How Does Race Cause Violence In Chicago

Instructor Odom
Rhetoric 105, Section B4
6 December 2012
The Effects of Race on the city of Chicago
Chicago has been known for its violence. Many claim that it is due to class while others think it is due to race. Research of gangs typically does not include the role of race, though a closer look at gangs in Chicago tells a story of hatred between races. Frederic Thrasher, an experienced sociologist of gang research, followed Robert Park, a noted liberal and leader of the Chicago Urban League, in arguing that gangs were the problem of violence in the city and not race. Park says “gangs” came from the “city wilderness” without regard to race, creed, or color. Park along with Thrasher are both wrong since it is because of race that the
People in power and influence were the mainly Irish “voting gangs”. According to John Hagedorn, “These white gangs or ‘social athletic clubs’ (SACs) were organizations sponsored by politicians to provide boys and young men of the streets with ‘recreation’” (196). At the time of the 1920s, Thrasher approximated 250 gangs were in Chicago. SACs were a way for immigrants and migrants to be protected while local politicians could count on the vote of the gangs or as mentioned before - the voting gangs. Chicago 's SACs was a way for politicians to ensure their victory for re-election. For many young Irish, Italian, and Polish, SACs were a way to make a living because many were receiving jobs. These ethnic groups were becoming firemen, policemen, or sometimes they were joining the campaign of politicians. While ethnic groups like the Irish, Italians, and Poles gained positions of power, African Americans were denied the same opportunity and worse yet, were treated unfairly in many ways. For example Philpott exclaims that African Americans pay more than other immigrants. He says “Black belt residents paid higher rents for worse quarters than did immigrants; they took in more borders and had to tolerate the city’s vice district” (568). As more African Americans started migrating into Chicago, the Chicago municipal ordinance of 1923 helped contain them since there was a steady increase of African Americans in Chicago. In Christopher Silver’s essay on municipal ordinances, he explained how politicians in the United States used zoning to keep Africans Americans in the black belt. He says in his book “social reformers believed that zoning offered a way not only to exclude incompatible uses from residential areas but also to slow the spread of slums into better neighborhoods” (Silver,1). Also, African