Deadly Chicago

For John, BLUF:  Chicago sufferss from shootings every weekend, but Mayor J9hnson has not broken the code on the problem.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Chicago Mayor Blames Richard Nixon as Over 100 People Shot at Weekend

From Newsweek, by Reporter Khaleda Rahman, 9 July 2024, 4:35 AM EDT.

Here is the lede plus two:

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson appeared to suggest President Richard Nixon was to blame for the city's pervasive gun violence problem.

More than 100 people were injured in shootings in Chicago, at least 19 of them fatally, over the Fourth of July weekend, when there is often a spike in gun violence.

"We are standing here today talking about a violent weekend because of generations of disinvestment and deep disenfranchisement in the exact communities where so much of the violence has taken place," Johnson, a Democrat who took office last year, said during a press conference on Monday.

Further down we have this from Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson:

"Black death has been unfortunately been accepted in this country for a very long time. We had a chance 60 years ago to get at the root causes. And people mocked President Johnson, and we ended up with Richard Nixon. I'm going to work hard every day to transform this city. That's what it takes to build a better, stronger, safer Chicago."

The article then goes on to say:

Johnson did not elaborate further on his remarks about Nixon. His office has been contacted for comment via email.

The Richard Nixon Foundation responded to Johnson's remarks on social media.

"Mayor Johnson's reference to President Nixon is gratuitous and the facts are not on his side in his characterization of Richard Nixon and the Nixon administration's civil rights record," the foundation wrote in a thread on X, formerly Twitter, along with a list of the administration's accomplishments.

Firat, the situation in Chicago is very bad.  It is way past time to note the deaths of Black youths, often as innocent bystanders in gang like shootings.  This seems like an issue regarding parental responsibility.  What is it in the culture of Chicago where parents do not feel responsibility for teaching their children it is not OK to shoot your way out of a problem.

Which leads to the issue of blaming President Richard Nixon, who left office in 1974 and passed away in 1994.  A better historic look-back should expose us to the fact that President Johnson's welfare reforms, meant to help Blacks succeed, seerved to badly damage the Black family.

This view was presented in 1965, by then Assistant Secretary of Labor Daniel Patrick Moynihan, in his report The Negro Family:  The Case For National Action, commonly known as the Moynihan Report.  Wikipedia summed it up by "Moynihan argued that the rise in black single-mother families was caused not by a lack of jobs, but by a destructive vein in ghetto culture, which could be traced to slavery times and continued discrimination in the American South under Jim Crow."

Culture matters and Mayor Johnson would help the problem by strengthening the culture in Chicago, with an emphsis on families.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff