For more than 15 years the city of Chicago has held a contest each year to come up with a winning design for the revenue-generating sticker everyone in the city who owns a vehicle has to display on their windshield. The contest is open to Chicago high school students.
The 2012-'13 winning design was unveiled last week. It embraces the theme "Chicago's Heroes" and shows four hands reaching up--or tossing into the air--a police officer's hat, emergency medical technician emblem and fire hat. Beneath the hands is a carefully crafted heart in which Chicago's skyline rises majestically against a city flag backdrop.
The new 2012-'13 Chicago vehicle sticker
It's a handsome design created by a 15-year-old who attends an alternative school in Uptown. Today, just days before the new sticker is scheduled to be printed, concerns have been raised that the hands are forming Chicago street gang signs, not something either Mayor Rahm Emanual or City Clerk Susana Mendoza would appreciate having their names associated with.
According to the Chicago Tribune, Mendoza is taking a closer look at the design before signing off and sending it to the printer.
When I first saw the news story reported on the ABC 10 O'clock News, I thought for sure the hands were in the shape of the Gangster Disciples gang sign. A CBS report claims they are in the shape of the Maniac Latin Disciples, which also uses a heart as a symbol.
According to chicagogangs.org, a site I refer to whenever I want to know something about gangster life in Chicago, the hand sign for both gangs is the same.
Now I'm not so sure. But I'll be interested to see how this plays out in the media and whether the city will decide to go with the design, considering all the controversy it's already stirring up.
Filed under: Chicago gangs, city living
Tags: Chicago, gang signs, vehicle stickers
