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.
Allow the law-abiding citizens in ghettos to legally arm themselves.
I feel sorry for the kids caught in the middle, but politically speaking, ROFLMHO!!!!!!!!!!!!!
IMHO Chicago may be the first city to have race riots. GOP should keep their mouth shut and let the Dems hang themselves. In times of austerity, inner city blacks will be the first to riot. They got use to the handouts and will not take the word no for a solution. It will be black Dems attacking liberal white Dems in Chicago. Burn Chicago burn.
There used to be stories back the cold war days that the Soviets planted nuclear weapons in the United States in various secure locations in the event of a war with us. Since the USSR fell, those stories fell into obscurity. We have a situation now where every crime ridden minority dominated inner city is the equivalent of one of those hidden H-bombs, but placed there after many decades of planning by the left. Teaming hellholes of race hate, violent crime and poverty, held over the abyss by the thread of EBT cards, useless make-work government jobs, and other forms of “financial assistance”. Cutting that thread would like phoning NORAD with launch sequences but with the ICBM’s pointed right back at us.
[It will be black Dems attacking liberal white Dems in Chicago. Burn Chicago burn.]
The urban riots of the late 1960’s helped splinter the Democrats and led to a GOP resurgence in 1968.
>> 53 schools and 61 buildings it plans to close at the end of the school year
Closing 53 schools sounds crazy, but does that mean the attending students will have no place to go next school year?
The scumbag Democrat “mainstream” newsrooms must gnash their teeth when they have to report these scumbag vs. scumbag battles.
As for me, break out the popcorn, lol.
They have had a huge population loss.
They were structured to handle many more students in the past.
But, the students are not there to fill the schools.
The current students will be absorbed into other schools,
It means they'll go a couple blocks away to another half-empty school building. You do realize that this is all about having to use tax dollars to pay fewer principals, teachers, "guidance counselors", a zillion miscellaneous "administrators", school nurses, janitors, etc., etc., etc.? It's all about the unions. The kids have nothing to do with this battle.
So a lot of hype about practical measures. No surprise there.
>> It’s all about the unions. The kids have nothing to do with this battle.
Agreed. And they were on strike not that long ago.
What will make the Chicago riots fun to watch is how the IL governor and Pres Obama will react. Typically they will take their time trying to make a decision because they will be ordering troops in to crush their supporters. Gov Quin is going to hesitate and Pres Obama will be even worst as Chicago burns and the Mayor is screaming for help.
Problem is Chicago enrollment in public schools have dropped badly. They have enough schools for 600,000 pupils, but only 500,000 students attend public schools. Keeping schools open with classrooms short 15 to 20 percent of students cost money to operate, money Chicago does not have.
blacks murder other blacks. good grief they blame the white guy for blacks murdering other blacks.
and the whole i don’t see white people being murdered... that’s because honey, white people are not in gangs like blacks and aren’t targeting their own people - or anyone - like blacks are.
Chicago is divided into little feudal duchies, and each little fiefdom is savagely protective of it's turf. As long as the little barons declare fidelity to the Man on Five, and provide the requisite number of votes, they are paid, and otherwise ignored.
It's sort of hard on slow children caught in the crossfire, but the smart ones survive and eventually take over their father's baronies.
I'd call it a return to the Dark Ages, but that's racist.
It’s going to be a “long, hot, ugly summer” in Chicago.
He probably feels that the more carnage in the black community the better, sort of a "good riddance to bad rubbish" philosophy.
Sorry Chicago, you bought it you live (or die) with it.
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