I lived in Chicago for 25 years. The city is racially divided, north and south. It's one of the most racially divided cities I've ever seen, in general. There are entire neighborhoods for the various ethnicities: greek, italian, etc.
There was a mass migration of blacks to Chicago in the 50's and 60's. During that time, whites resented it and did all sorts of things to their new neighbors. From where toxic waste dumps were zoned to denial of services to diversion of education funding from the schools that black kids attended. The north side was rich, the south side not so much. Many of the whites who lived in the south side moved away, taking their wealth with them.
They built "projects" to house blacks, then built freeways around them as a sort of prison wall. It was difficult to have any economic success in those conditions. The amount of crime was talked up to scare people from going into those neighborhoods.
Add in that the police have brutalized young black men over the decades and have harassed the people in their neighborhoods, and you've got a lot of not so happy people. Understandably.
When the city ran its first black mayor (as a democrat), 2/3 of the democrats voted against him in the primaries (he won in a 3 way race with a plurality of about 1/3), and then about 1/2 of them voted against him in the general. Democrats typically win the mayoral race there with 70% or more of the vote.
I moved away a year after that. About that time, the news on WGN was all about house fires and community events. A year later, the news on WGN was all about body bags.
I don't claim to know everything, but I do know you really need to treat people as human beings.
