Weird episode Mt. Greenwood Park -- is it typical? (Tinley Park: neighborhood, living) - Chicago - Illinois (IL) - City-Data Forum

ajolotl · 04-11-2010, 09:24 AM

Brought the kids to Mt. Greenwood Park last night. If you've never been, it has an incredible new kids play area and a new Ben & Jerry's across the street. There were probably 100 families taking advantage of a warm night. About 98 were kind of middle or working class looking white kids (many overfed). I saw one or two black families. Next to the park there were about 50-75 teenagers hanging out on the bleachers near the baseball diamond. 100% of them were white (this will become relevant in a minute). Reminded me of 1980 in Bridgeport.

At sunset most of the young kids started to leave and groups of teenagers starting descending on the park. Nothing abnormal -- they were just doing typical teenager stuff. Then one group of about six came jogging through the park with two of the kids screaming at the top of their lungs -- "all sp*cs and ni**ers out of the fu**ing park! get the f*ck out. Time to get the f**k out. They were acting like wild animals. A group came running up to them pointing toward a black family. They started running toward them screaming "get the f**k out". A crowd formed. I don't think anything happened but it was a total freak show.

Honestly, I had no clue this stuff still happened. If you're white and want to travel back in time 25 years for kicks, you should visit. If you're black or latino I would avoid the place. Not sure why blacks would even want to pass through Mt. Greenwood let alone move there.

ajolotl · 04-11-2010, 09:55 AM

It was certainly effective. I switched from Spanish to English quickly, and there wasn't so much as a tan white person left in the park.

Southside Shrek · 04-11-2010, 09:57 AM

I had no idea things were that volatile and bad.

ajolotl · 04-11-2010, 10:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Southside Shrek

I had no idea things were that volatile and bad.

I didn't either. Maybe it's atypical, but people seemed to treat this like it was nothing special. These kids were SCREAMING at the top of there lungs, as though it was the nightly siren.

I don't spend a lot of time in Mt. Greenwood, but I pass through frequently. There are certainly blacks here and there on 111th street west of Western. I guess there are some unofficial borders enforced by the local youth.

core17 · 04-11-2010, 10:06 AM

Wow, that's really . . . disgusting. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that there is still such hate around.

BRU67 · 04-11-2010, 11:00 AM

The idea that those kids will actually change anything is more grandiose than my idea. 99% of the blue collar, working class, whites living there won't be menacing minorities in Mt. Greenwood Park -- they'll be too busy loading up their U-Hauls for Tinley Park. Then, the cycle will repeat itself there at some point in the future, and so on and so forth.

Bottom line is that blue collar, working class folks cannot afford to isolate themselves. So a few will resort to futile gestures like this. But most of them will just continue to move around.

So we might want to start getting into that grandiose, multi-generational protocol sooner rather than later.

ajolotl · 04-11-2010, 11:04 AM

I agree with BRU. The uniform failures have been when people have fantasized that they could hunker down and protect their community by intimidation. It will never work. What's unique about this situation is that the residents can't just move because of the city worker law. I agree that most white-to-black neighborhood conversions don't result in anyplace that anyone with a choice would want to live, but at least there are a few examples of successes. I'd follow more the Beverly route -- focus on creating rules to eliminate conversions, minimize the chance of white flight, etc. and welcome anyone who can afford one of the properties (classism vs. racism). After all, well-to-do blacks seem to despise the ghetto culture as much as whites do.