Fighting Crime With T Shirts

[Rageaholic]

So I guess Chicago has seen a rise in violent crime these past several years. It's gotten so bad that the city has been nicknamed "Chiraq". So there's been a community effort... to try to retire the name "Chiraq".

I can see their logic. Combat the negative stigma associated with the city and hope that shootings will not be so expected. It's better than nothing, I guess, but it is a long shot. This seems like a localized Ban Bossy. A campaign that only targets one word in hopes of combating a problem much more complex than a single slur (though granted, this problem is a lot more serious than what BanBossy was fighting).

On the same topic, is Chicago really that bad? I've been downtown a year ago and thought it was pretty nice. Is it just some of the surrounding neighborhoods that have gotten bad? (that's the problem with Detroit, though downtown Detroit is nothing to brag about).

[TheHuckster]

I can see their logic. Combat the negative stigma associated with the city and hope that shootings will not be so expected. It's better than nothing, I guess, but it is a long shot. This seems like a localized Ban Bossy. A campaign that only targets one word in hopes of combating a problem much more complex than a single slur (though granted, this problem is a lot more serious than what BanBossy was fighting).

The big difference between this and BanBossy is the term "bossy" has had a gender-neutral meaning since its incarnation, and only in the past year have people tried to make the claim that it is redefined as a sexist term. Chiraq is a neologism that was coined specifically for this concept.

On the same topic, is Chicago really that bad? I've been downtown a year ago and thought it was pretty nice. Is it just some of the surrounding neighborhoods that have gotten bad? (that's the problem with Detroit, though downtown Detroit is nothing to brag about).

I don't know much about the topic, but I know that Chicago has historically had a major gang violence problem, some which simply reflects any other major US city. I've been told second-hand that it's more dangerous than other cities of its size, but I'm not sure if that includes popular tourist areas like The Loop, Marina areas, etc.

[HYHYBT]

I can see some logic in fighting the term. Words affect how people think, which affects how they act. Right now, Chicago is nowhere near as bad as Iraq; I doubt it's really seriously worse than it's ever been. But if the idea that it *is* like Iraq catches on, that can only encourage it to go downhill, partly by keeping people and businesses from wanting to locate there.

[Hyena Dandy]

The public perception, both inside and outside a city, can have an effect on crime rates and on, well, people decidig to move in/out of there. Wanting to change that is a big thing, compared to "Sometimes some people say mean htings and sometimes those are about women so let's change the whole language."

[protege]

They can attempt to "retire" the word all they want. However, until assholes quit shooting each other all the time...perceptions of the area won't change. We have a similar situation here in Pittsburgh. Whenever the weather starts warming up, the shootings start, and they always happen in certain areas.

By that, I mean the more "interesting" neighborhoods--Larimer, Homewood, Hazelwood, the Hill District (for those of you who watch hockey, it's the area around the Penguins arena), parts of Oakland (namely the slums in the southern section) have a well-deserved reputation for violence. I'm sure some people refer to those areas with various racial epithets, but you don't hear that too often. What you *do* hear, is how commuters speed through those areas and run the stop signs; and how nobody will open businesses there. Not because of how people refer to the areas...but because they don't want to get shot!

It's not all gloom and doom though. I can remember when the South Side was a shooting gallery in the early 1990s. It seemed that someone was getting shot or mugged nearly every damn night. The steel mill had closed in the 1980s, and the area had gone downhill.

10 years later, the mill had come down, and the area was refurbished. Now, it's booming. The city came in, and took out the trash. Gone are the abandoned buildings, the empty mill facilities, and other crap. The area changed, and now contains luxury apartments, a marina, restaurants, offices, and other high-end locations.

That area got lucky, in that someone was willing to take a chance and make a change. The other areas I mentioned? Nobody wants to invest there, simply because of the shit that goes on.