Chi is short for Chicago, the largest city in Illinois.
Raq is a shortened version of Iraq, a middle eastern country which known for being a war zone.
Black youth living in some of Chicago’s violent neighborhoods call their communities “Chiraq” which equates to them living in a gang war zone because of the frequent trauma of the deaths of family and friends.
Spike Lee’s new upcoming film titled “ChiRaq” is creating a controversy for some Chicago residents. Spike Lee’s film will be a comedy about women who withhold sex until their men take action on the violence in their neighborhood. Spike Lee’s supporters Father Pfleger and Chicago Bulls player Joakim Noah released statements to announce to the world the storyline of the film and to answer critics who oppose the name of the film. I applaud Father Pfleger for championing change with Chicago’s violence problem. However, the worldwide distribution of the movie “ChiRaq” will be a tourism nightmare for Chicago’s southside Obama Presidential Library.
 |
| Poverty represented by litter at a bus stop in a Chicago hood |
Chicago Alderman Burns who opposes the film’s title is blocking ChiRaq for receiving a $3 million tax credit for producing the movie. Alderman Burns stated “I said in that meeting, ‘A lot of people take offense to the term Chiraq,’” Mr. Burns said in an interview. “These are communities where people are doing the right thing, people trying to have a decent neighborhood. Having a movie called ‘Chiraq’ will make it much more difficult for folks like me and other aldermen to bring economic development to those neighborhoods. Who wants to live in a place that people call Chiraq?”
I agree with Alderman Burns that the title of the film should be reconsidered. What tourist wants to visit the Southside of Chicago “ChiRaq” near the future location of the Obama Presidential Center? It will be very difficult for Chicago to overcome the image of “ChiRaq” and ensure the future tourism industry that the southside of Chicago is a safe place.
 |
| View of a Chicago Housing Development thru a chain linked fence symbolizing oppression |
The short term benefits of the movie being filmed in Englewood include hiring locals as actors and or extras, but the long term effects of the negative connotation of the word ChiRaq on the city of Chicago’s tourism industry could last for decades. Chicago still lives with the images from the movie St. Valentine’s Day Massacre of machine guns blazing as Gangster Al Capone killed his enemies on February 14, 1929. It has been 86 years and Chicago is still known as the city of “pow pow pow” or the sound of machine gun bullets. As I traveled the world with my family living as an expat in France, Belgium, Venezuela and Argentina, the response to me stating I was from Chicago was always the same “pow pow pow”. The images of movies last for decades.
 |
| Scratched bus window viewpoint as residents take a shortcut to home through a makeshift gate in a broken fence |
We get pissed off by others asking about the violence or asking if Chicago is safe?
We also get pissed off by people asking which neighborhood they live in.
We get pissed off by people asking about the crime in our neighborhoods.
We get pissed off by people asking us what’s going in Chicago.
We hear the gun shots, ambulances, the police cars. We watch the news and read the newspapers with daily counts of death tolls. We see the funeral processions. We know Chicago has a problem. We don’t like being feared because we are Black or have communities that lack jobs and education. No one wants the violence to continue that is not issue. We desire change.
 |
| A couple struggles to get their groceries down the street to home |
Reasons to change the movie title:
1. Chicagoans are very proud people who are offended by outsiders throwing the gun violence and death toll in their faces.
2. Chicagoans are proud of the coming Obama Presidential Center which will lead to urban redevelopment of some of the communities affected by gang violence.
3. Spike Lee’s film ChiRaq spreads the message to world that Chicago’s southside has a gang problem which the city leaders will have to overcome to encourage tourism to the future Obama Presidential Center.
4. Chicago is still a segregated city with few whites traveling south beyond 35th street for fear of their safety.
5. Currently tourists are not encouraged to visit sites on the southside of Chicago. Most tour books and guides about Chicago neglect sites on the southside of Chicago.
6. There is a trolley sightseeing tour that runs empty through Bronzeville to the southside museums.
7. Gentrification is the biggest problem for Blacks who live on the southside who risk losing their houses, lands and communities.
8. Spike Lee made the film “Brooklyn” and now Brooklyn, New York has been gentrified.
9. ChiRaq could lead to the southside and westside of Chicago becoming gentrified to make it safe for tourists.
10. In the past, city of Chicago leaders have torn down the projects and moved Blacks to the southern suburbs with less funding for jobs and educational opportunities than the city of Chicago.
This is a possibility as the Obama Presidential Center could bring economic development and tourism industry to the southside of Chicago.
As a Chicagoan whose family migrated from the South to Bronzeville in 1895 during the time of the Columbian Exposition, I hold Chicago dear to my heart. I do not want to see Black people lose our homes and land to gentrification because we are viewed as a violent threat to the safety of Chicago’s new economic tourism engine.
Spike Lee please consider the global and economic ramifications of the title “ChiRaq” upon all Chicagoans.
by Janice Temple
