Congratulations are in order to East St. Louis Mayor Alvin Parks Jr.
According to the crime data website Neighborhood Scout, East St. Louis has been ranked (for the third consecutive year) as “the most dangerous city” in America.
And it wasn’t an easy feat. East Boogie had stiff competition like Detroit, MI, Flint MI, Camden, NJ and West Memphis, AR.
The rankings were based upon the number of violent crimes per 1,000 residents. Statistics show that you have a 1 in 20 chance of being the victim of a violent crime in ESL.
Now I don’t believe that for a second. And the customers who pack the parking lot of the Casino Queen definitely don’t believe it either. You might get assaulted if you try to prevent them from gambling there, but that’s the only violence that you should worry about at the “home of the loosest slots.”
But if you want to get a real glimpse of how fearless visitors to ESL are, just cruise down Missouri Avenue or near Lincoln Park during rush hour. East Boogie resembles a drag strip as an inordinate number of white commuters race (from Belleville, Fairview Heights, Shiloh, etc.) through ESL’s streets in an effort to take a shortcut to the Poplar Street Bridge as they head to work.
Forget that new Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge. These folks either have a death wish or are all liberal integrationists who derive some sense of accomplishment in reintegrating East St. Louis.
That’s all that I can conclude, because between the hours of 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. East Boogie is probably the most integrated spot in the Metro East.
Why take the new, time-saving, aesthetically appealing “Stan Span” when you can simply cruise through ESL , get caught by slow-moving trains and stoplights, and have the opportunity to drive bumper-to-bumper, black and white commuters together in the name of racial unity and harmony as panhandlers hustle those stuck in traffic?
I can’t think of a better way to waste my time.
Or, perhaps, these commuters have never read the Neighborhood Scout website or watched local news and are unaware that they are traveling the “most dangerous” streets in America.
However, I choose to think that ESL is no more dangerous than any other poor, underdeveloped city, island or country that I have visited and that the non-black commuters who buzz through ESL are unfazed by crime data, media hype and fear-mongering.
Email: jtingram_1960@yahoo.com; Twitter@JamesTIngram.
