“White Vigilantes?”

Positive loitering is a type of neighborhood watch practice that safety activists in Rogers Park and Uptown commonly used in order to try and suppress street crime and gang activity. In conducting positive loitering, the mostly white safety activists entered a context in which their racial category was marked, because the practice encouraged charges of racism and vigilantism. This chapter describes how two positive loitering groups positioned themselves in this contested territory. It shows how the groups embraced or avoided racially contested tactics, engaged or alienated black and Latino residents, and discussed racial challenges. Ironically, a positive loitering group in Uptown created an environment of interracial collaboration in their polarized neighborhood, while the group in Rogers Park incited racial conflict despite that neighborhood’s calmer political field.