A friend once told me an interesting story. When she was in high school, her teacher showed the class an aerial map of a major city. The map designated distinct ethnic groups in different colors. On the map, a large ethnic group lived in a big portion of the southern side of the city, with very little other groups. A large immigrant group lived on the west, along with distinct patches of a few others. The majority population lived in the North. The map showed a city that was incredibly segregated, with a significant amount of diversity, but almost no integration.
The teacher then asked the class what city they thought it was.
"Johannesburg," one student replied, as this was during the time of apartheid.
"Jerusalem," another student answered, remembering the intense schism between Jews and Palestinians.
A third student mentioned Delhi, because the class had just learned about the caste system in India.
"You are all wrong," said the teacher. "It is your very own Chicago.
The students could not believe it, but it was true.
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This discussion clearly leads us to America’s pastime: baseball.
America's pastime can still bring out the best—and worst, of our country. Today, interleague play begins, reminding us that winter is over, climate change still has a ways to go before it destroys a good game, and Americans still care more about a silly sport than they do about the war in Iraq.
And ironically, a professional baseball team can tell us a lot about our cities and states. Take the Yankees: striving to be perfect, and willing to spend anything to get there and be dominant. Sounds like New York to me. The Minnesota Twins: a smart team which grows homegrown talent that comes back to impress its fans, but has had trouble breaking through in the playoffs recently. A little like Minneapolis: a city that is “up there,” but still often considered flyover country by many. The Milwaukee Brewers: their name says it all. Kansas City: they have a team?
And that brings us to Chicago, which has two teams. The Chicago White Sox head up the Red Line this afternoon to take on their inner-city rivals, the Cubs at Wrigley Field. The trash-talking has begun, those adorning different jerseys jaw throughout the city, and the wind has even picked up to remind us that we do live in the Windy City, regardless of who we cheer for.
But while Chicago has two teams, they could very well have two distinct cities as well, differentiated by the geographic—and thus ethnic, socioeconomic, and racial differences that set the Cubs and the White Sox apart. The South Side versus the North Side. Black versus white. Developed versus underdeveloped. Yuppie versus blue collar. Highly publicized versus the forgotten. And we could go on and on…
Clearly this is oversimplifying the issue, and the complexities of Chicago run far deeper than a black and white divide. But the city has yet to merge the differences between the North and the South sides, and it remains incredibly segregated, just like the aerial map that the teacher alluded to in my introductory story.
Take the education system. This year, 27 Chicago Public School students have been killed. 20 out of the 27 students attended school on the South Side, whereas only 5 on the North Side (2 attended school on the divide). The Chicago Public Schools remain very segregated, especially when you exclude magnet schools. In many ways, the South Side remains a different world from the rest of Chicago, as these deaths show. Gang violence is more common, schools under perform, and poverty is a much larger problem.
When somebody tells me that Mayor Daley is doing great things for the city of Chicago, I ask them, “Which Chicago?”
Yesterday I went to a baseball game between two CPS high school teams. It was played on a neutral field, near downtown, but one team was fully Hispanic, while the other was all African American. It was great to see parents coming out to support their children, and how a game of baseball could bring communities together.
But during the whole game, I could not stop thinking about how it was two teams—albeit ethnic groups—against each other. Like in any game, the fans rallied around their particular team, the teammates supported one another on their own team, and people had a good time. But there was little, if no interaction between the two teams.
And this represents Chicago as a whole today. The Windy City is abuzz with the White Sox-Cubs rivalry, and finally fans from both sides are integrated in the same space. But as I overheard a Cubs fan saying today, “I just hope I don’t have to sit next to a Sox Fan!”
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