A Letter from Chicago
“I want you to understand what it is like to live in Chicago during this time. Every day my phone buzzes. It is a neighborhood group: four people were kidnapped at the corner drugstore. A friend a mile away sends a Slack message: she was at the scene when masked men assaulted and abducted two people on the street. A plumber working on my pipes is distraught, and I find out that two of his employees were kidnapped that morning.”
That’s the lede to this powerful piece, which includes a series of paragraphs that begin with the same syntax:
“Understand what it is to pray in Chicago…
“Understand what it is to sleep in Chicago…
“Understand what it is to live in Chicago…
“Understand what it is to be Chicago…”
Many of us have been closely following the Trump administration’s crackdown on Chicago’s neighborhoods, as agents snatch immigrants off construction sites, mount an overnight helicopter raid on an apartment building, and fire tear gas into residential neighborhoods. But who can tie all those discrete incidents into one powerful narrative?