[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 111 (Wednesday, July 16, 2014)]
[House]
[Pages H6347-H6349]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          VIOLENCE IN CHICAGO

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pittenger). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 3, 2013, the Chair recognizes the gentleman 
from Illinois (Mr. Rush) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. RUSH. Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor now because of a serious 
concern, a deadly concern even, that the people of my district, the 
First Congressional District of Illinois, the citizens of the great 
city of Chicago, and indeed those from around our country, that they 
are experiencing and that they are witnessing, and that is the 
preponderance of violence, killings, young people killing each other, 
and innocent bystanders shot down on the streets of my city.
  They leave victims of gun violence perpetrated by young men, older 
citizens, retirees, victims of gun violence in my city.
  One will get the notion that the name attributed to my city is 
apropos, that it is a worthy name, Chiraq, a nickname that has been 
associated with my city.
  Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor today to say that this great city 
that I love, these people--worthy people of the First Congressional 
District, these hardworking Americans who have contributed greatly to 
the greatness of this Nation, they don't live in a place called Chiraq. 
Chiraq is not apropos.
  We wholeheartedly and determinedly resist and repudiate any 
references to our city with the inappropriate--grossly inappropriate 
name of Chiraq. We don't embrace Chiraq and none of its implications.
  Yes, there is a focus on the violence that occurs in our city, but, 
Mr. Speaker, I maintain that this functionality in Chicago and in other 
places across the country is a direct result of decades-long failed 
governmental policies, failed public policies, policies that have 
emanated out of this very institution, this Federal Government, 
policies that have emanated out of State capitals all across this 
Nation and city halls, village halls, all across this Nation, decades-
long.
  Mr. Speaker, we are not talking about just the vestiges of slavery 
and that dark period of American history. We are not just speaking 
about segregation and all of the abuses and all of the trauma that 
segregation has caused upon African Americans.

                              {time}  1830

  We are not just talking about Jim Crow laws that were a result of 
public policies. Mr. Speaker, we are not just talking about all of the 
policies that emanated out of this institution, the housing policies in 
my very city that until the seventies denied African Americans in my 
city to actually acquire a mortgage which was and still is the 
foundation of a middle class lifestyle, a foundation for the American 
Dream. Without the ability to get a mortgage, to own a home, the 
American Dream becomes an American nightmare.

[[Page H6348]]

  That is what we have experienced over these last decades--structural 
inequities, structural discrimination. Mr. Speaker, I am here to say 
this evening that there are three d's that define the structural 
inequities, structural problems in my city and other cities across this 
Nation.
  At the foundation of the violence that we are witnessing today--and I 
would just plead with anyone in this Chamber, anyone who is viewing 
this today in any capacity, on any platform throughout the Nation, 
please do not mistake anything that I say or feel as being an attempt 
to coddle criminals, to somehow give a sense of relief to those who are 
killing innocent people in our communities. They are just as wrong as 
they could ever be, and I am not in any way trying to give them cover.
  But if we want to get some real answers, then we are going to have to 
ask some real questions. Know ye the truth, the Bible says, and it 
shall set you free.
  The truth of the matter is that this violence can be summed up for 
the most part in terms of its causes by these three d's.
  Discrimination. Years and years, decades and decades of 
discrimination. Discrimination that has denied hardworking Americans 
access to the best that this Nation can provide. Discrimination not of 
the southern type, more subtle, more insidious, even in some ways more 
deadly than anything that the Ku Klux Klan could ever devise. This 
subtle institutional discrimination that has been a part of the culture 
in my city for too long and that takes on different characteristics is 
able to mask itself. Even with the good intentions of some of our 
friends, some people who will recall at the assault, that they might 
have mistakenly involved themselves at some point in time in being a 
part of the problem rather than a part of the solution.
  Discrimination is alive and well in my city, even today. The 
hopelessness that young people find themselves facing and embracing 
here in the year 2014 in this Nation, the hopelessness just completely 
engulfs their very existence. Every waking hour, they are confronted 
every day of the week, every week of the month, every month of the 
year. Year by year by year by year they are faced with total despair 
and utter hopelessness that erupts and stands tall in this 
institutional framework that is built upon discrimination. 
Discrimination rises up and causes all types of dysfunction in those 
who are discriminated against. Discrimination, the first d.
  Discrimination leads very quickly to disinvestment, the second d. You 
can discriminate against a community, against a people, and thereby you 
can disinvest in those communities--on the south side and the west side 
and the north side of the city, particularly on the south and the west 
side. My friend Congressman Davis is here and he can speak very, very 
appropriately and eloquently to the discrimination of people on the 
west side of the city.
  But the disinvestment, the stark disinvestment can't be denied. These 
patterns of disinvestment in our schools, in our business districts, in 
our housing, in our recreational opportunities, in our parks, on our 
streets, this rampant disinvestment decades long has led to a sense of 
frustrated rage. When there is no way out for families, for neighbors, 
for neighborhoods, for communities, then psychologists will tell you 
that violence is a byproduct of that failure to believe and to hope and 
to be assured that you have a future, that you have a stake. Life loses 
its meaning when there is no significant and righteous investment in 
the future of any of our citizens, particularly those who are young and 
those who have easy access to guns.
  Mr. Speaker, I agree with the National Rifle Association on this one 
matter: guns don't kill people; people kill people. But I disagree with 
them, and I want to take it a little further, because that is only one 
side of the coin. We are not just talking about people. We are talking 
about a hopeless people. People without hope for the future. Anybody, 
regardless of race, creed, color, sex, or nationality, anybody when you 
are caught, caged into a corner with no hope of getting out, you are 
going to turn violent. That is a part of the human makeup. Your 
violence is going to be directed to somebody. So the NRA, if it is 
going to be truthful, then it just cannot deal with any kind of people. 
It has got to deal more pointedly at people who have no hope.
  This disinvestment has led to staggering intergenerational 
unemployment. The bottom didn't fall out of the economy on the west 
side and the south side of the city of Chicago in '07, '08, and '09. 
The bottom fell out 25 years ago, 50 years ago, and it never has been 
repaired. There is no safety net in my city. It is like a bottomless 
pit. Generations yet to be born are still facing those desperate 
conditions, still will face that despair, still will face this gross 
disinvestment.
  Why aren't there jobs in my city for my community, for my district, 
no light manufacturing?

                              {time}  1845

  Why is it that in my city we have to fight the labor unions in order 
to get employment or labor jobs? Why don't we have summer jobs for 
young people?
  Government policies have created this nightmare, and this nightmare 
that we find ourselves in keeps getting darker and darker and darker 
and darker and deadlier and deadlier and deadlier.
  Discrimination, disinvestment.
  When the mayor of my city stands proudly and takes credit for closing 
54 public schools--mostly on the south and west side of the city of 
Chicago--that is nothing but a continuation of the decades-long 
disinvestment in good quality schools.
  If you look back at the history of my city, some of my most ferocious 
battles with the powers that be centered around the inequities in the 
public school system. Dropouts are produced at an alarming rate in my 
city because of the disinvestment in public education.
  Discrimination is the first d, and disinvestment is the second d.
  And then, Mr. Speaker, in recent times, we have seen rampant, gross 
depopulation of my city. Poor people have been almost run out of my 
city. Public housing is a failed public policy in my city.
  Let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, what happened.
  Yes, there were mammoth public housing developments in my city. Some 
we pejoratively called ``projects.'' Yes, there were a lot of social 
ills associated with public housing or projects, and some of those 
public housing buildings needed to be restructured, demolished, or 
redesigned. But unlike New York City, which took its public housing 
developments and invested money in those developments, my city didn't.
  What you had, Mr. Speaker, are former residents of public housing 
pushed into struggling lower, middle class communities; and that is 
when the disruption of those heretofore struggling middle class 
communities could not sustain themselves against this avalanche of 
former public housing residents into those areas, and those communities 
started experiencing extreme dysfunctionality.
  There is one beat in my city, beat 624. This is the most violent beat 
in the city of Chicago. In recent years, two police officers were 
killed in that beat. Day-to-day violence occurs in that beat. Six weeks 
ago, a brilliant special education teacher who worked part-time as a 
real estate agent stopped by temporarily to drop some forms off in her 
office on West 79th Street and lost her life. She was shot in the head 
by a stray bullet fired in beat 624.
  Well, Mr. Speaker, I want to say this. Beat 624 is in the heart of a 
community known as Chatham. When I was a young man growing up, Chatham 
was the model of middle class lifestyle for the African American 
community. It was exalted in many ways. Everybody thought that living 
in Chatham was the place to be. When you lived in Chatham, you lived in 
nice homes with manicured lawns, clean streets, garages, homes, good 
schools, a good business district, safe communities, and stable 
communities.
  This was the Chatham of my youth. But that Chatham is a long-ago 
memory now because of the disinvestment and because of the failed 
public housing policies that emanated out of this Federal Government.
  Discrimination, disinvestment, and lastly, depopulation.
  I grew up in an area called Cabrini-Green. It no longer exists.

[[Page H6349]]

Gentrification has conquered the community of Cabrini-Green, and it is 
well on its way to conquering other communities.
  The public dollars over these last 20 or 30 years--maybe even longer 
than that--have been away from the communities and toward The Loop and 
the businesses around The Loop.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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