[Mpls] Chicago ain't the enemy

[WizardMarks]

Mark Wilde wrote:

>While I agree with most of the rest of this post, this
>story really get me mad because it perpetuates a
>widely, but wrongly, held belief that many of our
>problems come from Chicago. 
>
WM: Actually, there are a fair number of dealers along the corridor 
between 15th and Chicago and 38th and Chicago who are from Chicago. Of 
that number, some are more scruffy junkies who deal to support their 
habit. Currently, heroine seems the DOC (drug of choice). Part of the 
gun fire is gang to gang gun fire, part of it (including a fire bombing 
last summer on Lake St.) is internecine warfare in the Rolling Thirties 
Bloods, who are local. Some of my sources are the gang bangers, 
prostitutes and junkies themselves.

> I have even had people tell me that they know someone
>who knows someone who came here from Chicago just for
>the welfare benefits. 
>
WM: I don't think you entirely understood what your source told you. 
They do come here, the sign up for benefits, they rent an apartment, 
they leave. They come back monthly to cash the check. While they are 
happily ensconced in Chicago or St. Louis, the apartment rented here is 
used by the dealers for a price.

>I think the Chicago stories I hear are really codes
>for "there are too many young black people on the
>street and it makes me nervous"
>
WM: With some folks, that is undoubtedly the case. But for those of us 
here on the front lines, it may be attached to specific people. At 
Chicago and Lake, for example, are two brothers from Chicago named Red 
and Goldie (hah!), two stone junkies out of Chicago whose relatives and 
friends come in, usually by Greyhound, and go back and forth on a 
regular basis. Other Chicagoans, probably from the same general 
neighborhood as Goldie and Red, also come here on a regular basis. They 
follow the general trend of any business which opens branch offices in 
different towns.

WizardMarks, Central

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