The Surging News reporter Wang Lu Su Yangfan
"We are here to learn, not to die. "
"We're here to learn, not to die."
At 11:00 a.m. local time on November 16, more than 300 college students spontaneously organized a march in the center of the campus of the University of Chicago. They shouted slogans loudly, turning days of grief, fear, and anger into reinvigorated strength.
On this day, it has been a week since Zheng Shaoxiong, a Chinese student at The University of Chicago, was tragically killed in a nearby neighborhood. At 1:54 p.m. on November 9, Zheng Shaoxiong was shot and killed by bandits at gunpoint while walking through sidewalk 900, 54th Street near the campus. Countless people are saddened by the loss of this young life.
The most noteworthy thing behind this incident is Chicago's long-standing high crime rate. At least three Chiba university students have been shot and killed so far this year. Earlier this year, Dr. Fan Yiran, a Chinese student at Chicago University, was killed by gunmen in the parking lot of his apartment near the University of Chicago's campus; in July, Max Luiz, a 20-year-old third-year-old student at Chicago University, was hit in the neck by stray bullets that slid through the window of a car on the subway and died.
The American scholar Andrew Diamond has pointed out one of Chicago's most distinctive characteristics: under the prosperity, there are dangers. This paradoxical combination is like the AB side of Chicago, making countless travelers and students have to be vigilant against the hidden dangers of violence hidden under its calm as they yearn for the beautiful urban skyline of Zhicheng.
Within a year, three Chiba university students passed away one after another, making many students, especially Chinese students, realize that when the most important personal safety is not valued, or even loses protection, they must bravely fight for and defend their rights.
"Today's march has given me strength – we have always been known for our peace of mind and tolerance in Chinese, but in recent years some unfair events have brought us together and told the world that we will also defend our collectives and our rights." This force inspires me today, and I will always maintain this mentality and defend me and my collective. Daisy Chen, a sophomore at Chiba University, told The Paper after the march on the 16th (www.thepaper.cn).
Cmba University Student Parade Interviewee Courtesy photo
"The misfortune of Classmate Zheng, each of us may encounter"
When it comes to the death of Student Zheng, "pain in the skin" and "deep feelings of empathy" are words frequently mentioned by Chinese students at Chicago University. Under the deterioration of the campus and the surrounding safety environment, it seems that every Chiba university student can see himself in the experience of Zheng.
"It's something we can all encounter." Han, a graduate student at Chicago University, the organizer of the parade, told The Paper that for most graduate students living in the communities around the school, the street where Zheng was killed was the only way for them to take a bus to the school.
Han believes that the deep-seated reason why everyone feels empathy is that the similar culture and growth background of chinese students studying overseas have made them feel a deeper connection with each other, which may not be familiar with them before. Zhi Da's third grandson admitted to the surging news that Zheng Shaoxiong's departure had a particularly great impact on him personally. They are not only fellow villagers, but also the school where they attended in Chengdu is a brother school. "He is very close to my own life, I can imagine his life, his family environment..."
Poor security in the surrounding communities of Chikuma university was a long-standing and well-known problem. Still, in the perception of Chiba university students, it is safe to be on campus or near campus at least during the day. Zheng Shaoxiong was killed in the afternoon just 200 meters away from the school playground, like a fuse, awakening the students' long-hidden fear and uneasiness.
In Sun's previous impression, the security situation around the school did not seem to be as bad as the outside world thought. Most of the time, the streets around the school are quiet, and students feel like they're living in a safe "bubble" against outside threats.
Now it seems that the "bubble" that Shiba University students rely on has been broken, and the hidden worries under the surface of the calm streets have surfaced. Sun told the surging news that due to the continuous epidemic and economic crisis, the public security in the school area continues to deteriorate, and the previous security guarantee may no longer exist.
Han observed that the once thought safe zone was no longer safe, and some students who lived in apartment buildings around the school began to move, moving from the south city where Zhida is located to the city center, planning to take the subway or rail transit to school. Some students even decided not to go to school and directly take online classes at home. Under the influence of such an atmosphere, Han's own living habits also began to change, and he stopped going out after 6 p.m. If you want to go out, you will always check on the mobile phone app frequently to check whether there is criminal activity nearby.
Before traveling, Han used the App to check the criminal activities nearby. The white dots represent small criminal activities and the yellow dots represent more serious criminal activities
"We have to stand up"
The alarm bells have sounded.
In addition to the grief over the death of Zheng Shaoxiong and the uneasiness and fear of their own safety, the awakened Chikuba University students decided to spontaneously organize a march to fight for their rights – demanding that the school strengthen security and pay attention to the safety of each student's life.
"We have to stand up and never let this go so easily." Yan Zhu, a second-year student at Zhida University, told The Paper that the departure of Senior Zheng Shaoxiong made everyone feel sad and unacceptable. However, she believes that most students should adopt a more aggressive attitude, not be knocked down by this incident, and actively strive for it, so that the school can take action to prevent such incidents from happening again.
In fact, when Yanzhu first arrived at Zhiba University this year, she was not worried about the security situation of the school. Seniors have introduced that "Chicago University's school police seem to be the largest private police force in the United States", and she also took it for granted that it was very safe to move around the campus. But Mr. Cheng's murder at a location just two or three minutes away from the school also made her worry about the security that the school could actually provide.
What makes her and many of her classmates even more angry and difficult to accept is that the school pointed out in its statement in response to the incident that Zheng Shaoxiong had an accident "off campus", which inevitably shirked responsibility. Yanzhu's decision to stand up and participate in the parade is also hoping to urge the school to come up with a real problem-solving attitude and pay attention to the safety of every student.
Three students have been shot and killed this year, but this has not provoked a rapid and effective response from the school. Sun told the surging news that part of the reason is that because the first two students were killed during the holidays, most of the students were not at school, and they failed to express their demands in time to promote the improvement of security measures.
At the moment, Sun realized that the time had come to push for change. Students, teachers and parents are uniting to make demands on the safety of students. Sun introduced that after the murder of Zheng Shaoxiong, through many efforts, the student organization quickly contacted the highest level of the school; then, parents also sorted out their demands; more than 300 professors have jointly "written" to the principal.
Under the joint promotion of multiple forces, Chikuda university and the surrounding communities began to gradually strengthen their security forces. Sun observed that at present, the Hyde Park community police where the school is located can be seen everywhere, and this is a scene that has not appeared before. At the same time, to Yanzhu's surprise, the entire process of the student parade was protected by the school police. "It gives me more confidence, at least the school has given us the opportunity to speak out, and I believe that the school will seriously consider our voice."
Two-Faced Chicago: The Crisis Lurks Under the Prosperity
The once-violent outbreaks in southern Chicago also gave Chiba students an imminent sense of threat. And that's what plagues the glamorous exterior of the nation's third-largest city. This is an important reason for Chiba university students to organize demonstrations and shout out for the school to strengthen security.
In his 2017 book Made in Chicago: Power and Inequality in Modern Cities, American scholar Andrew Diamond called Chicago a "collision of Manhattan and Detroit," a metaphor that illustrates Chicago's most distinctive feature: underneath its prosperity, there are dangers. This paradoxical feature is like the AB side of Chicago, so that countless travelers and students have to be vigilant against the hidden dangers of violence hidden under its calm as they yearn for the beautiful urban skyline of Zhicheng.
Like many of America's largest cities, Chicago has made a comeback in technological reforms and thrived on the tide of globalization. In The North Side of Chi Cheng, luxury boutiques on Michigan Avenue are built along the shores of apartments that reflect the sun and Lake Michigan, and the long lake beach walkway is full of pedestrians. In the 2019 U.S. Census map, the area filled with large areas of deep blue and part of the sky blue is the wealthy North Side of Chicago.
But in the shadow of the legendary skyline of Chichi City, Chicago's South and West Ends are rife with poverty, gang clashes and gun violence, mostly populated by people of color. According to a chart created by the DATAUSA website, the gray and white areas represent the more backward and impoverished areas, accounting for almost half of Chicago's area, and the university of Chicago's main campus is located in the "blue island" surrounded by a "white ocean" - Hyde Park Block. Centered on the white area, the hidden danger of violence permeates every corner of Shiba Castle. People living in violent neighborhoods are poorer and often feel surrounded by pervasive dangers.
2019 Graph of median annual household income by region in Chicago. Image source: DATAUSA
According to the list of homicide victims listed by the Chicago Sun-Times, violence in various areas of Chicago has been on the rise for two consecutive years, with 710 people killed in Chicago this year as of November 17, 2021. Among them, there were 5 killings in the Hyde Park neighborhood, where the University of Chicago is located. According to the Chicago Police Department, most of the violence has occurred in predominantly people of color on the South and West Sides.
Real-time updates of the Map of Dangerous Areas in Chicago. (The darker the color, the higher the risk factor, and the reference standard for the hazard factor is the total number of cases of violence and robbery in the region over the years) Image source: Neighborhoodscout website
Chicago's crime rates vary greatly depending on the community in which you live. Many predominantly coloured communities in the South End are poor, lack educational resources and are known for their frequent street gang activities.
When were the seeds of regional unrest in Chicago sown? It goes back to the era of racial segregation in the United States in the last century, and the rise and fall of manufacturing in Chicago.
In fact, today's violent communities of Southern and Western Chicago were once the screws that hold the myth of American industry. During the Great Migration that began in 1916, about 6 million people fled oppression and violence in the American South to industrial cities such as Chicago. The jobs offered to them in Chicago are mainly located in the transportation belt and industrial belt of the city's south and west districts. The Harvard sociologist William Julius Wilson, in his 1996 book When Work Disappears, notes that the consumer demand from these working classes employed in core industries drives surrounding commerce and creates a good economic cycle in predominantly African-American communities.
Yet, even at the height of U.S. manufacturing, Chicago's African-American residents were unable to escape the effects of racial discrimination and segregation. In the 1930s, working-class African-American families could not buy property in Chicago or start their own businesses through bank loans because of the "red line" policy that classified people of color as "high-risk groups." By the 1940s, the Chicago Housing Authority began to build public housing communities predominantly of African Descent, further exacerbating racial segregation.
The racial segregation measures imposed in Chicago did not immediately show their consequences, but after the industrial structure of the United States began to change drastically in the 1960s, African-American communities that depended on manufacturing for their livelihoods were almost destroyed by the hurricane of industrial reform. The North's leading manufacturing sectors were fleeing, with North Lawndale on Chicago's West Side, for example, losing three-quarters of jobs from 1960 to 1970 alone.
The relocation of manufacturing has led to the rapid disintegration of the surrounding economic networks, the collapse of self-operated businesses built near factories, and in less than two decades, Chicago's African-American community has lost most of its means of subsistence. Wilson and sociologist Loic Wacquant argue that after the structural changes in the U.S. industry, the racial segregation measures that Chicago had implemented had fostered a vicious circle that eventually led to the city's African-American community falling into "hyperghettoization."
Half a century later, the largest ethnic group living below the poverty line in Chicago remains African-Americans, with 229,500 people, or 36.5 percent of Chicago's poor in 2019, followed by whites and Hispanics. Chronic poverty has provided fertile ground for the development of gang power, and the problem of gun proliferation has also arisen. Chicago Mayor Robert Lightford pointed the finger at guns and gangs as he mourned the deaths of policewomen killed by gunfire in August, calling for police-civilian cooperation.
Racial distribution map of the poor in Chicago in 2019. Among them, African Americans account for more than 35%.
Turmoil rooted in history has swirled around much of Chicago's south and west, and people who grow up in this environment don't have access to education or jobs that will help them out of trouble and community violence. In extreme cases, they are faced with a limited and cruel choice – to be a victim or to be the perpetrator.
In the eyes of these people, the various "obscure" decisions made by politicians to solve chicago's high crime rate are as illusory as a castle in the air. And they wake up every day, just looking around, praying for good luck for themselves, their neighbors, and their loved ones.
Since COVID-19 in 2020, Chicago, like other cities in the United States, has seen crime rates skyrocket after a brief decline. Susan Lee, the deputy mayor in charge of Chicago's public safety policy, believes that violence has never left Chicago, but the impact of the epidemic, combined with the impact of the Floyd incident in May on the entire police system, has brought new disasters to Chicago, which is already mired in violence.
Responsible Editor: Zhang Wuwei Photo Editor: Hu Mengxi
Proofreader: Luan Meng