Chicago Way w/John Kass: Growing up in one the city’s most dangerous neighborhoods
Chicago Way w/John Kass (02/05/24): On episode 426, Senior Technical Producer & life-long southside resident of Chicago Brian Althimer joins John Kass & Jeff Carlin to share his perspective as someone who was born Englewood and has seen how crime & disinvestment have changed the South Side of the city over his lifetime. Plus, Kasso wonders what secrets Brian can offer about Jeff Carlin.
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Comments 7
Good morning John.
Keep up the good work of honesty and integrity. I do not know if you saw that Obama had predicted and is did it again that America will not be a White Country and he and his wife made so much money they do not care, he said that America will be a Minority Country and the Teachers Unions and our Government take orders from him. Biden is taking order from Obama. We have known this for a long time, I do not care, I know I will not be around when it happens, and I feel bad for our kids, and the Black people that he neglected, never helped them in any way, a lot of them know it now, he threw them over for money and Greed. He wanted a Black America, I do not think that is happening. America will become the Middle East and China folks and I am sad to say you have no choice your children and grandchildren were brainwashed and the Black people have been used for Pawns. The Great Society of Lyndon Johnson destroyed the Black Family and there will be no more Ronald Reagans, the Republican Party is no more, the Evil has taken over. Elections are stolen left and right and people just do not seem to care. They have been brainwashed to believe that the plight of the Black people is the White Man’s fault. Absurd. It is done John. The Elites are running the Show in America and in the World, while they become more powerful and rich. Lol in the stupidity of people. God is in charge do not forget that people.
1. Whites, nonhispanics are 60% of USA population.
2. The largest ethnicity/race is Chinese at 60 to 63% of world population.
3. Whites, nonhispanics are 20% of world population.
U R A MINORITY HELEN! GET USE TO IT.
BTW when’s the next Klan meeting at your house
What’s happening is frightful, scary. I hope you are wrong about the hopelessness but I hear you. I feel the same as you do on some really bad days.
Miss Helen all is not lost….yet. I agree with you. Blacks have been played by the Democrats for years. Barack was no more black than I am. He was raised in Hawaii in a white family surrounded by Hawaiian culture. He didn’t become black until he moved to Chicago to work his hustle. Since his appearance favored his African father he was identified as a black man. The Democrats and their media cohorts attempt to identify “blacks and browns” as one even though we now see blacks don’t want browns taking their social services. I don’t blame them. They’re getting played again. Our New Democrat Illegals are being welcomed into our country with upscale hotel stays, cell phones and debit cards with thousands of dollars on them. Black people brought to this country hundreds of years ago didn’t get that welcome. Black citizens have served on our military and help build this country, yet Joe Biden says “you ain’t black if you don’t vote for Joe Biden”. I guess you lose your membership card and club privileges. I guess. Democrats are sorely wrong about one thing though and hopefully this translates into Republican votes. Hispanic Americans DO NOT support the massive illegal immigration invasion being sponsored by the Democrat party and Biden. Yes, Hispanics know the outcomes of the massive influx of illegals into this country. Driving wages down, especially in the blue collar sector. Many illegals work low paying jobs for cash thereby avoiding taxes or any other contribution to the public coffers. Blacks are already seeing a loss of social services in their neighborhoods. Educational funds will dry up as scholarships are taken by illegals children. Yes, you contributed but you won’t get the benefits. These are not racist tropes. These are realities. Bidens Criminals are now getting organized and fulfilling their objectives in coming here. Organized gangs are now spiking crime in the cities that have welcomed them. Hopefully the Republican party can take the White House and Senate and manage to keep the House so we can start the deportation of Bidens Criminals. Lets hope.
I had a gun to my head in 1985 outside the Chicago Stadium, cause I didn’t duke the kids asking to watch my car. Have escaped crime since, even though I have had the honor (and I mean it) of working, and walking extensively in neighborhoods like West Humboldt/Garfield Park, North Lawndale/Heart of Chicago and Altgeld Gardens. My one take away, all these neighborhoods are physically beautiful, parks, churches and homes and the people especeially. Its just a few people screwing it up for everyone else, not just gangs, but as Brian points out (more or less) but politicians, even journos who scare people away – equal parts in my book. I work in Albany Park, I could never afford to live here, every house is like a million dollars – its no different than Hinsdale, or Wheaton in terms of price. But people from Hinsdale and Wheaton are scared to death to even go to the city, yet here we are living it. Its both bizarre and cool at the same time. I refuse to be afraid – until I get hit again, then maybe a different tune I sing
Thank you for an interesting beginning to what could/should be an ongoing discussion. The subject is so deep and so profound and so multi-faceted that it will take many more discussions by more people of all races, religions, political views and opinions – and that concept really rings the proverbial bell. And it is a topic that simply will not bend to our current soundbite way of communicating.
Yep – Chicago girl, lived just west of Ashland on 82nd Street, Calumet Highschool, worked at 72nd & Racine. I don’t live there anymore – rats in the apartment drove us out – to 83rd & California…and then to other opportunities.
That building still stands at the corner of 82nd and Paulina. Same building – so what’s changed??? As I think back to those times: LOTS of kids in the neighborhood (heavily Irish-Catholic, though we were not), often called then a neighborhood of “the working poor”! But, what WAS it like? What DID we have? In the 21-flat apartment building where I lived, all of the families had a dad there. Next door was a fireman (drove tiller on a hook & ladder! That was one tough dude!!!); we had a policeman, a plumber, several construction laborers, my dad was a meat-cutter……that kind of neighborhood. As far as I knew, they all went to church. Not the same church – but they went. And there were more than just the Irish there – – several German families, two Polish, one Italian, one Greek, and the guy upstairs? We asked him once. His answer? “How the hell would I know?” and his wife just shrugged. The point? A real conglomerate of nationalities and faiths. What was important? It didn’t matter!!!!
What else did we have? It was pretty clean around there! EVERY Tuesday the moms and in the summer the older kids all were out on 82nd Street, sweeping and cleaning up in front of the building. We took pride in where we lived and it showed! If the city wouldn’t clean the streets, we did! And so did the folks in the other buildings. We cleaned up the vacant lot, too (our ‘prairie’) so we could play out there, and everyone helped. It beat playing in the alley!
We didn’t have television – we had the radio, we had books, we had a ball to play with, and when someone could find chalk, we could play hopscotch on the sidewalk. We didn’t have “programs” to keep us busy at the park, but we played our version of baseball in the alley (Mr. Gatzke’s garbage can being first base….that kind of baseball!) You know what else we didn’t have? A key to the back door of the apartment. No one could remember the last time we’d locked the door, and when we were going to leave for our very first ‘vacation’ (summer of 1950) first we had to figure out a key. So, dad and I walked down to Berman’s Hardware on Ashland and bought us a key (7 cents each for a skeleton key – buy all you want!), and we ‘locked’ the door!
Highschool was an amazing mix of south side kids – Calumet’s district went all the way from State Street out to the western boundary of the city, and the only school buses we ever saw was when the kids from Evergreen Park came to 81st & May for school! You could not name a race, religion, nationality or skin color that was not at Calumet! I can remember ONE fight when I was there – we heard it was football players arguing over a girl, but most of us never saw it or were part of it. That was IT!!! In that era, even bigger than Homecoming was CLEAN-UP WEEK!!! School crowned a king & queen, there was a big dance, the whole school participated in neighborhood clean-up, because that’s who we were and what we did!
Why is all of this important? Because it illustrates the combined, collected WILL OF THE PEOPLE WHO LIVED THERE to make their lives as good as could be under the economic conditions of the time. WE DECIDED our neighborhood would be safe! WE DECIDED our neighborhood would be clean! WE DECIDED that the few who thought they’d ‘be bad guys’ would be dealt with and would learn that that’s just not acceptable. And where did that all come from? Mr. Althimer touched on it – we clearly understood the concept of CONSEQUENCES!!!
Early on, we learned the truth of the old adage: For EVERY action, inaction and reaction – THERE IS A CONSEQUENCE!!! We learned it early and we learned it well. Until we collectively get back to that realization, to an acceptance of that inevitability, nothing is going to change!
I also believe that nothing on what we called the “soutside” is going to improve until the people themselves decide they’ve had enough. Until there is an acceptance of the idea and an understanding of the concept that no one can fix your situation….they can, perhaps, help you; but until YOU want it better, and are willing to put the proverbial shoulder to the wheel, it simply won’t happen. NO amount of outside money, ideas, programs etc is going to change anything, because it is all imposed from the outside. I cannot want a future for you, any more than you can want a future for me. We can help each other, but unless and until we want it for ourselves and are willing to do the work, it isn’t going to happen. We’re now seeing some of the government largesse being siphoned away from the needy in the Black community, being sent toward those who aren’t even citizens, and our Black friends who find themselves in some pretty tough spots are starting to see what happens when that “aid from outside” goes away – as it inevitably will.
Three women could have truly become the start of an incredible rebuilding and rebirth in a community so eagerly looking for help: Toni Preckwinkle, Lori Lightfoot and Kim Fox. If they had not been so indoctrinated into the “money – BIG MONEY -will solve all of this” idea, and if they’d truly led with their hearts and their intellect and their passion for their fellow citizens, the change they could have wrought would have been beyond monumental….but, they flopped. The dollar signs played the music and they danced. Brandon Johnson doesn’t even know for sure that today is Tuesday. Perhaps there is another – waiting to lead an eager people to a better life.
You are correct about the social media aspect leading to a lack of humanity. But when there are those who step up to help, liberal cities arrest them. What does that teach human beings? Our legal system is backwards.