Regular readers know that I’ve begun to explore the meanings of the term “Chiraq” on this blog. I promised to return to this topic but have been sidetracked. In the meantime, Dr. Nancy Heitzeg wrote an excellent post considering how the term “Chiraq” is linked to militarization and war on terror tactics in our cities.

Last night, I read an extraordinary report by journalist Natalie Moore about Senator Mark Kirk and Congressman Bobby Rush’s visit to Englewood. Back in May, Kirk made headlines for proposing to seek millions of dollars in federal funds to arrest 18,000 members of the Gangster Disciples. Bobby Rush immediately criticized Kirk suggesting that the mass gang arrest plan was an “upper-middle-class, elitist white boy solution to a problem he knows nothing about.”

Rush later issued a statement clarifying his initial criticism:

“Kirk’s “current plan does not include the option to create jobs, provide affordable and safe housing, quality health care and improve schools in urban areas, BUT certainly a plan to incarcerate 18,000 black men is elitist. Why is incarceration the sole option instead of rehabilitation which is proven to work and not locking young men up.”

Rush offered to give Kirk a tour of his community and made good on that yesterday in Englewood. Moore, a reporter with WBEZ, described a meeting that took place between community members & the elected officials after the tour:

Later, a group of about 35 local residents and activists met with the two at Englewood United Methodist Church. WBEZ was the only news media outlet allowed to observe the meeting. Kirk said he wanted to learn, but the senator remained steadfast in thinking that the Gangster Disciples are the culprit for what afflicts Englewood.

As mothers of slain children, block leaders and ex-felons spoke about challenges in Englewood, not one person mentioned gangs. Jobs and community centers were oft-repeated, and residents emphasized that police are not the answer to decades of disinvestment and neglect.

“Everybody’s depending on the police to do the job. That’s traditional. We need to go back to untraditional ways,” said Darryl Smith, president of the Englewood Political Task Force. “If the federal government sends the money in where the local officials can funnel it down and help build this back up. If you don’t have resources… people are going to die.”

Kirk responded: “Oftentimes when people say you cannot police your way out of this, I would say thank God that Illinois and Chicago didn’t believe that. We could’ve just let Al Capone run the whole place.”

The audience scoffed at the decades-old crime reference and tried to explain street crime to Kirk. The senator said his strong views about the GDs came from conversations with Chicago Police Chief Garry McCarthy.

Mark Kirk suggested that he had come to Englewood to “listen” and yet the account of the meeting demonstrates that he couldn’t actually “hear” community members. Instead he proffered his own “solutions” to the “problems” of Englewood. Those “solutions” invariably involved more policing and more “development” which has become code in this city for gentrification.

Mark Kirk is what happens when we name certain communities “Chiraq” or “Chiganistan.” By labeling some of our neighborhoods ‘war zones,” we invite outsiders to offer their prescriptions for how to end the so-called war. Community voices are drowned out and people who live in these neighborhoods dubbed war zones are perceived and treated either as enemies or victims. Their agency is discounted and they are not considered experts of their own lives.

I have proposed in the past that we retire these descriptions from our lexicon. By using terms like “Chiraq” and “war zone,” we (inadvertently) legitimate a draconian military response from the state (though the state needs no excuse to crackdown on the marginalized).

I would suggest that even more insidious is the way that these terms condition our thinking about ourselves and each other within our communities. By constantly referring to some communities as war zones, we trap ourselves into only considering “solutions” that are steeped in a punishment mindset. We fully embrace the punishing state as our savior. In that way, Mark Kirk is us.

When we adopt war metaphors to characterize how we live in our communities, we put a ceiling on our imaginations for how we might address violence and harm. After all, you can only respond to tanks with more artillery and not with a peace circle. Restorative or transformative justice require us to build trust and to establish relationships. This is difficult to do in “war zones” where suspicion and lack of trust are the order of the day. What we call things matters – the Right knows this – it spends a lot of time wordsmithing its ideologies – “free market,” “death tax,” “death panels,” for example.

I understand why we rely on “war” metaphors. Perhaps we hope that they will convey urgency and seriousness of purpose. But what we too rarely account for is that black people (in particular) are not seen as human – therefore the urgency that we seek is by definition unattainable. The state will not be rushing in any time soon to provide needed resources. Public Enemy illustrated this brilliantly years ago with their song “911 is a joke.” Black lives are unfortunately seen as disposable. And by using “war” language, we are further dehumanized (if that’s possible). We are only bodies, casualties in a profoundly anti-black world.

War zone metaphors allow Mark Kirk to utter the following words: “There’s a silent racism out there that says we can’t do anything about this, just give up. I’m not going to give up on the city.” Perversely, for Kirk, not giving up on the city means arresting and incarcerating a significant number of its black inhabitants. When we rely on war terminology, sadly, ‘I have to destroy you to save you’ becomes plausible.