The sad part about these crimes is that they have become a representation for what the city symbolizes. From the outside looking in, the city has been perceived as a warzone and has been given the nickname Chi-Raq. On the balance beam of perception versus reality, most of these titles have been earned by some of the people in the city. The truth is, Chicago had more homicides than any other big city in the nation last year.
On the flip side of that coin is that the city is not that bad. I mean it has its share of bad areas; but so does every other place in the world. This has been the complaint of some Chicago residents who feel like that media portrayal of the city has been blown out of proportion. That sentiment was shared by some who attended the McDonald’s game last night. I saw a few people on social media who attended the game and said they didn’t even see the fight. They also stated the police presence was ubiquitous and didn’t feel threatened. They stated that even though it might been a fight but wasn’t something that should be viewed as a distraction for the event. Some of those people was either there with their children or dropped them off at the event.
On the other hand there were people who said that there were fights on the street also. It was mentioned that even though police were there, they had to scrambled to stop the fight. These different views and opinions also sums up the difference in opinions about the violence in Chicago. There are opposite thoughts about the cause of the problems, who to blame and what are the solutions. Regardless of the division between the people, there still remains a problem. One of the main problems is that most of the time there is no separation between perception and reality. A lot of times what we see is what we believe. So when video circulate on the internet of young Black folks acting a fool; then most people going to believe that all young Black people are thugs and troublemakers. It doesn’t matter if you are one of the parents that is keeping your child out of trouble.
These blurred lines make it hard to distinguished the good kids from the bad kids. Especially when people are recording the events, posting it and making it viral. That makes it hard to separate the City of Chicago from Chi-Raq. Hopefully in the future that will change.