Posted on 03/23/2013 11:09:43 PM PDT by grundle
CHICAGO (CBS) – The Chicago Public Schools’ plan to close 53 schools and 61 buildings, mostly in black neighborhoods, has some West Side residents vowing to fight the Emanuel administration until the end.
As WBBM Newsradio’s Mike Krauser reports, to hear some tell it on the West Side, Mayor Rahm Emanuel is a racist liar who doesn’t care about the kids. And they’re just getting started.
“I don’t see any Caucasians being moved, bussed, or murdered in the streets as they travel along gang lines, or stand on the steps of a CPS school,” said activist Wendy Matil Pearson as opponents of the school closing plans protested outside Horatio May Elementary Community Academy in the Austin neighborhood. play pause
Protesters shouted “save our schools!” as they outside May on Friday, a day after CPS released its list of 53 schools and 61 buildings it plans to close at the end of the school year, to help address a projected $1 billion budget shortfall.
May Elementary and nearby Louis Armstrong Math & Science Elementary School would be closed under the CPS plan, and their students would join George Leland Elementary School, although the new Leland would be placed in the current May building. All three buildings are located on the same half-mile stretch of Congress Parkway.
RELATED: CPS Plans To Close 53 Schools, 61 Buildings RELATED: List Of Planned School Closings RELATED: Reasons Why CPS Is Closing Each School
The protesters said the CPS school closing plan would bring nothing more than more street violence and more blight.
“We will have more gangs, more murders, more killers, and everything,” said CPS student Brittany Sanders.
Kids yelled out the windows of the school as parents, teachers, and activists gathered out front.
Dwayne Truss, assistant director of the grassroots school advocacy group Raise Your Hand, said opponents of the school closings would do everything they can to keep schools open.
“We’re here to stand up to the bully, a.k.a. Rahm Emanuel, a.k.a. the one-term mayor,” he said.
Valerie Leonard, co-founder of the Lawndale Alliance, accused the mayor of trying to drive African Americans out of the city.
“He says that he wants to turn around the city of Chicago, make a new Chicago. Does that new Chicago mean no black folks?” she said. “Where are people going to go? They’re not going to stay around in the community if there are no schools!”
The protesters said they don’t buy the mayor’s claim students will get better educations when they are moved out of buildings with low enrollment. The district has said the money saved from closing schools will be used to improve the “welcoming schools” where students are relocated.
“It’s a lie!” protesters repeatedly shouted.
Responding to the safety concerns of some parents, Chicago Board of Education Vice President Jesse Ruiz tells CBS 2′s Brad Edwards: “I know the neighborhoods out there. I do empathize, and thus it’s critically important to me that we get it right.”
The protesters weren’t the first to accuse Emanuel of racism in his school-closing effort. The Chicago Teachers Union has repeatedly said the school closing plans are racist, as most of the schools that would be closed are in African-American communities.
On Thursday, CTU President Karen Lewis said the plan was both “racist” and “classist,” and she called Emanuel “the murder mayor.”
“He is the murder mayor,” she said, referencing the city’s recent problems with gun violence. “Look at the murder rate in this city. He’s murdering schools, he’s murdering good jobs. He’s murdering housing. I don’t know what else to call him. He’s the murder mayor.”
The district’s plan to close schools must be approved by the Chicago Board of Education. Public hearings will be held to discuss the schools targeted for closure before a final vote in late May.
When your opponents are eating their own, keep a respectful silence until the meal is finished.
Majority of those who have left are working tax paying white devils.
Replaced by takers.
Riots up til now have been blacks in black neighborhoods. Will be a whole different ballgame if they go target whites in white neighborhoods.
From the article: “I don’t see any Caucasians being moved, bussed, or murdered in the streets as they travel along gang lines, or stand on the steps of a CPS school,” said activist Wendy Matil Pearson...
Don’t blame all of the mayhem on “Dead Fish” Rahm. The fact that some segments of the society allow themselves to live in war-zone conditions is not wholly a function of government. As long as the local community tolerates the gang violence, they should expect gang violence to continue. As long as the local community tolerates drug traffic, prostitution, and street violence, they should expect it to continue.
If they are unwilling to stand up for their own communities, the government is at a decided disadvantage right from the start.
The decades-long ‘war’ on drugs and ‘war’ on poverty have clearly demonstrated this.
Blame Rahm (and Zero) for a lot. But, I’d suggest a good, sober look in the mirror for these people to find those really responsible for the deplorable conditions in their neighborhoods.
Bingo.
You hit the nail on the head.
This isn’t about education, it’s about keeping the Union folks working.
““I don’t see any Caucasians being moved, bussed, or murdered in the streets as they travel along gang lines, or stand on the steps of a CPS school,” said activist Wendy Matil Pearson.
Hey, Wendy, people create their environment. White kids don’t get shot and majority white schools don’t get closed because white people don’t create environments that lead to such chaos.
If you want to whine about black kids getting shot and black schools being closed because they’re failing, then whine to the only people that can actually change the environment they create — the black community.
“It will be black Dems attacking liberal white Dems in Chicago. Burn Chicago burn.”
BURN, MOFO BABY, BURN
“He is the murder mayor,” she said, referencing the city’s recent problems with gun violence. “Look at the murder rate in this city. He’s murdering schools, he’s murdering good jobs. He’s murdering housing. I don’t know what else to call him. He’s the murder mayor.”
Yet none of the above means you have to go out and murder a person. Murdering people is the major problem in Chicago’s black community right now. Rahm, to the best of my knowledge, hasn’t murdered anyone. Once again, these black community spokespeople are placing blame outward when they should be placing blame inward. Honest introspection is too difficult for some people, I guess.
I suppose that it has not dawned on Ms. Pearson that the reason few Caucasians are being moved is because there are almost no Caucasians left in the Chicago Public Schools.
Karen Lewis is neck and neck with Jessee Jackson as to who is the biggest racist.
I work in Chicago. I see the tension building daily. This may be a very bad summer. If there are no race riots or a race war I will be surprised (pleased, but surprised).
Very apt analogy.
No really crazy....
The Chicago school system has capacity for over 500,000 students....a little more than 400,000 attend...
The laws of economics still apply even in a socialist hellhole like Chicago....
Rahm back from his ski trip.
Note that no high schools are being closed. Apparently the threat of gang violence is too great.
Not all kids will be bussed, some will have to walk only a few blocks, but will be going into another gang’s zone. Some kids will have to walk through 3 different gangs’ territories.
"I don’t see any Caucasians being moved, bussed, or murdered in the streets as they travel along gang lines, or stand on the steps of a CPS school,” said activist Wendy Matil Pearson...That *is* an amazing coincidence!
Valerie Leonard, co-founder of the Lawndale Alliance, accused the mayor of trying to drive African Americans out of the city. "He says that he wants to turn around the city of Chicago, make a new Chicago. Does that new Chicago mean no black folks? ...Where are people going to go? They’re not going to stay around in the community if there are no schools!"Hey, he didn't say he was ending your taxpayer-funded free ride, so calm down.
Approximately 10,500 police were sent in, and by April 6, more than 6,700 Illinois National Guard troops arrived in Chicago. President Lyndon B. Johnson also sent 5,000 U.S. army troops into the city. The General in charge declared that no one was allowed to have gatherings in the riot areas, and he authorized the use of tear gas. Mayor Richard J. Daley gave police the authority "to shoot to kill any arsonist or anyone with a Molotov cocktail in his hand ... and ... to shoot to maim or cripple anyone looting any stores in our city."[5]
The south side ghetto had escaped the major chaos mainly because the two large street gangs, the Blackstone Rangers and the East Side Disciples, cooperated to control their neighborhoods. Many gang members did not participate in the rioting, due in part to King's direct involvement with these groups in 1966.[2] wikipedia...
Chicago was a modern day first - a 1968 race riot - 24 years before LA's 1992 Rodney King race riot...
/bingo
Those students are being transferred to other schools.
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