Alan Mills > Recent Status Updates

The author fails to consider history, and specifically the 40 year history of organizing against racism and gentrification in Uptown (and more recently in Rogers Park). Similarly, his predictions of the future are doomed by the failure to examine the past. In 2024, Uptown & Rogers Park are represented by progressive African American Alderpersons, and Uptown’s State Rep and Edgewater’s Alderperson are both Asian!

Perfect example: Jan quotes a loiterer as saying, “positive loitering as an open forum where neighbors could meet and connect.” Except if those neighbors were all young Black men, then the loiterers would harass them! Jan completely fails to note the hypocrisy that only some people are allowed to gather—young Black men are not; they are assumed to be engaged in criminal activity. Double standards abound!

Issue is whether positive loitering is racist. Jan looks at the racial makeup of the loiterers to suggest that at least one group is not. It the issue isn’t who is loitering; it is who is being targeted. No mention of the fact that EVERY person targeted by the group was Black!

Jan continually discusses the “public safety” group as focused on drug dealing—which they equate with “gang loitering.” Allegedly, dispersing these loiterers would drive the drug dealing out of the neighborhood. BUT, Jan (and the activists) focus only on the dealers and fail to ask who the customers are? They are often those very homeowners in Uptown.

He hires Ald Cappleman as stating he is in FAVOR of affordable housing, but it has to be done in a way that doesn’t make people afraid. But making people afraid is not a crime, and doesn’t suggest that residents of affordable housing are doing anything wrong.

I’m the end, looked at objectively, far from fighting crime, the safety advocates were committing crimes!

This lead him to the odd position that he would not examine whether the crime fighters were actually reducing crime. So, for example, he dispassionately reports a CAPS meeting where residents were urged to call 911 about any “suspicious” activity. But being “suspicious is NOTa crime. Calling 911 when there is no evidence that anyone is breaking the law is a CRIME.

This is a disturbing book. The concept is great: how are gentrification and crime linked, focused on those residents proclaiming that they are improving public safety versus those residents who claim they are working for social justice. However, the author self-proclaims that his study was undertaken through a narrowly focused sociological lens.

Great so far. But what do the chapter headings mean? Google has failed me!!!

Fascinating examination of the attempts (none really were successful; some temporary alliances; some total failures—at least in the first 85 pages) to build unity between Black, Chicano, and radical white orgs in the 1960’s.

She talks about Sandy Hook, and the failure of Congress to enact any meaningful gun laws, but depersonalizes that failure. Do I need to love those who intentionally block gun control laws for their own gain? Why can’t I just recognize that they are, in fact, monsters?

Reconciliation: she considers whether to reconcile with her abuser. But admits that reconciliation requires accountability. But what if the infliction of harm is ongoing, intentional, and without remorse? That would make reconciliation impossible, by her own admission.

It seems she agrees: when attacked your job is to defend, not understand. If all she is saying is that it is the job of White people to confront white racists, I agree, but it is hardly a revolutionary idea. The Black Panthers and SNCC both said the same thing about 50 years ago!

Talking to bigots, making the point that understanding is not reaching an agreement.

But what if instead of talking those men had dragged her friend out back, set him on fire and lynched him, b/c he was not human and had brown skin? In the midst of a lynching, her goal wouldn’t be to understand them. Would she urge her friend to live them as they lured gasoline over his body? Or would she fight back?

I fundamentally disagree. They may be wounded—and wound someone often enough and young enough and you will create them—but they can ALSO be monsters. Requiring a child to love the parent who raped them at the age of five is all too often held out as the only way to heal. This is a dangerous myth, and prevents healing more than it fosters it.

The first section was good, but nothing earth shattering. Basically, we would all be better off if oppressors loved the oppressed, rather than dehumanizing them. It is the second section, love your enemies, that I have problems with. She states, “But there are no such thing as monsters in this world, there are only human beings who are wounded.”

I fundamentally disagree.

Even Nesbo gets it:

“Jobs. Giving people work. That’s the best and cheapest initiative against crime. We can fill our prisons, but as long as we have people walking the streets without food….”

Just finished the chapter on repressive enzymes, and I thought it sounded vaguely familiar, but I don’t think I ever read about it before.

On a hunch, I looked up the dad of friends of mine from ELEMENTARY SCHOOL!!! Turns out he won the Nobel Prize for related work in 1978 (10 years after we moved away and lost touch). Small world indeed!

Slow to start.1/2 way through and I’m a little disappointed. The other book I read by the same author was much better.

About to start chapter 8 (finished “play”).

Just finished section on AIM. Depressing, but highly informative!

So far...wonderful!

Apparently, Coyotes have learned to “read” red lights—crossing on “walk.” Not understanding traffic patterns is not a favored trait for survival!

"The most scandalous part of scandal is the getting used to it"

Simone de Beauvoir