Yes, Institutional Violence Does Exist and It Exacerbates Youth Violence

"The day that the city of Chicago decides to divide schools by gang territory, that’s the day we have given up the city." -- Mayor Daley (Chicago Sun-Times, Oct. 9).

To a certain degree Daley is right: Gang territories change so quickly that always altering who goes to what school depending on who took over the corner would be a ridiculous proposition. The problem with the statement is that it completely ignores the fact that the city has and continues to put profits before the lives of our youth. The fact is that if they choose to close a school, they should at least try to plan to limit potential violence from gangs and racial conflicts.

A case study: Collins High School

Collins is located within Douglas Park in the West Side neighborhood of North Lawndale. It is a community most white Chicagoans have never been to and only hear about when they make it on the news as the site of bad journalism. North Lawndale, a community that is 95% black, is located directly north of a community called South Lawndale, now referred to as Little Village. Little Village is 95%, or more, Latino. Can you predict the trouble that is coming? Chicago Public Schools officials seemed not to be able to when they made a decision that guaranteed the eruption of youth violence.

In 2007 Collins hosted its last class. Earlier in the 2000s the Chicago Public Schools board approved a plan to close Collins and turn the building into three charter schools. Now, white Chicago views this as the city making strides to increase the educational opportunities in an underserved community. Parents in North Lawndale knew better, especially when they were informed where their children would have to go to school instead of walking to one in their community: Little Village High School.

Little Village High School is an amazing building that was built as a result of an inspiring struggle by parents and community members, who, for too long, were without a community high school for their children to attend. I was lucky enough to get a tour of the school from teachers, students, and parents who struggled to get this school constructed in their community.  I took the tour as part of a yearlong graduate research class that was studying gentrification in North Lawndale.

Part of our tour was a discussion on the topic of the race and gang problems at the campus and especially off campus after school hours. What we heard echoed what we heard from teachers at the soon to be defunct Collins. Race-based and gang violence were encountered by students coming and going from school, especially if they stayed past school hours for extracurricular activities, when bus service was not available.  Simply put, it was not safe for black students, mostly male, to walk home from the campus because of the fear of gang-related violence. Parents and teachers at Collins literally had to stand on street corners creating a safe passage route for black students to get back to North Lawndale. These are heroic actions by the parents of mostly Latino youth trying to prevent violence that anyone should have been able to predict. Also, parents of the former Collins students were also out to help prevent violence as the youth returned to North Lawndale.  If you are seeing a pattern, it is not by chance. Heroic actions by the parents of children of color in under-served communities in Chicago do occur; they just don’t make the news. 

Institutional violence

Who in their right mind thought it would be a good educational decision to move black kids from 95% black North Lawndale to Little Village High School in the 95% or more Latino community of Little Village?  Without even touching the topic of gangs, racial violence was predictable if not guaranteed.  The decision making process is not open so there is no way to learn if this was even discussed.  It might be better to think they screwed up and did not account for it rather than the possibility that they did know about it, but did nothing to prevent it. 

North Lawndale is controlled primarily by the Vice Lords while the Latin Kings and 26ers primarily control Little Village, and they tend not to get along.  Busing in children from North Lawndale was an obvious accelerant on a situation where there was already violence among the gangs.  The Vice Lords have been the primary gang in North Lawndale for about 40 years, so I am sure local officials had heard about them and that they might not get along with a Latino gangs. 

The decision to close Collins and move those students to Little Village guaranteed violence on a number of different levels.  Local officials should have taken this into account before that decision had been made.  This is what is meant by institutional violence: decisions being made at the highest levels without taking into account the repercussions.  Much of this violence would never have taken place had Collins not been closed and forced those students into a situation ripe for gang and racial violence. Foresight is not a mysterious power. It can flow from a process that includes the examination of the long-term effects of their decisions.

Something to think about:

Now I am sure it was just a coincidence that three years after the closing of Collins, Douglas Park was slated to host the swimming events for an Olympics that never was to come. Also, the fact that one of the Chicago Public School board members who voted on the Collins closure would be embroiled in a land deal involving property on the outskirts of Douglas Park was just chance, right?

 

Follow Tracy Siska on Twitter: www.twitter.com/CJPJustProj

Comments

[learnsupport]

07:48 PM on 10/14/2009

When Collins was the only choice for high school students from North Lawndale, their safety and security circumstances were even worse. GDs from west of Pulaski had to run the gauntlet of Vice Lords and then New Breeds, before they even made it to the Collins Campus. Vice Lords had a no less dangerous gauntlet to run with New Breeds waiting to beat them down. There was no one from the school that would walk out into the neighborhood, like at LVHS, to make sure that these students made it out OK. And there were no special CTA buses taking them to and from the school campus, like there are at LVHS.
So, you can't state that no one thought of the needs of students from North Lawndale as they were being redirected to LVHS. The parent patrols, special police patrols, bus route extension, school staff on safe passage duty, extensive security camera deployment -- all meant to make a potential disaster much more manageable.
And, all those North Lawndale students got to attend one of the best built, best equipped, most diverse and best staffed schools on the South side of Chicago.

[K Kasper]

10:30 PM on 10/13/2009

Your article assumes that creating desegregated schools will only increase violence. It also assumes that that administration of LVLHS had the ability to choose its students when doors opened in 2005. I do not believe that either are true. Creating culturally diverse schools allows students a chance to learn and grow from each other. Tension can be seen as negative, or a chance for learning about how to exist in a world that pits one race against each other to keep the systems of power in place. This is what we try to teach at Social Justice High School on the Little Village Lawndale Campus. Secondly, the consent decree demanded by law in 2005 who would attend the school. Students from nearby Farrugut -- not Collins were most affected by this change. Furthermore, if a parent wants to keep his or her child in North Lawndale there are several quality schools such as North Lawndale College Prep for students to attend. Suggesting that we solve institutionalized racism by simply re-segregating the school system does not make any sense to this educator.

[mikerobjohn]

06:02 PM on 10/12/2009

I grew up in one of the many ghettos in Washington, DC and my goal was to make sure that my kids did not grew up in the ghetto. When I was young, it was not bad but as time went on, it started getting worst.

Why don't these people have the same goal and that is that they do not want their kids to grow up where they grew up?

To accomplish this goal, here what needs to be done:
1) Observe what the masses are doing and do the opposite.

2) Make sure you graduate from High School with good grades.

3) Do not get pregnant or get someone pregnant. It's not good for the child. They will grow up where you grew up.

4) GO TO College.

5) Don't go to jail.

6) Marry someone who went to college!