Racial tension in Chicago? (schools, to live in, malls)

[Don Vito]

Originally Posted by aragx6

Sure, but the city is 64 percent white and Clinton was born in the area, so I think the point is if this city were so painfully racist as some seem to believe, then he wouldn't have won, or at least by no where near the margin he has.

Well actually Chicago is 42 percent white. Furthermore latino's make up a solid 26 percent (thats one in four, people). My point is an area can be "painfully" racist (although i do not think chicago is painfully racist) and still elect blacks. Take for example the south where a good portion of the congressional black cacus is from. The south has a deep and painful history regarding race relations, yet more blacks are elected from that region than new england, the midwest or the west coast. I suppose I'm just saying obama's victory in Chicago can't really be used as some sort of correlation to the race relations in Chicago. Chicago is democratic turf and obama's turf as the election results clearly show. I challenge you however, to remember counties such as dupage, lake, will, kane(virtually the rest of the state): where the majority of people couldnt care less about obama, hillary, or the democrates for that matter.

[aragx6]

Duh to me on the percentages thing. Totally my bad.

[mdz]

I challenge you however, to remember counties such as dupage, lake, will, kane(virtually the rest of the state): where the majority of people couldnt care less about obama, hillary, or the democrates for that matter.

Well, not this year. Check out the data:

Election Center 2008 - Election & Politics News from CNN.com

DuPage had about 130K vote in the democrat primary, 115K in the Republican
Lake had 91K in the dems, 50k vote in Republican
Will had about 84K vote for the dems, 49K in the republican.

And the republican race was far from locked up before Super Tuesday.

Downstate is of course still heavily republican, but the collar counties aren't automatic republican strongholds anymore, and the above suggests things may be a bit different this year.

Truth be told, the proof will be what happens in November, but the Kerry-Bush races in the collar counties were pretty darned close in 2004.

[Lookout Kid]

There is a lot of racism here, I'm sure. But I don't think it's worse than any other urban area in the U.S. with large minority populations. Typically the cities with the most diversity are the ones with racism troubles.

[Drover]

Originally Posted by Don Vito

Well actually Chicago is 42 percent white. Furthermore latino's make up a solid 26 percent (thats one in four, people). My point is an area can be "painfully" racist (although i do not think chicago is painfully racist) and still elect blacks. Take for example the south where a good portion of the congressional black cacus is from. The south has a deep and painful history regarding race relations, yet more blacks are elected from that region than new england, the midwest or the west coast.

Could it be because that the south is where there is the highest percentage of blacks as a proportion of population? How many blacks do you expect to be elected from states that have maybe a 5% black population? How many blacks are there in New England outside of Boston and inner suburbs? Pretty close to zero. And to quote Chris Rock, "The only black people in Minnesota are Prince and Kirby Puckett." So it shouldn't be much surprise that there aren't as many black representatives in those areas.

[Avengerfire]

Originally Posted by aragx6

Sure, but the city is 64 percent white and Clinton was born in the area, so I think the point is if this city were so painfully racist as some seem to believe, then he wouldn't have won, or at least by no where near the margin he has.

Hillary was born at the same hospital as me-Edgewater Hospital on Ashland. She grew up in Park Ridge however, which is hardly urban,is still at least 90% White, and very wealthy.

[aragx6]

Sure but the sad thing for her is even the educated whites (which one might think as much a shoo-in for her as Chicago's blacks are for him) still vote for Obama too!

[Love Cobb]

Racism in Chicago is very real! It is not based on anything other than prejudging one based on their skin color. No matter how much money you have or personal/professional accomplishments you have made doesn't matter. Racism is still very prevelent in most Chicago neighborhoods. I have lived in northern cities and southern cities and whites and blacks lived side by side in the same neighborhoods, not so in my city of Chicago, and Hyde Park/Univ of Chicago doesn't count.

[misspetite]

LOL. A half black presidential candidate winning the state primary over a white one has nothing to do with how racist Chicago is. That's about as valid as the age old "I'm not racist, I have (insert race/ethnicity here) friends".

[aragx6]

I think often that people who say "I have (insert race/ethnicity here) friends" don't actually have friends who are - or at least close ones.

I think however it'd be pretty hard to say someone is racist, if their closest friends actually are of another ethnicity no?