Apartheid Frameworks: Gentrifying Self-Defense

Apartheid systems are undemocratic not because of their unfairnesses or their politics. Apartheid systems are unfair because they are unidirectional fortresses. But they are undemocratic because they enforce and reinforce structures that would never be erected by the majority. They protect the few from the many. They give power to the few over the many. They force the many – often by force or threat of force – to obey the wishes of the few. They enrich the few at the expense of the many. They prioritise the frolic and the hobby of the few over the nakedness and the hunger of the many.

Apartheid systems generally begin with the deprivation of the ability to resist. This takes many forms, from the seizure of farm implements from the men of Roman-occupied Germania to the wholesale confiscation of weapons as basic as kitchen knives in Japanese-occupied Hong Kong. When we think of apartheid denying the tools for self-defence to the oppressed majority, perhaps the confiscation we in the firearms-rights community think of is the two-tiered system instituted by Frederik Willem de Klerk (F.W. de Klerk) by which administrative mechanisms made it essentially impossible for anyone other than ruling-class white plantation owners to possess weapons. This is seen by many scholars as the institutionalised disarmament that made many of the most vicious Apartheid-era policies – those that defined the final chapter of Apartheid rule – possible. The administrative law framework F.W. de Klerk put in place was not “racist” explicitly – it was race-neutral on its face – but it presented such enormous hurdles that it made gun ownership impossible in practice (financially, in particular) for anyone other than ruling-class whites. The net effect was a de facto economic disarmament of blacks and a militarisation of the white ruling class, allowing them to use violence or threat of violence to control a black population many times their size (even in rural areas where the government’s power was less apparent). As we shall see, the economic disarmament of non-whites in Chicago is taking a similar course.

This article looks at the lawmaking regarding concealed carry of firearms in Chicago, Illinois (hereafter the “CCW law”) as a mechanism established for the systematic disarmament of the poor non-white majority populations of that city, a group being disarmed by a fearful ruling class white minority. Through this framework, a mostly-wealthy and mostly-white demographic is able to arm itself with the state's blessing, while non-wealthy and non-white populations who have the same rights in theory are unduly burdened in exercising those rights in practice. If you are interested in the broader issue of administrative and bureaucratic systems as a limitation on rights, I have written extensively on the history and common frameworks of registration, confiscation, and prohibition systems, and you can read more about that here.

The demographics of Chicago are atypical in America. The roughly 28% (this is an adjustment from the 30% measured four years ago in the national census) of the city composed by whites of European descent (the equivalent number for Cape Town is around 17%) is highly concentrated in pockets on the north and northwest sides of the city, with a growing white population in the heavily-policed city centre. Areas to the west, southwest, and south are primarily non-white neighbourhoods, with white populations in some ZIP codes being between 1% and 6% of the total in many areas, according to the 2010 U.S. Census. In short, the political demographics of Chicago are those of a small, overwhelmingly-white ruling class with its own schools (Latin, Lab, Parker, etc.), its own neighbourhoods (Lincoln Park, Bucktown, The Gold Coast, etc.), and its own institutions (from local arts organisations to more politically-animated strucutres of power to societies and organisations with national relevance and influence). To learn more about the underlying demographics, click here.

All carrying of pistols in Chicago, except by the police, was illegal prior to this year. This year, Chicago (and the state of Illinois, of which it forms the northeastern-most municipality) crafted rules for the legal carrying of pistols for self defence or any other lawful purpose (this made Chicago the last city in the country to have provisions for the concealed carry of pistols). As one might expect in the most racially-segregated city in America, the plan came with a mechanism to gentrify the right to self-defense, preserving it for the white plutocrats and putting it out-of-reach of poor populations of colour where it is arguably needed most. By making the process to acquire a legal firearm cumbersome (there are no gun shops within the city limits) and the process to apply to carry it on one’s person outrageously inconvenient (as I discuss, infra), the best tools available for self-defense are set aside for the white leisure class. I will now discuss these policies and their effect, namely the systematic disarmament of non-white, non-wealthy residents by a state controlled by a white, wealthy, cowardly minority plutocracy that sees the increase of inequality (in economic, educational, and liberty terms) as a central mandate.

Transit is a real issue in Chicago, a metropolitan area covering over 10,000 square miles (by contrast, Greater London comprises about 600 square miles). The CTA, Chicago’s dominant transit system, is a network of buses and trains that covers much of the city. Poor and non-white areas disproportionately depend upon public transit to reach destinations in day-to-day life. Under the CCW law, no person may ride a train or bus or other vehicle paid for in whole or in part by public funds while armed with a concealed weapon. This is provision, even when considered alone, substantially reduces the value of a CCW permit for the typical person in a poorer community – and can be seen as a tiny part of a larger framework of efforts to restrict the mobility of non-whites and members of the lower economic classes. Another example is that it is a crime to operate a pickup truck on Lake Shore Drive (Chicago’s main north-south boulevard and by far the fastest way to traverse the city’s length mid-day), pickups being a type of truck often favoured by non-white residents of the city who are builders, plumbers, or labourers; I know very few wealthy people in Chicago who drive pickup trucks. It is also worth noting that, though it is hardly a scientific survey, in all my years of living in Chicago I’ve never had a white acquaintance confronted by police for driving a pickup truck on Lake Shore Drive; I can’t say the same for my non-white friends.

But the intertwining of transit and the ability to carry a firearm does not stop with the prohibition against carrying a firearm on public transport. It includes the actual acquisition of the CCW permit. In order to be issued the CCW permit, one must take sixteen hours of class and pass a practical examination at the firing range. There are no firing ranges within the city limits. The vast majority of Illinois CCW classes are held outside the city limits, with no CCW classes available in the city this month, for instance. This means a person living in a poor or non-white area must secure transportation from the city to a nearby city in order to enroll in the requisite training. Due to the sixteen-hour requirement, that person must attend either two very long eight-hour days of training, plus the practical examination at a separate location, or (likely more realistically) attend three days of five or six hours of training, plus the practical examination. Now, I ask this: How many blue collar non-white people in Chicago can realistically take three days away from work, secure childcare and other necessary services during that time, travel to a remote location that may require driving more than an hour in each direction (and that is almost certainly not accessible via public transport), and pay hundreds of dollars in tuition and fees? Very few. Hence, these people are left with two choices: abandon your ambitions to be able to protect your family, or break the law and live in daily apprehension of being sent to prison for something wealthy whites do with no threat of imprisonment by the state or harassment by the police.

I completed my CCW training, including the practical examination, recently. I found the hour-long drive from the city to the location of the class mildly inconvenient and the tuition reasonable. I arrived to find a mix of students who were precisely who I expected: two attorneys, two entrepreneurs, a recently-retired U.S. Navy man, and so on. Zero answered “yes” when asked if they lived in a dangerous neighbourhood. Their degree of familiarity with firearms varied, but no one was fully green. I brought my 1911 pistol to the range (a type of pistol I’m very familiar with and have shot for more than half my life) and easily earned the requisite score (actually, some large multiple of the required score). The hour-long drive home after the practical allowed me to contemplate how difficult it would be for someone unlike me (or my classmates) to complete this process.

A quick search on Google Maps shows that from my home (which is very accessible to public transit, unlike many homes occupied by poor and non-white Chicago residents) to the place the class was held would be an hour and twelve minutes driving (this seems accurate) or two hours and fourteen minutes using a combination of walking and public transport. So, as the class began at eight in the morning, I would have had quite a journey before I managed to reach the classroom (and an equally-lengthy journey on the return). This, combined with the cost of the programme, the cost of two days’ lost work (which would likely be holiday allowance, meaning a choice between spending precious time away from work with one’s children or at a CCW permit course), the fees for the permit itself (the fee is $150, with no financial hardship provision or lower fee for those in poverty, meaning a person working part-time at a minimum wage job for twenty hours per week would spend over 90% of his or her pay for the week on the CCW fee alone!), and the cost of childcare, petrol, and so on would almost certainly dissuade all but the most enthusiastic working-class residents from obtaining a CCW permit. With two hours’ travel time in each direction and a five-hour-and-twenty-minute course, a person could complete the CCW course in three nine-hour-and-twenty-minute days (class time plus travel time) but would still not have completed the practical component. For a person in Englewood, a neighbourhood on the city’s south side with such a notorious level of unlawful violence that a local newspaper keeps a running tally of murders, to travel to the closest place where the practical examination could be completed (3820 W. 128th Place in Alsip, Illinois – again, outside the city limits) would take over an hour on public transport, despite being only nine miles as the crow flies. If the person wants – as I did when I first began carrying a pistol – to be at the shooting range at least weekly to maintain and better his or her skills, this commute will likely be so inconvenient as to be impossible (efforts to build gun shops and shooting ranges in the city so that residents can obtain and maintain these important skills have been hobbled at every stage by the Mayor and his friends).

Result of this maximally-inconvenient system is that non-white and poor residents who want to defend themselves and their families - people who often live in areas where the police are too impotent to offer protection or too cowardly to visit with any frequency - must take on an undue financial burden to do so (or risk arrest for violating the CCW law), while wealthy whites can carry guns easily. This undermines the efforts of the often-non-white working classes to protect themselves from endemic crime, intra- and intercommunity violence, and a police department with a history of disregard for the safety, rights, and freedoms of all but the whitest and wealthiest local residents.

Some commentators will undoubtedly say that CCW should not exist in the first place, that non-white communities should have fewer guns rather than more, that Chicago would be a better place without people carrying guns, and so on. These people not only entirely miss the point, but ignore the context of their comments. This right does exist, and courts from Illinois to the US Supreme Court have agreed. Second Amendment rights (and the rights and privileges that extend from the Second Amendment as derivations, interpretations, and statutory progeny) are as fundamental, explicit, and inalienable as the right to speak without fear of government retribution (the First Amendment), the right to resist the government’s use of your property without compensation (the Third and Fifth Amendments), the right to be free of government agents unreasonably searching and seizing private property (the Fourth Amendment), and so on. Whether or not you agree with firearms-related rights as an analogous peer to these other rights is not relevant and is not up for discussion.

What is at issue here is not whether this right exists, or if it should exist, but that when a right exists, white and non-white populations should be equally free to and able to exercise that right. It is outrageous for whites, no matter how well-meaning or ostensibly progressive, to debate whether non-white residents should have the ability to exercise a right that they themselves can already exercise with ease. That premise for discussion is inherently racist, wrong, and offensive – it assumes, whether implicitly or explicitly, that certain rights should be enjoyed by whites and wealthy residents by default but only made available to non-whites and non-wealthy residents through acts of bureaucratic charity dispensed from, in this case, a municipal-level white-dominated minority-rule power structure.

Among the South African Apartheid-era minority’s justifications for disarming blacks was a contention that blacks simply weren’t ready for the advanced, white technology that firearms represented. It is very difficult to see Chicago’s policies as any less paternalistic, imperialistic, and racist in their message. And even if it is not purely racism that animates the Mayor’s policies: is it even plausible that Mayor Emmanuel and his friends are engaging in altruistic paternalism and actually interested in protecting poor and non-white Chicagoans from themselves? Because it seems, from my vantage point, that they’re simply protecting themselves from poor and non-white Chicagoans… and I’m not sure what the definition of apartheid is in the urban American context if it is not a paranoid wealthy white minority ensuring the educational and financial failure of the poor non-white majority while systematically dismantling any means of resistance or self-defence.