Thorough Thursdays: They Scrapped it Bro...but why
Dateline: Reading between the Lines
On the south side, yesterday was dubbed “Black Wednesday”, and it had nothing to do with Thanksgiving. Yesterday, the South Side Irish St. Patrick's Day Parade Committee in a 12 to 9 vote decided to cancel next year’s Southside Irish Parade, discontinuing a tradition that lasted 31 years in one of Chicago’s most historic neighborhoods. As a resident of this neighborhood, I was a bit saddened by the news.
Though I am not Irish, I have always admired the Irish in this city for their ability to promote their culture so effectively, as I feel that a big part of Chicago’s reputation and identity has a very Irish feel to it. The Southside Irish parade was perhaps the best example of that. Despite its location, in a neighborhood far less traveled, the parade drew in over 300,000 people and was gaining national popularity in recent years.
But the outrageous revelry and binge drinking that’s associated with St. Patrick’s Day was also the lifeblood of the Southside parade. And that same debauchery was the reason the planning committee chose to cancel next year’s parade. Or so I thought…On the news, and in print the next day, the planning committee released police statistics regarding DUIs, underage drinking citations, and disorderly conduct tickets complimented with official statements that read like this from parade spokeswoman Mary Beth Sheehan.
“it has grown and our ability to control it had gone away…the size of the crowds got so big, public safety becomes an issue."
This quote makes it seem like it was purely a safety decision, but when you hear more quotes, they can be analyzed a bit further and you can see where the true motives lay.
“The parade was so big and so many people come into the neighborhood that we could hardly handle it. It kind of got out of hand. Every year, our number one priority was: How can we control the drinking”
Control? Who are you fooling? Cancelling a St. Patrick’s Day parade in Chicagobecause you can’t control the drinking is like calling off Mardi Gras in New Orleans because you can’t control the titties and beads. There is no way a committee makes that decision to cancel the St. Pat’s parade after handling the excessive drinking for 31 years and at the height of the events greatest popularity. No, the decision is deeper than that.
The planning committee sunk into an unfortunate, regressive way of thinking that permeates through the older generations of Beverly residents, neighborhood narcissism. As a resident of Beverly, I inhale and exhale this dangerous attitude every day and it has been apparent in several important instances in Beverly’s history. Such as in 2005, the relative outrage over neighborhood ice cream shop Rainbow Cone opening another branch in downtown Chicago or in 2003 with the St Sabina Controversy, when parents of Beverly protested having to travel into black neighborhoods for grade school sports and demanded that Sabina, the predominately black grammar school in neighboring Gresham, play all its games away from home.
Beverly has always been a very homogenous neighborhood, consisting of similar income, race, religion, and family structure. Basically cousins, hang out with cousins, who work with cousins, who went to school with other cousins…or at least family friends. You can feel it in the local businesses, restaurants, and particularly the bars on Western Ave, Beverly is ultra content with who they are and what it means to be Beverly. Now there is nothing wrong with that, but over time, that attribute of neighborhood self-reliance has turned into flaw of neighborhood self-centeredness. The parade being cancelled is a great example of how.
Oddly enough, the popularity of the parade was its downfall. Since the early 90s, people in Beverly have been insanely “uncontrollable” during the St. Pat’s parade, but now, because outsiders come in to enjoy the festivities, (increasing its popularity, and total number of participants) you want to shut it down because it’s out of control? No. What kind of event organizers want their event to have less attendance, less prominence, and less success? Backwards thinking ones.
Please believe that when Northsiders travel down to the Southside parade, Beverly residents can’t stand it. They thought the parade was perfect when it wasn’t popular and it was just them, their cousins, and they’re cousins’ cousins. If the 300,000 “out of control” parade go-ers all lived from in the 60643 zip code, I’m sure the parade would be scheduled for 2010. Bottom-line, it’s the biggest event the neighborhood has to offer, and it draws people to your hood and promotes you among the many areas of this great city. So if it’s getting bigger, you expand the area, get more police support, invest in greater clean up,…that’s what you do if you want to have a great event the whole city can enjoy. But if you want to have a celebration that only Beverly is invited to attend, then I guess you have scrap the whole thing and think of something new, which is exactly what they did.
4 comments:
Before this year I had never gone to the South Side Parade, I never was interested (and to be honest am still not interested). But the language and reasons used by those who cancelled the parade are infuriating.
Living in Humboldt Park, I too put up with a festival that takes the neighborhood over every year. Although there are differences, such as, the Puerto Rican Fest is not a day devoted to binge drinking as a form of cultural celebration. But instead is a WEEK devoted to hard looks and near conflicts.
Aside from the main cultural differences both communities deal with the same problems to the actual members of the neighborhoods. Yeah they pee on my fence too, yeah they leave garbage everywhere, yeah the neighborhood is crowded and yeah parking does not exist (for a week-not a day though). But I would never trade it in or demand cancellation.
Not being a southsider I can not speak to (as accurately as Gray) the mentality of southsiders not appreciating the amount of 'outsiders' who find their way south for the day. But I can relate it to my experiences with southsiders and say the statement is pretty accurate. This decision just sounds more and more like a decision made to stop the flow of 'outsiders' from coming down into their neighborhood.
South siders, everybody loves a party, so if you're going to throw a party, you better be ready for any and everything.
interesting arguments -- but i dont agree. i dont have much time to prove my point cause i have to get to class. hopefully i will return to comment at greater length.
one thing i will bring up before leaving is underage drinking. back in the day, it was just high schoolers trying to sneak a beer here and there. now... the parade is not can we sneak a couple beers, its actually a safe haven for underage drinking. no one fucks with u. kids ranging from 9-17 gather together to drink, and it is obviously apparent that they are extremely intoxicated. but the cops do nothing. that is a SERIOUS problem. u have tiny kids passed out, puking, pissing every where, on fences, allies, houses, its ludicrous. and if u cant see that side of it... i dont know what to tell u. maybe the committee does not want to admit that they know EXTREME underage drinking (were not even talking about juniors and seniors, were talking 7th and 8th graders, and from what i hear, not its 5th graders). if u cant see the logic behind shutting it down. then ur an illogical person. keep the parade if the cops can control underage drinking. no one gives a shit about the parade either. everyone goes just to drink out side. i went twice, and i still have yet to see a float.
I agree that underage drinking is an ill of society that cannot be tolerated,...but my point is that the parade committee never had a problem with underage drinking, when it was only beverly kids engaging in it....if this committee thought underage drinking was so unacceptable...thiss parade would of been cancelled back in the 90s when I was in grade school and kids from my school were getting taken to the hospital for alcohol poisoning.....my question to you is why now??...and why not try to resolve the problems of the parade with more police presence, blocking off alleys so kids cant hide and booze....something.....all im saying is....outhsiders themselves were sick of wat the parade had become...and the only difference from the days when they loved it and today is the amount of Non beverly residents that attend the festivities
resolving the drinking problem with more police costs money. were is the money coming from in the first place to fund the parade. and if ur thinking of adding more police, more this and more that, then u need more money. who is paying for everything? the tax payers obviously.
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