A look at the city that works, from City Journal‘s Heather Mac Donald:
The Daley dynasty in Chicago may be giving way to the Obama-Emanuel political machine, but one thing remains constant in the Windy City: youth violence and a collective refusal to acknowledge its root cause. On the one-year anniversary of the beating death of a Chicago teen by his fellow students, Chicago remains in denial about the driving factor behind such mayhem: the disappearance of the black two-parent family.
Yes. Daley fulminates. It’s not his nature to be suave or smooth. But it’s all about nagging crime victims and their neighbors to speak out while in danger to life and limb.
Or he bashes guns and by implication gun-owners — but couldn’t quite bash the 68–year-old woman who finally had enough and was scared to death and plugged a 12–year-old neighbor who broke her windows and cussed her out and threw bricks at her. (Asked about her, he mocked “the media” and complained that it was not “on topic” of that day’s good-news press conference. Go to 14:55 of this at WLS-AM.)
Sound and fury, your honor, signifying avoidance.
And who came out in defense of what one neighbor called “that bad little boy”? His grandmother. Who else, for probably a fatherless kid?
In every American city, the disproportionate black-illegitimacy rate is matched only by the disproportionate black crime rate. In Chicago, blacks, at least 35 percent of the population, commit 76 percent of all homicides; whites, about 28 percent of the population, commit 4 percent.
You can’t say that in a public forum, however, especially if you’re mayor. No. Strictly speaking, you can but won’t.
Blithe Spirit 