Marc Sims is a limousine driver, a lifelong South Sider, who traverses the city’s more affluent neighborhoods and suburbs and gets an almost daily reminder of the sharp contrasts in opportunity and well-being in Chicago’s communities.
He believes that in the battle to combat gun violence, there’s something everybody can do and must do. No job is too big or too small, and defeat is only imminent when people feel powerless to do anything.
Since 1991, Sims, 51, has been the host of a cable-access show called “Viewpoint.” On the show and in his blog, he is strident, and his views are at times Bill Cosby-esque. Remember that the famous comedian said: “The lower economic people are not holding up their end of the deal. These people are not parenting.”
“I actually drove Bill Cosby around when he came to Chicago a few years ago,” Sims said. “We had a long discussion about this.
“Right now, a lot of folks I know (who moved away) would never move back to the South Side because of the crime and ‘those people’ and ‘that element.’ You can talk about the history here, the culture, how close you are to downtown. It used to be there were places you avoided, but now everywhere seems sketchy whether it is or not.”