No, Chicago Reader, Mount Greenwood is one of Chicago's best - not worst - neighborhoods
In a vile, mean-spirited ode to the holiday season, Chicago Reader has attacked an entire neighborhood in its piece, “Mount Greenwood is Chicago’s Upside Down.” According to the Reader’s editor, Jake Malooley, Mount Greenwood is the lowest of the low. The worst of 246 neighborhoods in Chicago.
Is it Mount Greenwood’s high crime rate? No, as home to thousands of Chicago police and firemen, Mount Greenwood has one of the lowest crime rates in the city. Is it because of Mount Greenwood’s underperforming schools? No, Mount Greenwood has great schools. Chicago’s worst neighborhood, claims Malooley, is the one that is least representative of the city—demographically, politically, culturally," and that means Mount Greenwood.
Isn’t the Chicago Reader supposed to stand for tolerance? The cultural powers that be tell us we are supposed to be celebrating our differences – just not Mount Greenwood’s cultural, political or demographic differences?
Let’s read between the lines: When Chicago Reader attacks Mount Greenwood’s “demographics” – it means it’s mostly middle-class Caucasian residents. When the Chicago Reader says Mount Greenwood’s “cultural differences” are "upside down" – it means the neighborhood’s mostly Irish, German, and Polish heritage and traditions. It means if you respect law and order, as the residents of Mount Greenwood do, you must be bad and you must be erased, eliminated. When Chicago Reader condemns Mount Greenwood’s “political differences,” it means if you voted for Donald Trump in 2016 or if you have ever voted Republican, you should be exiled from the City of Chicago, annexed by a neighboring suburb – if the staff of the Chicago Reader has anything to say about it.
What an oddly intolerant, bigoted article from the "open-minded" Chicago Reader. It's an attack on a neighborhood of Chicago police, firefighters and their families.
I know the 19th ward. I was brought home as a baby on St. Patrick's Day to my family home in the 19th ward.
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I know the people who live and raise their families there. They aren’t just good people – they are great people. When someone breaks into your house and you call 911, most of the time it’s Mount Greenwood-residing police officers that come to your aid. When your house is on fire and you are trapped in a bedroom, it’s the firefighters who live in Mount Greenwood who come to your rescue.
It’s time for Chicago Reader to get its priorities straight.
Since he was elected, Mayor Rahm Emanuel has done little to nothing to stop the bloodshed in Chicago’s neighborhoods. It’s worse than ever: citywide, Chicago has topped 669 homicides again this year. Schools in poor neighborhoods are failing. Kids are getting killed at the bus stops, caught in gang crossfire. Drugs have infected our communities and the only thing Chicago Reader is angry about is that “70% of three Mount Greenwood precincts voted for Donald Trump" in 2016?