Stick a Fork in Chicago

Why are people pandering to a self-admitted gang banger? Because he cries on TV? Because they think he is a victim of circumstances? We can honestly say we've never been more ashamed of the politicians, media and citizens of Chicago.

First, City Clerk Mendoza who actually did the right thing at first, caves on the prize money:

• Chicago City Clerk Susana Mendoza said today she would personally pay for a $1,000 bond for the 15-year-old boy whose winning city sticker design was scrapped amid questions about whether the artwork contained gang symbols.
  
  [...] "However, I believe that the student who provided the original design should also be recognized for his talent and participation in the contest. I want to encourage him to pursue a degree where he can continue to develop his skills," Mendoza said.

Naked pandering to the gang banging element of the city. There is NO QUESTION the artwork contained gang elements. The heart, the hands as horns, that is beyond dispute. The positioning of the hands is open to debate, but given Herbie's gang photos on Facebook, his friends "disciple love" and "latin king killa" conversation, and other broad hints of conduct, we can be sure he's an opportunistic thug.

Then we have Rahm, the coward:

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel skirted a pair of hot button issues today, declining to weigh in on the city’s $6.2 million settlement with anti-war protesters and the flap over the design of the new city stickers.

  The twin topics are two of the biggest stories in town right now, but the mayor didn’t want to go there while taking reporters’ questions at a gun control event on the Far South Side.

We guess those crises must have gone to waste since Rahm couldn't figure out a way to exploit them. Gutless wonder that mayor of ours.

Then there's Mark Brown, the windsock of columnists:

• ....I can’t say how much credence you should give my perception that it was easier for Mendoza to throw overboard the 15-year-old special-needs kid who drew the perfectly innocent winning artwork than to go toe-to-toe with those who drummed up the controversy, led by an anonymous blogger whose often vile site is popular with police — or my perception that Mendoza should have called “b.s.” on the paranoia and stood firm.

  That’s how it looks to me, but maybe you should check with a better expert, like Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who certainly must have wanted the controversy to go away as fast as possible — with his name set to appear on the sticker.

Rahm, who never saw a crisis he couldn't exploit for gain until this week evidently, is the perfect guy to ask about gang signs. He couldn't possibly have an agenda. And Brown quotes Herbie's mom and art teacher, two people most likely to take his side in any controversy. Mom has a helluva Facebook of her own about how she's drunk and wishing she could have met Tupac for whatever reason while the art teacher was counting another feather in her cap for having produced a third city sticker winner. No bias there.

And John Kass claiming the wrong gangsters got the publicity:

• The one getting the buzz is made for broadcast, a story of easy outrage, about that 15-year-old boy who designed the winning entry in the city of Chicago vehicle sticker contest.

  The design has since been denounced as glorifying a Chicago street gang because of a few upraised fingers. The city clerk is publicly mortified. And experts wagged their own fingers disapprovingly, insisting this says something about Chicago.

• News flash: Chicago politics and crime are no strangers. There is another gang. It's called Chicago Outfit, and for the past century, the Outfit has put its fingers — and its paws all the way up to the elbows — deep in the public life of this city

Here's a newsflash for John - all gangs are bad, from the established mafia types so deeply embedded in Chicago politics that their members can drive the mayor around in a golf cart, to hispanic gangs fighting decades old turf wars as their fathers and grandfathers did across the near west and north sides over dope and macho bullshit, to the black gangs, glorified in rap culture, connected to the "churches" that dot the west and south sides, and in the process of flexing their political muscle, backing aldermen and reverends across the city while leaving a trail of blood and destruction miles wide.

The Sarno case was about an Outfit crew trying to force their way into the poker machine business. We don't gamble on machines, so we didn't really care about it. The city sticker incident was about a gang exerting influence across everyday peoples lives and using 1.3 million cars as vehicles to broadcast their existence. We own a few cars, so our interest was a bit more personal.

Both cases deserved the spotlight, but for whatever reason (and we're sure Mr. Kass can figure it out), the newspaper editors and broadcast media are more reticent covering European mobsters with City Hall connections.

So what does it all mean? This WGN poll is an eye opener:

• Do you think the city made the right decision by changing the city sticker?
  
  Yes: 21%
  No: 79%

Now granted, WGN viewers may be stupider than the rest of the population. We notice that almost no one in the media covered Herbie's Facebook postings showing him smoking weed, wearing colors, throwing up for the nation, throwing down the crown, and his admitting those things were on his website.

But almost 80% of the respondents think Mendoza made the wrong decision by eliminating gang symbolism from 1.3 million vehicle stickers? What the fuck? Has Chicago degenerated into such depths that a sizable percentage of people think gang banging is OK, thugs should be rewarded and no penalties should attach to actions that contribute to the decay of a civil society?

Here's a story everyone should be looking at and remembering what gangs truly contribute:

• A Cook County jury today convicted a reputed gang member of murder for ramming a car into an SUV and causing it to crash, killing one and injuring seven other teens.
  
  Prosecutors said Shalimar Santiago, 30, mistakenly thought that rival gang members were in the SUV and had shot at him earlier that night in August 2009.
  
  Santiago was also convicted on seven counts of aggravated battery for the injuries to the other seven passengers.

A thirty-year-old thug plays bumper tag with a group of kids, students who were in town for a night out, and kills one while gravely injuring seven others, because he thought they may have been part of a rival gang.

That is what gangs do. That is what they support. And giving them an inch, even on a city sticker, is shameful, cowardly and something the politicians, media and citizens ought to stop making excuses for. Herbert isn't a victim here except of his own bad upbringing and subsequent personal decisions. Giving him the $1,000 bond is a mistake the clerk should be castigated for. Making excuses for his behavior is something the media should be ashamed of. And absolving him of blame is something that ought to make the entire city look inside and ask, "What the hell have we become?"