Minorities from the American Dream “The abiding western dominology can with religion sanction identify anything dark, profound, or fluid with a revolting chaos, an evil to be mastered; a nothing to be ignored.” This quote cited by Catherine Keller in her novel, “Face of the Deep: A Theology of Becoming” suggests a theory that, both, ignorance and oppressive behavior is justifiable under the guise of western religion. Empirical evidence supporting this theory manifests itself in many ways; one, of which, being colonization. The imperialist aggression experienced by Africa in the 1870’s onward exemplified how western powers saw it as their religious duties to bring forth order, religion, and norms to a, what they described as, cannibalistic, …show more content…
Blue collar crimes unique to low-income areas are remedied by the installation of high rises and a coffee shop or two; but if this seems, as the adage goes, pie in the sky, it wouldn’t be far from the truth. The effect gentrification has on a community’s safety is adversely shown through empirical evidence; yet, many privileged residents of metropolitan and even suburban areas find it difficult to find fault in the motivation behind gentrifying a neighborhood. Instead of improving living conditions and narrowing the gap between the rights to neighborhood safety, gentrification, in fact, does the opposite. Award winning Sociologist, Chris M. Smith, examined the correlation between gentrification and the rise in violence throughout Chicago and found that, “In 1994, gang homicides were 23% of Chicago’s total homicides while in 2005 gang homicides were 34% of Chicago’s total homicides.” This spike of situational homicides is closely related to the demolition of the Cabrini-Green housing projects on Chicago’s near north side. Upon gentrifying this community and displacing hundreds of families, the Chicago Housing Authority actively dispersed gang activity all over of the city. Though many other metropolitan areas may have experienced a spike in crime rates due to gentrification, Chicago is the most prevalent; being named the murder capital of the world and effectively adopting the moniker “Chiraq.” When a community is gentrified, it not only furthers minorities from achieving neighborhood safety, but sets in a motion a generation of violence to