Can We Talk About These Large Groups of Youth in Downtown Chicago?
Note: It has been so long since I wrote, I feared I’d forgotten how. I literally wrote this blog no less than 3 times, with copious notes on my various ideas around this topic, both on paper and electronically. Finally, I found what I felt was my most authentic voice and thoughts on this topic. This is a complicated topic, and if I wrote another 10 pages on it, we’d just be scratching the surface…I wish some of these journalists could acknowledge that in their writings. Enjoy.
I feel like very few people are talking openly and honestly about the current events being talked about in our city, because to do so, you have to start with the most basic premise that we face:
We live in an unforgivingly brutal society.
I live in a city of plenty, and yet, I could take you to spaces in the city where hundreds of people are convening in tents (tents that the city are often trying to get rid of) because they have no place to live, and this seems to be a problem that a city of plenty like Chicago has no solution for.
We live in a city where on the same day hundreds of youth convened downtown for a “takeover” of the area, police engaged in an illegal chase that broke the rules of their own department, and gunned down a man, whom they should not have been chasing anyway, who reportedly was a legal gun owner.
We live in a city where youth, and let’s be specific, black and brown youth feel that they have to “takeover” a public space for a few hours of entertainment. Let us fully acknowledge that the space in question, Downtown Chicago, signals, and has signaled for years that black and brown youth are not welcome. They’re too “unruly,” they’re “too loud” and they’re too conspicuous for the hustle and bustle and music and dancing and incessant traffic of the downtown area.
Let’s also acknowledge that simultaneously, the city welcomes thousands of loud, unruly, alcohol filled and drug-adled teenagers (many of them white and suburban…hot damn I wish Lollapalooza kept accurate attendee demographics) downtown for 4 days of debauchery, often ending with kids wallowing in their own self pity on the curbs, gearing up to do it again tomorrow, and avoiding the pools of vomit and spilt booze.
While everyone with a pulpit wants to point a finger at the youth who descended upon downtown last weekend, and some of them , in a move I can only describe as idiotic (no offense intended, but I gotta call ‘em as I see ‘em) want to point the finger at the un-inaugurated Mayor Elect Brandon Johnson.
Once upon a time, the youth we talked about wreaking havoc on downtown, and the city of Chicago as a whole were white Eastern European immigrant children, who sometimes went so far as to cause train derailments and the burning down of businesses (if any of you historians can find news articles recounting these exploits, please share). As an article from 2021 that was recently shared on Twitter from South Side Weekly recounted, these exploits were met with real solutions, like playgrounds and social organizations (many of which wouldn’t take African American children as members).
A key question that not everyone is asking before pointing fingers and spewing the most vitriolic anti-youth propaganda is why do the youth want to go downtown anyway?
I am an avid bicyclist. Coincidentally, I was planning on taking a bike ride downtown on the Saturday evening in question. Unfortunately, my plans changed, and I didn’t make it down. A few hours later, when I surely would’ve been cruising the area, I started seeing the notifications of disturbances around the downtown area.
I sat and reflected on this for a bit. As someone who has worked with youth, and is a former teacher, I’ve had many conversations with youth about downtown…about their thoughts, what it symbolizes to them. I’ve seen youth pass up on internships because they didn’t feel comfortable going downtown. I’ve seen youth who’ve been to every corner of their neighborhood, but never downtown, which is anywhere from $1.25 - $2.50 away.
Youth are dangerously perceptive, very much more so than many adults I encounter, and they can smell bullshit and true intention at 10 paces. This talent is one of the reasons I was successful in the classroom. I wasn’t always the friendliest or must nurturing individual. I didn’t call my students “babies” or offer them hugs or daps, but I was always honest, forthcoming and 0% bullshit, and my students appreciated that. Yes, I cared about my students, their futures, the things they went through, and above all else their futures, but my approach came with a no-bullshit attitude that laid bare, particularly as a social studies teacher, the world around them and the world they would be exiting high school into.
And they knew that downtown was sacred ground on which they weren’t invited. I encouraged them to break that wall. I encouraged them to go down and see the lake, or see the night lights. I loved that programs began to emerge like “My Block, My Hood, My City” that took youth on explorations to spaces that not only had they never been, but they frequently were not welcome.
Kids are kids. They’re naturally loud. They’re boisterous, and kids from the south and west sides of the city have soul, and big personalities. That’s not a bad thing. As an adult, I struggle with this constantly, particularly currently in my place of work. My personality is too big for the space. As a result, we adopt this idea of code-switching. When I walk into the Hilton Chicago, I know there is a sense of decorum that is expected, and yes, I don’t think it’s problematic to pass this knowledge down to our youth, to help them to navigate these spaces that are finding any excuse to be hostile. And yes, that education perhaps should start in the home, but having had glimpses into many homes in my day, we can’t take for granted what goes on there, and I don’t mean that purely derogatorily. I’ve met many a parent who left the home at 6am for job 1, and returned home at 8pm from job 2 and sometimes even 3. That’s because we live in a brutal society, where putting food on the table, and keeping a roof over your head sometimes entails a 14-16 hour workday. Additionally, let us acknowledge the generations of failed policies that have left many south and west side communities in taters, where wealth is frequently nonexistent, and the smallest of creature comforts we consider in 2023 nowhere to be seen. I don’t know a South or Westsider who doesn’t fiercely love their community (and yes, think their side is the best side) but those communities have been disinvested for so long, it’s criminal, often leaving residents, including youth, wanting to escape for a few hours.
As I sat and reflected on these things, the simple answer came to me. Kids want to go downtown for the same reasons I do: It’s pleasant. It’s pretty. There’s not nearly as much trash on the ground as in the neighborhoods. It’s beautiful both day and night, and yes, with the variety of unchecked crime going on across the city (much of that having to do with adults), downtown can be a safe haven. Plus, it’s just a cool place to be. The city has plunked so much fucking money into downtown, you can see some cool stuff, stuff that you simply won’t see in many of their neighborhoods due to the decades of disinvestment black and brown communities have endured in this city. Not only is this society brutal, this fucking city is brutal, particularly to folks of color, age be damned. They’ve beaten us, tortured us, neglected us, ignored us, made us fight tooth and nail for every inch of visibility and fairness we’ve been able to squeeze, and malign us on such a nonstop basis in the news that I have to question what did we do to get talked about constantly like dogs.
And so, we now face the re-emergence of this problem. This time, and I will say because of the hue of the participants, no one wants to spend any money for creative solutions. Last year, the Mayor came up with the idea of “kickbacks” for youth across the city, which I thought was a fabulous idea. However, as soon as I looked into what it entailed, I immediately saw she dropped the ball. Well over 50 kickback events on Friday and Saturdays (I stopped counting at 50, but definitely close to 100) and only one of them was downtown. All the others were in neighborhood parks.
WTF? The youth want to get out of the neighborhood, even if only to see something new. What the city should have done was hosted the kickbacks, certainly not all, but at least two a month, at a downtown venue. Have a DJ, have affordable food, have activities. You have Grant Park, Millennium Park, Maggie Daley Park, several beaches and even the Promontory Point. Additionally, the city should be partnering with organizations like Good Kids Mad City who have demonstrated an ability to organize large scale social events for youth, who can also serve as ambassadors and intervention specialist, and yes, even get paid for their services. How about that for job creation?
We have to keep in mind that when these youth converge, particularly following the brutal years of COVID, they are emerging into the world from social isolation. Some of them will find themselves in these various social situations for the first time really. Additionally, we have a city with a large and unique collection of social cultures, so youth from rivalry gangs, cliques, hoods, blocks, schools will all be coming together. We need to utilize organizations we have, as well as give birth to new ones, to facilitate peaceful resolution to inevitable conflicts that will arise, and we have to work with the youth, not against the youth, to understand that these events are for fun.
The one thing that I’ve heard no one directly talk about that captured my mind the most, that had me thinking the most was not the property damage or the stopped traffic. It was the level of violence, anger and brutality that our youth are willing to unleash on each other. I would totally understand if they stood united agains a city that has for all intents in purposes forsaken them for a majority of their lives. However, seeing them scuffle, fight, and even shoot each other. That tears up my heart. It boggles my mind, and it reminds me of a simple adage: Hurt people hurt people. Chicago youth endure so much trauma as a simple result of their existence, and we have to figure out not only how to get them the support and services that they need, but also ways to change the culture of both discussions and acceptance of mental health treatment in black and brown communities. I promised a friend during this past campaign season that when the dust settled, I would find a therapist, and I’m in the midst of that now. We all need a little bit of help sometimes.
This year is the 50th anniversary of Hip Hop. I’ve been reading and reflecting a lot on that, and how an entire culture was essentially created from a party in a rec room. Stop and think about that. We think finding suitable means of recreation for our youth is just a throwaway thing that has no meaning, but we never know what is possible when we create spaces for our youth to find joy, and yes make mistakes, and spread their wings, and find their tribes.
We need more spaces for this in our city. We need more community centers, and not ones that close at 7pm. We need midnight basketball. Late night computer labs with games. I just joined a gym and the main reason for joining it is that it is 24 hours during the week and the latest hours I could find during the weekend. Our youth need places to be, and yes be supervised, and yes have positive interactions and yes, be kids. I feel so old, but I feel like adolescence doesn’t really exist now. It’s like boom, you’re in high school. Go out into the world and be great. I was an idiot in high school. Yes, todays youth are super impressive in many ways, but I promise you not all of them are Einsteins, and most of them overwhelmingly need guidance to reach their full potential. I feel like we so readily want to put youth in teach mode, we don’t allow them enough time to learn, or to understand that they’ll be learning well into their 50’s…and some of them will still be idiots…like my friends. ;-)
The issue of youth convening in the streets of downtown Chicago, and the resulting reactions relates to so many of the other issues we currently face: dehumanizing narratives from journalists and politicians, ongoing stereotypes about black youth, lack of resources and social nets in our city and society, the prevalence of guns, the deconstruction of the family unit, particularly in black and brown communities by destructive policies like the war on drugs, stop and frisk, etc. There is no one problem we’re looking at, and no one solution. So let’s start having honest conversation, and above all else, stop demonizing our youth. They’re not wildlings. They’re not savages. Let’s be real...you wouldn’t call them animals if they all had blond eyes and a lollapalooza ticket, so just stop it.
