{"id":568548,"date":"2021-06-19T12:51:41","date_gmt":"2021-06-19T16:51:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=568548"},"modified":"2021-06-19T12:51:43","modified_gmt":"2021-06-19T16:51:43","slug":"chicago-alderman-says-gangs-are-responsible-for-chicago-problems-not-racism-as-mayor-lori-lightfoot-claimed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/chicago-alderman-says-gangs-are-responsible-for-chicago-problems-not-racism-as-mayor-lori-lightfoot-claimed\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago Alderman Says Gangs Are Responsible For Chicago Problems, Not Racism, As Mayor Lori Lightfoot Claimed"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">32<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fchicago-alderman-says-gangs-are-responsible-for-chicago-problems-not-racism-as-mayor-lori-lightfoot-claimed%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=568548&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/GettyImages-1322365617.jpg?w=1200&#038;h=800&#038;ixlib=react-9.0.3\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"  style=\"display:none\"><\/div>\n<p>A Chicago city official heavily criticized Democratic Mayor Lori Lightfoot\u2019s claim that racism was to blame for the challenges facing the city, declaring it a \u201cpublic health crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lightfoot on Thursday blamed \u201csystemic racism\u201d for the hardships minority residents face in the city, pledging to use millions of dollars in grants from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for combatting alleged systemic racism, which she called a \u201cpublic health crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen we think about racism, many of us think about it in visible and audible forms, but the reality is the insidious nature of systemic racism has other impacts that are every bit as deep and harmful, but often ones that we can\u2019t see, like the impacts on the psyche and other impacts on our bodies that are just as, if not more deadly,\u201d Lightfoot said, as The Daily Wire previously <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/chicago-mayor-lori-lightfoot-declares-racism-a-public-health-crisis-diverts-10m-in-covid-funding\">reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Alderman Raymond Lopez of Chicago\u2019s 15<sup>th<\/sup> Ward, however, says gang violence is to blame for the problems faced by minority residents.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGenerational gang life isn\u2019t just something that\u2019s encouraged. It\u2019s almost revered in some neighborhoods,\u201d Lopez <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/chicago-alderman-gang-violence\">told<\/a> the Washington Examiner. \u201cIf you really want to get to what is at the heart of a lot of this, it is gangs, and it is the borderline collapse of the family unit in many of our neighborhoods \u2026 [Lightfoot] has avoided calling out gangs in our community as a source of violence in our city.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lopez told the outlet that residents in the ward he represents are \u201cgiving up\u201d on calling the police, as they seem more focused on systemic racism now than combatting gang violence. He added that kids as young as fourth- or fifth-grade are involved in gang life, accusing schools of taking a \u201chugs and kisses\u201d approach to dealing with students who are involved in gangs. Schools aren\u2019t informing the police about gang affiliations and allowing the criminal justice system to become part of the solution, Lopez said.<\/p>\n<p>Yet Mayor Lightfoot has made it harder for police in Chicago to do their jobs, including her recent policy change that discourages police officers from chasing a suspect who has been accused of a low-level offense lower than a Class A misdemeanor unless the suspect \u201cposes an obvious threat to the community or any person.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>These policies allow low-level offenders to get away with crime, potentially working their way up to bigger crimes until they are eventually caught, at the expense of innocent victims.<\/p>\n<p>This was ignored by Lightfoot last week when she claimed, \u201cAt almost every single point in our city\u2019s history, sadly, racism has taken a devastating toll on the health and well-being of our residents of color and particularly those who are black.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lopez disagreed with that sentiment as it applies to Chicago\u2019s problems.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think it\u2019s a foil to avoid having to deal with [gang and other issues], period. Two hundred-plus murders in the city of Chicago, none of them were committed because of racism,\u201d he told the Examiner. \u201cI can tell you last week\u2019s gang shooting had nothing to do with racism. The shooting in Englewood Monday morning, four people shot, three others injured, was not about racism.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"><em>member<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Chicago city official heavily criticized Democratic Mayor Lori Lightfoot\u2019s claim that racism was to blame for the challenges facing the city, declaring it a \u201cpublic health crisis.\u201dLightfoot on Thursday &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2280765,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/GettyImages-1322365617.jpg?w=1200&h=800&ixlib=react-9.0.3","fifu_image_alt":"Chicago Alderman Says Gangs Are Responsible For Chicago Problems, Not Racism, As Mayor Lori Lightfoot Claimed","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-568548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/GettyImages-1322365617.jpg?w=1200&h=800&ixlib=react-9.0.3","fifu_image_alt":"Chicago Alderman Says Gangs Are Responsible For Chicago Problems, Not Racism, As Mayor Lori Lightfoot Claimed","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=568548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2280765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=568548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=568548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=568548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}