electraumatized

team-artemis:

thecometreturns:

goldenheartedrose:

talldarkbishoujo:

misterhippity:

You may have heard this story of a 15-year-old kid who won a contest to design a sticker for the city of Chicago, only to have the award rescinded and the sticker’s production scrapped because the city came to believe there was “gang imagery’ in the kid’s drawing. Here it is:

The fear is that those hands look weird not because they were badly drawn by a kid who doesn’t know how to draw hands very well, but instead because they are “flashing gang signs.” (They aren’t. People are just really gullible and stupid sometimes.)

Based on the false belief that the drawing is a secret gang-promoting trick being played on the city, the Chicago City Clerk decided to rescind the kid’s award (he’d won a contest that was entered by thousands of Chicago kids) and cancel production of the sticker — and may take back the $1,000 they awarded him too (the clerk says she “hasn’t decided about that” yet).

Here’s a video clip from a news report showing the boy crying hysterically after learning that his award had been rescinded. He says his picture has nothing to do with any gangs. And here’s a story from Chicagoist on the original controversy — which notes that the whole “gang imagery” allegation began on a blog called “Detective Shaved Longcock,” which it refers to as a “police blog”:

“The police blog ‘Detective Shaved Longcock’ began analyzing Pulgar’s artwork and claimed Pulgar may have included symbolism for the Maniac Latin Disciples in his sticker design.”

Several other news reports mention this initial blog report as the source of the “gang imagery” allegation, although most don’t mention the name of the blog — probably because it’s obviously vulgar. Most describe it as a “police” or “cop” blog, however, and often note that it’s “popular with Chicago law enforcement.”

What none of these news reports mentions is that this “Shaved Longcock” site that is reportedly so “popular with Chicago cops” is actually a white supremacist site full of racist, disparaging posts spewing hatred against black people. I just took a quick scroll through the site, and here’s a sampling of the titles of the blog posts I found there:

• “Colored gal charged with stealing $745 Fendi purse” (illustrated with a cartoon of a monkey saying “I needs a Fendi purse for my Illinois Link card!”)

• “Here’s a negro who shot and killed a 54 year old woman just trying to make a living working at Subway restaurant …”
• “Whitney Houston dead at 48…. Which means she lived 20 years longe r th an most crackheads….”
• “Mixed Breed Savage Billy Heisler who shot off-duty officer must pay $5.9M - Can he put that on his LINK CARD?”

And so on … you get the idea. Every post on that site is filled with the ugliest kind of racial hatred.

And just so everyone knows — THIS IS THE BLOG whose anti-“gang sticker” investigation/campaign spurred the City of Chicago to break some kid’s heart and make him cry due to some made-up bullshit.

Saw this on Anderson Cooper earlier. The video of the kid crying was absolutely heartbreaking. Fuck Chicago.

What the hell.  That is sick and sad. :/

OH MY FUCKING GOD. This is absolutely sickening. Fucking people have no fucking idea what actual gang signs look like. Honestly, I would love to punch this City Clerk in the face and get them fired. djkaljgdladjl FUCK YOU!!!! God this makes me fucking embarrassed from being a Chicagoan. 

this makes me want to cry. that poor boy.