On August 2, residents of Chicago marched and demonstrated against the city’s escalating crisis of gun violence.
This past weekend, it was reported that 73 people were shot and 11 died, leaving the city reeling as it grapples with the carnage. So far this year, at least 1,700 people have been shot and at least 300 have been murdered in Chicago. Even more disturbing is that these figures represent a 23-percent decrease from the violence of 2017.
Chicago police say that the crimes have been “heavily concentrated in predominantly black, low-income neighborhoods,” which is sparking new concerns about how to make lives better for black residents of the “Windy City,” which some have now nicknamed “Chiraq.”
Women as old as 55 years of age and children as young as 11 were shot last week. It seems that almost no one is safe from the carnage. So, it is heartening to see residents of the crime-stricken city protest and take a stand against political leaders whose policies have led to this violence.
What’s even more clear is that this is not just a policy issue but a very legitimate issue of survival.
Many discussions are taking place around the nation on how to solve the problem of inner-city violence, which has led to conclusions that some call obvious. One of those conclusions is to do something the city hasn’t done in generations––vote out Democrats and give someone else the opportunity to lead the city into prosperity and real change.
As it stands today, Democrats are represented in 57 percent of Illinois State Representatives, 63 percent of Illinois State Senators, 61 percent of Illinois U.S. Representatives and hold both Illinois US Senate seats. And despite this total control of the state, residents find themselves apoplectic over the policies enacted against them by the representatives they elected.
Chicago hasn’t had a Republican mayor since 1927. Fresh, tested ideas that would open up economic opportunities, lower taxes, create new jobs and allow the residents of Chicago the right to self-defense would be policy platforms that would begin to resolve problems that have plagued beleaguered Chicago residents for decades.
Addressing this issue, Candace Owens, Communications Director for Turning Point USA, places blame squarely with the Left, noting that “Chicago is run by Democrats” and saying that Democrat policies like strict gun control do more harm than good in communities seeking advancement.
Owens also pointed out that cities like Chicago “became more dangerous for black citizens during Obama’s tenure,” so even electing a Democrat from Chicago as president doesn’t change anything on the ground for residents.
Economic opportunity, breaking the cycle of poverty, upward mobility, safe neighborhoods and self-protection shouldn’t be partisan issues. But the recalcitrance of one-party rule has created the conditions that render current residents of black areas in Chicago serfs forever beholden to liberal lords.
For years, residents of Chicago electing representatives with the same mindset and expecting different outcomes has looked less like a model for progress and more like the mythological Sisyphus rolling a boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll right back down. For decades, Chicago politics have been an exercise in futility.
In 2013, Dennis Byrne said that Democrats are poisoning Chicago. “Democrats have locked up the city and state. They have supermajorities in both houses of the Illinois legislature,” he wrote in an op-ed for the Chicago Tribune. “The governor is a Democrat. Democrats run two of the four major administrations of state government.”
Mayor Rahm Emanuel was seen as a bright hope. But, as the data shows, he has been largely ineffective in bringing about the kind of results that leave the citizens he represents better off than when he arrived.
Many across the country urge the residents of Chicago to continue speaking out, continue protesting and continue to demand revolutionary action that creates peace and progress. I stand firmly as one of those voices. Because the last thing we need is another family like that of 17-year-old Jahnae Patterson or 19-year-old Donald Norris mourning the loss of a loved one who was senselessly murdered in the wake of rampant crime that is the direct result of a failed policy from a career leftist bureaucrat.
M. Adrian Norman is a freelance writer.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of The Daily Caller.