U.S. State Department Issues Travel Warning to Haiti; Why Not Similar Warning for Detroit and Chicagoland?

Were we a real country, we'd have them set for Chicagoland, Detroit, Birmingham,  Baltimore, and New Orleans by a State Department putting American interests first

So what’s life like in the world’s oldest black-run republic? Well, basically what life is like in America’s biggest black metropolises were they devoid of the fiduciary responsibilities of the white taxpayer.

But, for the sake of argument, why not take a peak at a travel warning issued by the U.S State Department on December 28^th of 2012 for those considering a vacation in the blackest of black nations, Haiti [Haitian officials say US travel advisory unwarranted, NBC News, 12-28-12]:

PORT-AU-PRINCE -- A recent advisory by the Obama administration warning that Americans were victims of murder and kidnappings in Haiti could unfairly hurt efforts to get the earthquake-crippled nation back on its feet, Haiti's government officials said on Monday. 

"Haiti is one of the safest destinations, not only in the Caribbean, but in all of Latin America," Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe said in a press conference, flanked by several other cabinet members.  

The State Department advisory issued on December 28 said: "U.S. citizens have been victims of violent crime, including murder and kidnapping, predominantly in the Port-au-Prince area. 

No one is safe from kidnapping, regardless of occupation, nationality, race, gender or age.""With the meager resources that the state has, we're investing in tourism," he said, suggesting that Haiti had been unfairly singled out by the Obama administration. "Other countries have problems, too," he said.

Mr. Lamothe has a point. It would be wise for the U.S State Department to issue similar travel warnings for those tourists in America considering a trip to areas of the country with similar racial demographic to that of the black Republic of Haiti.

Consider 92 percent black Detroit, where a city with a declining population is posting the highest murder rate in more than a score. Black people dominate every level of City Hall and every other public department, which might explain why basic governmental duties are no longer being attended too[Detroiter Claims 911 Call Of Stolen Van With Gun Was Ignored, CBS Detroit, 1-5-13].

Social capital and trust should be overflowing in a city with a homogeneous population, as Detroit has and the Republic of Haiti also enjoys; odd that this isn’t the case, isn’t it? 

Were a citizen of Wyoming to visit Detroit, wouldn’t it be wise for the State Department to issue warnings about the violent crime, murder, mayhem and inattentive and failing local government found there?

But of Chicago, another city where crime and murder are more often then not found in areas of the city that have population demographics similar to Detroit and Haiti?

Why not a similar warning from the U.S. State Department about traveling to Chicago, considering the high rates of crime in Chicagoland – and the impression people across the nation have of the city – have put the fear of the god in those tasked with crafting a positive image of the Windy City in a bid to attract precious tourism [ Tourism official: City must curtail crime wave, Chicago Tribune, 7-12-12]:

Chicago's extensive efforts to reinvigorate its convention and tourism industries could be damaged unless the city quickly defuses the violent crime wave that has exploded in its neighborhoods and nicked the downtown, the city's top convention and tourism official said Wednesday. 

"We hope this sunsets quickly because all the good work we're doing regionally, nationally and internationally, if this is not contained in a reasonable period of time, it will have an impact," Don Welsh, president and chief executive of Choose Chicago, said in a morning meeting with the Chicago Tribune's editorial board. News reports of several unprovoked attacks by youths in the Michigan Avenue corridor and of the surge in homicides in some impoverished Chicago neighborhoods are triggering concerned calls to Choose Chicago, the newly restructured not-for-profit agency that combines the city's convention bureau and its office of tourism and culture. The issue has gained national attention in The New York Times and other media. 

"There are inquiries that are coming in from meeting planners that are saying, 'Hey, I'm reading about what's taken place in your city. Is your city safe?'" Welsh said. His organization received five to six such calls in the last few weeks, at this point seeking information, not cancellations, he said at the meeting. Chicago police have put more officers on patrol along the Magnificent Mile and its surrounding areas in light of the mob attacks. This includes officers who are normally assigned to other parts of the city. 

As you’ll soon learn in the forthcoming “Second City Confidential: The Black Experience in Chicagoland” the violence in Chicago is a byproduct of the same dysfunction that devastates Haiti and has left the name “Detroit” internationally synonymous with “decay”: black people.

What does a typical Tuesday look like in one of those neighborhood communities with a population over 90 percent black? Much like a typical Tuesday in Detroit or Haiti [1 killed, 1 wounded outside Old Town store, Chicago Tribune, 1-9-13]:

A man was killed and another seriously wounded in a shooting outside a convenience store in the Old Town neighborhood on the North Side, authorities said. The shooting occurred around 6:15 p.m. 

Tuesday in the 1300 block of North Sedgwick Street. Tyshawn Blanton, 31, of the 1300 block of North Halsted Street, died and a 20-year-old man was shot in the back and taken in serious-to-critical condition to Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Neighbors reported hearing as many as 10 gunshots and later saw one man being taken away in a neck brace, the other being worked on by paramedics.  

Family members said Blanton grew up in the Cabrini-Green housing complex nearby and recently had a child. Before heading to the hospital, family members huddled in the street near the shop, crying, as officers and detectives questioned store employees and canvassed the area. Neighbors said they are angered by what seems to be an increase in crime. 

“You can’t even go to the store without getting shot and killed,” said Chante Morris, 30.

 Odd... the same conditions found in Haiti.

What about the Chatham community of Chicago? With a population of 31,000 (97 percent black), this community has long been held as the stalwart of the black middle class in Chicagoland.

Sadly, the same problems found in Haiti, Detroit, and other black areas of Chicago are increasingly present there as well [Diagnosis: Battered but Vibrant, New York Times, 1-7-13]:

The neighborhood’s best-known restaurants were failing, its crime rate was on the rise, and for the first time that anyone could remember there were foreclosures, with once tidy bungalows sitting empty and dark. For all that, the social scientists studying Chicago neighborhoods in 2010 were betting that the middle-class enclave of Chatham, on the city’s South Side, would remain stable through the recession. 

It had done so for decades, while surrounded by impoverished areas. It had somehow absorbed a wave of newcomers from recently demolished housing projects. And the researchers’ data suggested that its strong identity and scores of active block groups had helped protect residents from larger economic threats and offered clues about how to preserve threatened urban communities all over the country.  

Older residents, perpetually anxious that the younger generation is losing their values of tidiness and mutual respect, now had visible evidence of social erosion. They saw it in the habits of their new neighbors, many of them moving from the Robert Taylor Homes, which were torn down in the mid-2000s. 

“The big change going on is that the grandparents are moving out, and some of the younger kids coming in here are picking up behaviors that you would never have seen in Chatham before,” said Worlee Glover, a salesman who runs a blog called Concerned Citizens of Chatham. “Loitering out on 79th. Walking up and down the street, eating out of a bag. Eating out on the porch. Those kinds of things.” 

The numbers tell part of the story. Chatham historically had a waiting list of would-be buyers, but during the recession its foreclosure rate was 14th highest among some 80 Chicago neighborhoods, according to data gathered from all of the city’s neighborhoods to determine which local factors shape behavior.

Nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky.

Right?

The island that became Haiti once fueled France with riches to power its empire; after a black slave revolt, the flow of goods to the nation diminished, necessitating the sale of lands owned by the French government to the United States government (all white people on the island that would eventually become the black Republic of Haiti were killed); Detroit, once a paradise on earth, watched helplessly as the rising black population imported the same conditions found in Haiti to see the city.

Chicago?

It’s not much different.

Were we a real nation, the fact we have entire cities and desirable communities where the same moral and economic conditions as found in Haiti flourish would be cause for a national dialogue.

More to the point, it would be cause for immediate travel warnings to 92 percent black Detroit and into parts of Chicago with similar demographics.

Instead… well, you get the picture.