Chi Raq documentary (Chicago, Lisle, Kansas: school, live in, statistics)

[Chi-town Native]

Originally Posted by Drover

I never quite understood this "the neighborhood needs more jobs" argument. While that would improve the economic vitality of the neighborhood, how many people actually work and live in the same neighborhood? And why should anyone want to invest in a neighborhood whose own residents wreak havoc on the place?

More jobs would certainly help, but what really kills me is this idea that society needs to somehow create jobs that will just magically show up close to someone's house.

I imagine that the vast majority of Chicagoans are traveling well outside their immediate neighborhood to work, hell, just look at the trains full of people going to the Loop every morning.

[Vlajos]

Originally Posted by EJ3791

Since when do the news media have time for facts and statistics?

[yoyoniner]

Originally Posted by nearnorth

You're missing the point. The only spike has been in negative national press. The murder trend, other than last year's weird blip for a couple of months, has been ever downward for decades now. Nobody wants murders to spike, we just want people dumb enough to believe they've spiked when they haven't to stay away.

What point? His point that a murder spike in 2008 and the subsequent negative national press is in fact a good thing because it keeps all the "idiots" and "dumb people" away? And his point that NYC became a success because they were left with only the "weirdos" after a two decade long crime spree? Are statements like this the type of "dumb people" you are talking about?

Chicago should be open to both smart people and "dumb people," whatever that self-sophisticated term even means, especially for a city that lost almost 200,000 people last Census.

[ChiNaan]

Originally Posted by Vlajos

It seems a lot of people have trouble understanding facts and statistics. It's especially bad when a "documentary" writer can't get it right.

There is certainly an intellectual laziness and often just flat-out anti-intellectualism gaining rapid ground in the West, particularly in the U.S., that I'm certain will ultimately be our downfall. (While we're denying math and science the Chinese are busy learning more of it.) In the case of this documentary, though, I don't think it's that he can't get it right so much as he didn't want to get it right. He's smart enough to know that reporting the reality isn't going to sell his movie.

[Vlajos]

Originally Posted by ChiNaan

There is certainly an intellectual laziness and often just flat-out anti-intellectualism gaining rapid ground in the West, particularly in the U.S., that I'm certain will ultimately be our downfall. (While we're denying math and science the Chinese are busy learning more of it.) In the case of this documentary, though, I don't it's that he can't get it right so much as he didn't want to get it right. He's smart enough to know that reporting the reality isn't going to sell his movie.

I'm afraid you're right.

[nearnorth]

Originally Posted by yoyoniner

a murder spike in 2008

The "spike" from 448 to 513, which was still lower than any total between the years of 1970 and 2003, and which returned to 459 the very next year? That "spike"? I think you need to learn the difference between a spike and a blip. The fact that the number doesn't drop every single year doesn't change the overall downward trend.

Originally Posted by yoyoniner

Chicago should be open to both smart people and "dumb people," whatever that self-sophisticated term even means

You don't know what intelligence (or lack of intelligence) means? I didn't exactly invent the concept. Sorry, but people who believe everything they're told and lack the basic intellectual curiosity to look up the actual facts are not people I want to live among. If that makes me self-sophisticated, I'll embrace that label.

[yoyoniner]

Originally Posted by nearnorth

The "spike" from 448 to 513, which was still lower than any total between the years of 1970 and 2003, and which returned to 459 the very next year? That "spike"? I think you need to learn the difference between a spike and a blip. The fact that the number doesn't drop every single year doesn't change the overall downward trend.

And his point that NYC became a success because they were left with only the "weirdos" after a two decade long crime spree? Are statements like this the type of "dumb people" you are talking about?



You don't know what intelligence (or lack of intelligence) means? I didn't exactly invent the concept. Sorry, but people who believe everything they're told and lack the basic intellectual curiosity to look up the actual facts are not people I want to live among. If that makes me self-sophisticated, I'll embrace that label.

You missed the point, I wasn't even discussing any murder spike. I was being sarcastic that a view that would embrace such a thing and the subsequent bad national press as good for Chicago, and the leap of logic that NYC was a success because of they were left with only the "weirdos" after 20 years of crime, are both in and of themselves the very anti-intellectualism that you apparently deride. Did this really need explaining? Which begs the question, just who are the "dumb people"?

[nearnorth]

Originally Posted by yoyoniner

Which begs the question, just who are the "dumb people"?

Which part of "people dumb enough to believe they've spiked when they haven't" or "people who believe everything they're told and lack the basic intellectual curiosity to look up the actual facts" did I not make clear enough?

My only point was that I don't want to live among those people, and am fine with the false negative publicity keeping those people away. The other stuff you're discussing has no relation to any of my posts on this thread, so take it up with the other poster you're referring to.

[Chi-town Native]

Originally Posted by nearnorth

Which part of "people dumb enough to believe they've spiked when they haven't" or "people who believe everything they're told and lack the basic intellectual curiosity to look up the actual facts" did I not make clear enough?

My only point was that I don't want to live among those people, and am fine with the false negative publicity keeping those people away. The other stuff you're discussing has no relation to any of my posts on this thread, so take it up with the other poster you're referring to.

I have to agree. If someone's idea of researching an urban idea is limited to 30 second soundbites and mass media hysteria, maybe Chicago isn't really for them. As in, please stay the hell away.

[Chi-town Native]

Originally Posted by ChiNaan

There is certainly an intellectual laziness and often just flat-out anti-intellectualism gaining rapid ground in the West, particularly in the U.S., that I'm certain will ultimately be our downfall. (While we're denying math and science the Chinese are busy learning more of it.) In the case of this documentary, though, I don't think it's that he can't get it right so much as he didn't want to get it right. He's smart enough to know that reporting the reality isn't going to sell his movie.

I think your larger point is spot on, but I think the producer's idea was simply to share a first-person accounting of Chicago's violence from people who are right in the thick of it.

I can't fault that. Chicago's slow but steady homicide rate decline doesn't really mean much to people who either can't afford to live in most parts of Chicago, or just don't really know how to get out of their violent neighborhood due to the social webs.

I may have missed this, but I'm also guessing that homicide rates are either steady or increasing in some specific neighborhoods.

An odd truth I learned from teens I worked with who were Cabrini residents, was that most of them had never been outside of Chicago. I mean never. And in many cases they never really traveled much further than the North Avenue beach or occasionally downtown. I personally can't fathom that, and I just imagine how much more isolating it must be to only know some messed up area like the Wild 100s as your home.