Psycho America: The Future of Chicago

Eight-seven percent of the 404,151 students enrolled in Chicago Public Schools (CPS) come from "low income families."

Recall that the CPS system is: 

41.6% Black
44.1% Latino
8.8% White
3.4% Asian

Psycho America: Putting black interests above the interests of America

One could reasonably surmise that the white and Asian percentages, when added together, account for virtually all of the students from middle-class families in the CPS system. Also, recall that 86 percent of the 404,151 students in the CPS system qualify for a free or reduced lunch.

Thanks to the New York Times 2009 EBT Usage Map, we know that 450,000 black people (34 percent of the black population of Cook County) receive food stamps in the Chicago area. Odds that in 2012, this number is hovering over the 50 percent range? You might even be able to go towards 60 percent based on the augmentation of the EBT card rolls since President Obama took office.

Why does this matter? Why even bring this up? Because since Mayor Harold Washington died in office, Chicago has been living on borrowed time.

Two recent stories illustrate the demographic tidal wave about to swamp the city, and help showcase why the state of Detroit in 2012 is the only possible future for Chicago (if currents trends continue unabated).

Our first story revolves around a job fair [First Ever City Job Fair Leaves Many Frustrated With Hiring Process, CBS Chicago, 11-9-12]:

 About 3,000 people lined up for the city’s first-ever jobs fair on Friday – some of them waiting in line for up to six hours – hoping to apply for work with the city, but many left frustrated after learning the only way to apply for a job was to go online. WBBM Newsradio’s Bernie Tafoya reports Mayor Rahm Emanuel stopped by the job fair, expecting a warm welcome from job seekers, but instead ran into lots of ticked-off people. 

More than 3,000 people showed up for the 55 posted job openings, but city hiring rules require all applications be filed online, so many of those who attended left frustrated at having to stand in line for hours, without being able to actually apply for a job. 

City officials were not conducting job interviews, or hiring anyone on the spot. Officials said all job applications for city jobs must be done online, because of city hiring rules and the federal Shakman decree that bans political-based hiring for most city jobs. 

However, city representatives did offer assistance in applying for jobs online using computers provided by the city, and also informed job seekers about workshops on résumé writing and job interview skills. 

CBS 2’s Suzanne Le Mignot reports the event left many of those job seekers wondering why someone didn’t tell them from the start to use their computers to apply for a city job, rather than stand in line for hours in the cold. Cherrie Moore said, “They just got fliers of resources, things we could have got on the Internet, things we probably already know about.” 

Rodney Booker said, “I stood in line for four hours. They better give me a Wal-Mart gift card, or something.” Job seeker Keyonya Mills was frustrated by the miscommunication. 

“They could have said, go online, fill out the application. If you do not know how to fill out a application, come to Kennedy-King College and we’ll train you. They have people wrapped around this entire building thinking this is a job fair and this is not a job fair”, Mills said. 

Michael Williams compared the job fair to standing in a soup line, only to find out there’s no soup. “This isn’t really a job fair, it’s just a meet-and-greet,” he said. “It’s nothing, they’re just telling you what’s going on with their business, but they’re not really receiving any applications, or any résumés. It’s nothing.”

What exactly is it that those people who stood in line for a faux job fair are actually qualified to do, save collect welfare checks, live in Section 8 housing (receiving some type of voucher to live in the tragically de-centralized Chicago Housing Authority) and see to it that their children fail to show up for class [F in attendance for city schools, Chicago Tribune, 11-11-12]:

A Tribune investigation has found that nearly 32,000 Chicago students in public elementary schools — or roughly 1 in 8 — missed four weeks or more of class during the 2010-11 year, as the cash-strapped district does little to stem a devastating problem. 

For the Chicago Public Schools, the empty seats undermine efforts to boost achievement and cost the district millions in attendance-based funding.
For children born into poverty, the flood of missed days threatens to swallow any hope for a better life. 

The investigation is based on internal attendance data on about 247,000 elementary-level CPS students from 2010-11, the most recent year available. To assess the total number of missed classroom days per student, the Tribune analyzed both excused and unexcused absences, as well as gaps in enrollment. 

Among the paper's findings: 

• The crushing pattern of detachment from school often begins in kindergarten, when no child can be said to have a choice in the matter. In the 2010-11 school year, 19 percent of Chicago kindergartners were officially listed as chronic truants because they racked up nine or more unexcused absences. 

• Absenteeism in the elementary grades is especially acute in African-American communities on the South and West sides. Counting truancy, excused absences and gaps in enrollment, more than 20 percent of black elementary school students missed at least four weeks of school in 2010-11, compared with 7 percent of whites and 8 percent of Hispanics. 

• Children with a learning or emotional disability also miss class in disproportionate numbers, despite federal laws designed to keep such students in school. About 42 percent of K-8 students with an emotional disability missed four weeks of classes in 2010-11, compared with 12 percent of students without a disability. 

• The district's official attendance statistics obscure the depth of the problem because officials are required to count a child as absent only if he or she is actively enrolled. The Tribune identified thousands of students who were out of school for four weeks or more because their families enrolled them late, pulled them out early or lost time while transferring between Chicago schools. But those missed days aren't counted as absences. 

CPS spokeswoman Robyn Ziegler acknowledged that "there are far too many children who are missing more than four weeks of school in a given year, and that really eliminates any ability to establish a routine and a sense of belonging or for any degree of continuity in learning."

We already know that the CPS K-12 system is basically glorified babysitting. Sadly, these children do end up growing up and becoming permanent residents of the unemployable line, subsisting on the largess of a quasi-capitalist system sustained by the ingenuity and innovativeness of white people.

It is this same abundance of wealth that this quasi-capitalist system sustained by the ingenuity and innovativeness of white people that attracted the Great Migration of black people to Chicago and other northern cities to begin with (what we have dubbed "Manifest Destruction").

It is this same abundance of wealth that this quasi-capitalist system sustained by the ingenuity and innovativeness of white people that attracts immigrants from around the world -- many of which who no longer enrich the nation and various communities where they settle, but come to simply enrich themselves by enjoying the spoils of a generous welfare system.

But what happens when an abundance of white people aren't around to sustain this system?

You get 90 percent black Detroit and Gary (Indiana).

The black unemployment rate in Chicago is approaching 20 percent, which might be why Jesse Jackson has recently reemerged to stand with Barack Obama and demand he become a Harold Washington-style politician immediately [Jackson: Black Voters Deserve A Return On Election ‘Investment’, CBS Chicago, 11-1-12]:

The Rev. Jesse Jackson on Saturday said that President Obama’s reelection was “a great victory,” but that it would be incomplete with a reconstruction of urban America and an investment in the communities where the blacks who voted overwhelmingly for the president live. 

“We’re happy and full of pride,” in the president’s reelection, Jackson told the crowd at the Saturday morning forum at Rainbow/PUSH headquarters, 930 E. 50th St., “but our houses remain raggedy … our schools remain closed.” 

Despite attempts at voter suppression in states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida, Jackson said, blacks turned out en masse to vote, enduring waits that stretched into hours in many places. “We waited, we voted, we believed,” Jackson said. “Now we want to get well. 

“We voted early, we voted long. Our votes won,” he said. 

Rev. Jackson, who spoke longer, louder, and more forcefully than he has in some time at the Saturday morning Rainbow/PUSH meeting, asked the crowd, “What do we want? We want, we want, we want, we deserve, we deserve … a return on our investment. 

“What’s good for us is good for everybody. What’s good for blacks is good for everybody.,” he said. “We bled too much, we died too young, we cried too much, we prayed too long, now we want a return on our investment.”

Mr. Jackson, why is it that "urban America" requires federal and state aid, plus outside investment to prosper? Why must a "reconstruction" take place in areas that are 90 percent + black, like parts of Chicago, Detroit, Memphis, Baltimore, Birmingham, Gary, Newark, Camden, Rochester, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Cleveland, etc?

Why do your "houses remain raggedy... and your schools remain closed" (that should be a huge 'sic' right?; what the hell is this clown talking about?)?

Well -- the answer to the "houses remain raggedy" is quite simply: black people live in them and black people are the majority demographic of the community they reside in.

What about a return on the investment white America has made in black America, through welfare, affirmative action, infrastructure building in black areas, the erection of new suburbs to avoid living near black people; which gave blacks prime real estate that they immediately turned to "blight", years of Head Start programs that did absolutely nothing, free lunches for their children at school -- which amounts to free daycare from K-12, EBT cards, and, most importantly, comfortable treatment in jail.

What do we get in return besides a momentary drop in crime rates?

And no, what's good for black people is not "good for everyone else." Since the early 1960s (well, since Restrictive Covenants were deemed unconstitutional in 1948), the official policy of the federal government - thus, the state governments - has been to make life better for "only black people, at the expense of everyone else."

This trickle down discrimination against whitey (paid for by... whitey) has now infected academia, the military, the entertainment industry and corporate America.

What if we decided that "doing the opposite of what is good for blacks in America represents doing good by everyone else?"

That's the lesson Chicago offers.

That's how you prevent the Second City from being Detroit-ed.