at Indiana University launched a university-wide strike on April 11. Their demands include eliminating fees, reducing tuition, ending privatization and prioritizing raising enrollment of black students to at least 8 percent. The collective strike began at the Board of Trustees meeting where students presented their demands. The protest has also recently extended into an energy strike as students rally against the university’s dependence on natural gas and fossil fuels.

Students are currently holding weekly assemblies to gather more support and participants, as well as to create an open forum for ideas to further the student movement. Other students from Wisconsin to Michigan have hung banners in solidarity with the Indiana University strike.

Campaign to save ethnic studies takes off in Texas

A resistance movement to preserve Latino and African American studies in Texas is growing in opposition to the legislation SB1128 and twin bill 1938, proposed by State Representative Giovanni Capriglione and Senator Dan Patrick.

The bill is in response to a study on two Texas universities, Texas A&M University and University of Texas at Austin, done by the National Association of Scholars, which concluded “all too often the course readings gave strong emphasis to race, class or gender.” The bill would prevent credits from ethnic studies classes from transferring to other universities and from counting toward advanced credits.

State-wide actions are already planned for the week of April 26, from El Paso, San Antonio, Austin, Houston and the Rio Grande Valley. Librotraficantes, a group of activists that emerged with the ethnic studies ban in Arizona to smuggle Latino history and literature books back into the state, has also planned to travel to Austin to protest the bill.

Mexican educators rally for free public education

Mexican teachers marched throughout Guerrero and Oaxaca on April 4 to oppose educational reforms by President Enrique Pena Nieto. Educators say the new provisions leave no guarantees for free public education and that privatization will soon threaten availability of schools in many areas.

The National Union of Education Workers in Oaxaca blocked entrances to shopping malls as tens of thousands of protesters declared that the reforms were a privatization attack on education, as control over the school system was shifted from teachers’ unions to the federal government. Teachers are currently planning to occupy several public spaces and universities to continue the protest.

The movement is also in an effort to expand higher educational opportunities to students in a country where only 13 percent of students earn a degree and only 2 percent earn their Master’s degree.

Chicago Teachers Union declare political fight against school closures

Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis vowed to begin a “comprehensive and aggressive political action campaign” to defeat Mayor Rahm Emanuel and other city officials who are leading the way to 54 school closures.

One initiative the union will begin working on involves getting more than 100,000 new voters to the polls before the May 22 vote. Union members will go door to door in areas most affected by the school closures, in an attempt to oust officials who are supportive of the plan.

The closure initiative will shut down schools in predominantly black and Latino neighborhoods and most likely overcrowd existing schools where students will transfer. Parents and educators are also worried that if students are forced to travel longer distances to schools in unknown neighborhoods, violence and crime rates could rise.

- Graciela

I just love these photos, too: “Another Chile is possible”, awesome IU strike banners, Librotraficantes (book smugglers) in Austin, masked educators in Chilpancingo, Mexico, & Karen Lewis at a rally for schools last year.

Taking a cue from IU striking students:

Raise hell, not tuition!

Close corporate tax loopholes, not public schools
April 2, 2013

Chicago public schools are facing a $1 billion deficit. The corporate media would like you to believe it’s due to excessive spending and that Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s proposal to close more than 50 schools, most of them in low-income neighborhoods (mostly black & Latino), is the only solution. But the state of Illinois loses $4.8 billion annually in federal tax dollars due to corporate tax loopholes that shift profits overseas. It doesn’t take a math genius to see that simply closing these excessive loopholes would save the schools that so many kids in Chicago depend upon for their education.

These corporate tax loopholes cost us over $100 billion a year in federal tax dollars, which results in state and local budget cuts and tax hikes due to a decreased allocation of federal funds. The corporations most known for complex offshore tax avoidance schemes get these loopholes by spending millions on hiring armies of lobbyists and in campaign donations to chairmen and ranking members of tax-writing committees in Congress.

The lobbyists submit draft paragraphs of new gimmicks and loopholes to those committees. The campaign donations continue to flow toward reelection campaigns with the understanding that those who are making the donations get what they want out of their sponsored politicians. Thanks to this corrupt process, the tax code grows longer and more complex year after year, the most recent version topping out at roughly 72,000 pages.

There is already legislation on the books in both the House and Senate to close most of these loopholes and rein in roughly $60 billion a year. A small sales tax on Wall Street transactions would raise roughly $150 billion a year, more than enough to offset the cuts that are closing 50 schools. These aren’t radical solutions; they’re based on the simple premise that if you hire Americans, sell to Americans, use American public services and infrastructure and make the bulk of your profits in America, you should pay the American corporate tax rate of 35 percent.

Ever since Brown vs. Board of Education, there has been a coordinated right-wing attack on free education. The latest plot is an attempt to close public schools and turn them into low-performing, for-profit charter schools funded by Wall Street bankers and hedge fund managers. The attempts to do this are disguised as “reform,” but are really little more than an effort to bust teachers’ unions and cede public education over to the authority of big corporations.

Public schools to educate our children aren’t a burden to the state, they’re an investment. If you want more kids to grow up into responsible, successful adults who contribute to our society, and if you want lower crime rates and prison populations, investing in good public education makes sense. We need our kids to help row the canoe down the river, not throw them out while ignoring the gaping hole in the boat. It’s time to stop making our kids pay for their crisis.

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Read the statement from the Chicago Students Organizing to Save Our Schools to Rahm Emanuel here.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel,

We are the Chicago Students Organizing to Save Our Schools. We are a student-led organization fighting to save our schools.

You have not done enough to help our schools!

We represent the thousands of students in Chicago Public Schools thatwill be directly affected by school closings.

These closings will force us to cross gang lines that will result in more violence and more children dying. This is unacceptable. Almost every school that will be closed is in a Black, Latino and low-income community; this is a racist decision. This is unacceptable! And we, the students, have had enough!

We demand:

1) An immediate moratorium on all school closings;

2) A better way to use the TIF funds and to actually be used for our schools;

3) And an elected school board

We expect to hear back from you soon. If not, you should expect that we will be back! This is our first action but will not be our last. This is our school, and we are taking it back!

Sincerely,
Chicago Students Organizing to Save Our Schools

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54 Chicago schools are slated to close. 90 percent of students at closing schools are black, even though they make up only 40 percent of Chicago students. 

Chicago students march on City Hall, call school closings racist & dangerous
March 26, 2013

Calling school closings “racist” and saying they could lead to “children dying,” dozens of students held a march Downtown Monday to protest last week’s announcement that 54 schools would close.

Declaring themselves the Chicago Students Organizing to Save Our Schools, they marched from Chicago Public Schools headquarters to City Hall to deliver a letter to Mayor Rahm Emanuel demanding a moratorium on school closings and a publicly elected Board of Education.

“We represent the thousands of students in Chicago Public Schools that will be directly affected by school closings,” the letter stated.

Closings would lead to “more violence and more children dying,” as students walk to school across gang boundaries, the letter said. It said low-income African-American and Hispanic neighborhoods were unfairly targeted by the “racist decision” to close schools.

Although most of the two dozen students were high-schoolers, and no high schools are slated to be closed, they said they were speaking for younger students without an established voice.

“We are united and we are fighting for public schools,” said Israel Munoz, a senior at Kelly High School.

“It is our responsibility to stick up for them,” added Malachi Hoye, a senior at North Grand High School.

“As a student from Englewood, I can speak firsthand to the danger that lies ahead if these schools are closed,” said Brian Stirgus, a senior at Robeson High School. He said his elementary alma mater, Banneker, was being closed to merge with Mays Elementary Academy. The two schools, he said, are on opposite sides of Halsted Street, a gang boundary in that area. “Why potentially put kids in more danger?”

Isis Hernandez, an eighth-grader at Stowe Elementary, said her school had avoided the closure list, but “it’s not just about my school. It’s about saving all our schools.”

She said the closings would have a dramatic impact on neighborhoods. “This means more abandoned houses and more families moving away,” Hernandez said, adding, “We have the same right to a decent education as a rich kid.”

The letter was accepted by a representative of the mayor, but otherwise the Emanuel administration did not respond.

Munoz emphasized it was the group’s first action and that it is intended to grow and to give students a united voice.

“I think a student voice is something that really needs to be addressed right now,” he added. “It’s something that CPS and the Board of Education and Mayor Rahm Emanuel have not really attended to.”

“This is out first action, but it won’t be our last,” the letter concluded. The group announced their plans to take part in Wednesday’s protest organized by the Chicago Teachers Union at 4 p.m. in Daley Plaza.

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A fight against school closures is also happening in Philadelphia, where the School Reform Commission recently voted to close 23 schools, disproportionately affecting black & Latino students. 

How workers laid off from a Chicago factory took it over themselves
March 5, 2013

Four years ago, as the recession took hold and layoffs around the country were approaching 500,000 a month, a group of workers in Chicago saved a factory and inspired a nation. Fired by their boss, they occupied instead of leaving. Fired by a second boss, they occupied and formed a worker’s cooperative. Now they are worker-owners of a load of equipment and they’re setting up a factory in a new location.

All they want to do is to get back to making and selling windows. It shouldn’t be this hard to keep good jobs in Chicago, but “A cooperative can be a way of surviving, of moving forward,” says Armando Robles, one of the workers.

Robles was one of 250 workers fired in December 2008 without notice or severance by Republic Windows and Doors when the company announced it was closing its Chicago factory. The company said that it could no longer operate because it had lost its line of credit with Bank of America. The irony of the situation was clear. Bank of America had received billions in government bailouts to keep the economy working, and yet the Republic workers were being laid off without their entitled payments and benefits. Supported by their union, the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, Robles and his fellow workers voted to resist. They occupied the plant for six days, winning back pay, severance, and time for a new company to take ownership. Generating thousands of articles and news reports about their fight, they encouraged a downcast nation, even an incoming U.S. president.

At a press conference during the factory occupation, then President-elect Barack Obama declared: “When it comes to the situation here in Chicago, with the workers who are asking for their benefits and payments they have earned … I think they are absolutely right.”

The public relations potential, combined with the prospect of stimulus spending and a green economy boom, spurred Serious Energy of California to take over the former Republic plant in February 2009. Among the investors in the new business was Mesirow Financial, a Chicago-based firm, with close ties to (among others), then White House Chief of Staff (soon to be Chicago Mayor) Rahm Emanuel. With $15 million from Mesirow alone, Serious looked forward to landing substantial federal and city contracts.

Two years later, those contracts were yet to materialize. The ballyhooed green economy? Chicago’s grand green retrofitting scheme? They were nowhere in sight, and city and state spending was essentially on ice. By the end of 2009, only 20 of the Republic workers had been hired back. In February 2012, Serious announced it, too, was closing the Chicago factory and selling off the machines.

This time, Robles et al. only needed to occupy for a matter of hours before management agreed to a deal. Serious agreed to give the workers the first option to buy the plant’s equipment and 90 days to come up with a bid.

“Republic walked away from our jobs. Serious walked away from our jobs, but we are not walking away from our jobs,” said Melvin Macklin, who had worked at the plant for more than a decade. In the time between the first layoff and the second, the workers and their families became aware of other options. As it happens, after appearing together with Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis on GRITtv, Robles and United Electrical field organizer Leah Fried sat down with The Working World, a nonprofit that has helped start and maintain worker cooperatives in Argentina and other parts of Latin America.

Full article

The real roots of violence & Hadiya Pendleton: The not-so-random violence in US cities
February 11, 2013

“It’s very painful to see your big sister get slaughtered,” said the 10-year-old brother of Hadiya Pendleton, relaying his devastation at the murder last month of the 15-year-old African American high school student in Chicago.

Pendleton was shot while hanging out with her friends in a park on the South Side of Chicago, after completing her exams in school. She died shortly after. This past weekend, hundreds of Black Chicagoans lined up in below-freezing weather to attend the funeral of the slain teen.

Pendleton’s death received national attention for two reasons. One, she had attended and performed for President Obama’s inauguration just days before she was killed. Second, her death underlined the random and senseless violence plaguing cities like Chicago, in the midst of a national debate about gun control.

Local activists and political leaders, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson, called on Obama to return to Chicago to attend Hadiya’s funeral and draw national attention to the escalating gun violence in Chicago. A nationally circulated petition read in part, “As Newtown swirls down the memory hole and passion to implement sane gun control gets sidetracked by whatever the latest Congressional bullshit circus will be, President Obama should stand up and take advantage of a tragic opportunity to keep the anti-gun violence movement engaged.”

Since 2008, more than 530 young people have been killed in Chicago, making it the youth murder capital of the country. The vast majority of these deaths—almost 80 percent—have happened in 22 Black and Brown majority neighborhoods. In 2010, nearly 700 Chicago school children were shot, and 66 of them died. Last year, 24 school children were killed and another 319 were injured by gunfire.

Chicago has been at the center of media attention for several years as some neighborhoods in the city have been wracked by gun violence and crime. Indeed, on the day Pendleton was killed, two other murders happened, bringing the total number for January to 43—making this the deadliest January in a decade. There were more than 500 gun murders in Chicago last year, up 38 percent from the year before.

But of course, these murders aren’t taking place randomly all over the city. In fact, they have been pretty much contained to the Black majority South and West Sides.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Obama didn’t attend Pendleton’s funeral, but other representatives of the local and national political establishment did, including Michelle Obama, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn and a host of other figures.

This local unsolved murder was catapulted into the ongoing national debate over gun control. Yet Chicago is a curious place for such a discussion—because it has some of the most stringent gun laws in the country. Illinois is the only state in the nation with no so-called “concealed carry” law. There are no gun shops or civilian shooting ranges in Chicago, and until last year, it was virtually illegal to own a gun within city limits.

Nevertheless, Chicago is one of the most well-armed cities in the country. Chicago police complain that there are more guns on Chicago streets than in other big cities like New York and Los Angeles. Last year, according to the Associated Press, Chicago police seized more than 7,400 guns, three times the number seized in New York.

It’s understandable that ordinary Chicagoans, particularly in communities bearing the brunt of gun violence and crime, would want to try to get the guns out of the hands of children who are killing their peers. Hadiya Pendleton’s is one among so many arbitrary and utterly senseless deaths. The weekend before Hadiya was killed, a Chicago resident named Shirley Chambers lost her fourth child—the last of her four children—to gun violence.

Yet the response of political leaders like Rahm Emanuel shows not only that they aren’t asking the right questions about gun violence—but that they are pushing for the wrong answers. Emanuel and Police Chief Garry McCarthy used the occasion of Pendleton’s death to announce the deployment of 200 more cops on city streets.

The endless clamoring for more gun laws, more law enforcement, more jails, more prisons and more punishment obscure the more important discussion about why gun violence exists in the first place, why it might be getting worse and, most importantly, what can be done about it.

The call for more police to be deployed in African American communities in Chicago can never be taken lightly. Chicago police have a long history of misconduct, abuse and even torture of Black suspects. The television news program 60 Minutes recently aired a segment about false confessions and corruption in the Chicago Police Department and the local state’s attorney’s office. In January, the City Council approved $33 million in payouts for settlements in just two civil lawsuits involving police violence.

So this is hardly an institution that can be counted on to evenhandedly enforce gun laws and stop violence in Black communities.

There is a causal connection between more arrests and growing problems with crime. As police continue to arrest young African American men and women, it pushes them further and further from opportunities to survive. Author Michelle Alexander has written extensively about how what she calls “the New Jim Crow” has created a permanent unemployable group of mostly African American men who have drug and other minor convictions.

More police on the streets raises the probability of more encounters with law enforcement, leading to arrests for petty crimes and criminal records that make it virtually impossible for young Black men—and an increasing number of young Black women—to get meaningful employment. This inevitability pushes people into the unconventional job market, where drug dealing, prostitution, theft and more become the means for people to feed themselves and their families.

In other words, more police is part of the problem.

Full article