It’s time to turn the corner on Chicago’s sad and sordid history of racial politics – Wirepoints

By: Matt Rosenberg

There are cracks emerging daily in the firmament of Chicago’s storied and corrosive racial politics. That’s evident now in the final mayoral run-off contest between black progressive Brandon Johnson and white technocrat Paul Vallas. Blacks and Latinos are breaking the rules by not “voting their color.” Black primary election mayoral candidates like Willie Wilson and Ja’Mal Green, plus a lion of Chicago black politics, former Congressman and Black Panther Bobby Rush, are among those stepping up to endorse Vallas. It’s an especially charged moment because it could mark a sharp turn from the city’s hyper-racial politics which gained a hold 40 years ago with the election of Harold Washington as the city’s first black mayor. 

The Washington era birthed the lasting ideal – even beyond until his untimely death in 1987 – of “loyalty to race above all else” in Chicago politics. That for 30 years after Washington, white Mayors Richard M. Daley and Rahm Emanuel held control, in the end simply meant that rising political minorities would have to be dealt in more fully to Chicago’s endemic graft, that keeps the wheels of government spinning. That became how the racial box got checked. 

The real business of constituents has suffered

But as always in corrupt cities, whether spoils are consolidated among politicians of one race or two or three, the real business of constituents suffered. Pension debt grew, schools can’t impart math and reading proficiency, rigged governance rules persisted, crime rose and fell but Chicago has led the nation in number of murders for 11 years running. Its murder rate is second highest among the nation’s 20 biggest cities. The city had new flower plots, bike paths, and skyscrapers. There remained conventions, restaurants, theaters, free public concerts, exciting pro sports, tree-lined fancy neighborhoods, and glowing encomiums to Chicago in magazines. But in truth Chicago had long been poised to break down.

Then came newly-heightened racial rhetoric after George Floyd’s death in 2020, looting and window-smashing, plus a resurgence in murders and other major crimes. We saw the telltale raising of bridges over the Chicago River downtown, a last-ditch means of riot control. We saw the ongoing surrender of our streets to a newly emboldened violent criminal class. The city transit system became like a dystopian video game. Tied to covid closures and growing daily chaos, learning failures in Chicago’s schools worsened. The seeds of civic institutional failure took root and flowered. Everything is now up for grabs. 

Chicagoans are not sitting still any longer. With the city 12 days away from choosing a new mayor to replace the embattled and ousted one-term Mayor Lori Lightfoot, there are growing tremors suggesting the city might well land in a new more post-racial era of politics and public discourse. One where – as Willie Wilson recently put it – “We should not look at color. We have to look out for our best interest.”

Can we lift all boats or will insider-y spoils and racial grievance persist?

It begs at least two big questions. Can this city actually unite around competent management, and judicious government which does a few things really well? And can Chicago trade in racial grievance and insider-y political spoils for baseline conditions that can lift all boats?

That such questions can even be asked now with a straight face is due to the profound impact on Chicago’s civic psyche of the chaotic one-term reign of Lightfoot. From mid-2020 into 2023, crime has utterly chewed up Chicago’s scenery. Academic proficiency for black students in Chicago Public Schools is stuck at rock-bottom levels. 

This as the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) has consolidated its quasi-monopoly over public education. In its last contract it won from Lightfoot a clause shutting down charter school growth, though that’s moot now due to plunging district enrollment as dissatisfied families vote with their feet. During Lightfoot’s term in office, CTU also won a state legislative moratorium blocking closures of too-empty schools, plus state lawmakers’ approval of an all-elected school board that will be owned in full by the union’s muscular political action committee. The CPS budget keeps growing as enrollment keeps shrinking. It’s utterly upside side down.

CTU is also all-in for Brandon Johnson. He works for them as a full-time organizer, while also serving as an elected Cook County Commissioner. 60 percent of the $4 million raised by Johnson’s campaign in January and February came from CTU and two other teachers unions. One-third came from other unions. 5 percent came from individuals. Johnson opposes spending taxpayer funds on expanded parental choice outside traditional public schools, Vallas supports it. Vallas’ campaign money comes mainly from individuals and the biggest contributors are tied to Chicago-region businesses. 

A brief compendium of the toxic racialism that still permeates Chicago

Against this humming backdrop, racial politics still bedevils Chicago. Yet its hold may finally be slipping. First, let’s review some of the evidence that toxic racialized thinking and rhetoric has staying power in Chicago’s politics. Then we’ll look at the growing blowback.

• Mayoral finalist Johnson has condemned “the tools that have been placed against Black folks that have been used violently” including “administering standardized tests…” This week he doubled down on the repellent theme in a debate with Vallas, saying that standardized tests have “roots in eugenics to prove the inferiority of Black people.” That’s right. State standardized tests of reading and math proficiency which show abysmal results for Chicago’s public school black and Latino students, are tools of violence against them. As opposed to a wake-up call that forced social promotion of students in Chicago’s government-monopoly public schools does permanent harm. Johnson in 2020 also defended looting as “an outbreak of incredible frustration and anguish” tied to “a failed racist system.” For Johnson, everything is about racism. Especially objective measures and expectations of academic core subject mastery. It’s troubling that anyone, especially a teacher and sitting county official, believes the language and numbers of academic competency are beyond black children’s grasp. 

• Other prominent progressives are no less off-base. White Chicagoan Maggie Cullerton, the daughter of former State Senate President and Democrat John Cullerton, worked in City Hall under soon-to-depart Lightfoot and before that under Rahm Emanuel. She wrote after Vallas’ first-place primary finish, “Please know that if you cast a vote for Paul Vallas…you are now just as racist and hateful and bigoted as Donald Trump. Make no mistake, that is exactly who you voted for and it would’ve taken so little effort for you to educate yourself.” She added a threat. “I SEE YOU. And now, I know exactly who you are. And I will make sure to remind you of that fact. Loudly. In public. Every time.” 

• A Chicago Sun-Times columnist and WBEZ editor, Alden Loury, argued that the crime concerns of white Vallas voters were greatly exaggerated and they should think hard about whether their choice was influenced by racial fears and prejudices. But while some of their precincts get few murders and shootings, precincts are tiny subunits and pro-Vallas white wards experience serious crime, too. Moreover, the difference between Johnson’s clear and repeated “Defund” police leanings and Vallas’ robust support for empowered but accountable policing, could not be more stark.

• Also within the last year, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) has made more clear its full-throated support for the political culture of extreme racial grievance. This by posting on its “equity” web page a reprehensible video arguing blacks cannot succeed and thus should be encouraged to loot and burn buildings. 

• The ongoing and horrific social promotion scheme at CPS means that even though the vast majority of students – and especially black and Latino students – can’t achieve proficiency in standardized tests of math and reading skills, they are passed through to the next grade. Teachers have repeatedly told Wirepoints they cannot vary from mandated grade-level instruction even if students are years behind. As bad, they say that a relentless CPS high-command insists teachers and principals pass kids into the next grade each spring despite learning failures. Wirepoints recently reported State of Illinois data showing that for 2022 although black CPS students had a high-school graduation rate of 79 percent, only 10.2 percent tested at grade level on SAT reading tests and 7.9 percent for math. CPS is trying to cover up core learning failures most acute among black and Latino students with fake promotions and fake high school diplomas. The entire scam is race-driven. Avoiding embarrassment is key. Little else matters. This is actual racism. Honchos need to check boxes. Screw the kids.

• In December 2020, CTU tweeted that a City Hall push to reopen schools nine months after covid closures began, was “rooted in sexism, racism, and misogyny.” The tweet was later removed, but only because the blowback was so fierce. Remote learning which continued into 2021 drove academic proficiency still lower in the troubled school district. The data for 2022 were most disturbing for black students. Across all grades combined, only 1 in 20 were proficient in math and 1 in 10 in reading.

• Cook County Chief Judge Timothy Evans in late 2017 instituted “bail reform.” The idea was that alleged crime perpetrators, so disproportionately black, were actually victimized by cash bail. Cash bail is not always warranted, true. But for repeat offenders or defendants charged with weapons or violent crimes, it’s often needed to protect the community. Under Evans’ ongoing bail reform initiative, at least 15,000 new crimes were charged in five years to pretrial defendants let out on low cash or no-cash bail. Evans was taking his marching orders from County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, a black progressive standard bearer. A black Preckwinkle acolyte named Kim Foxx became Cook County State’s Attorney and her prosecutors collaborated with judges under Evans to spin the revolving door even faster. This has led in no small part to Chicago’s current public safety debacle, in which by far blacks are victims most often.

In short, Chicago’s been nearly destroyed by bad governance, and racial obsession has been at the heart of tragically cavalier and harmful decision-making. 

Signs of hope: Chicago’s illiberal progressivism begins to reap its whirlwind

But although Chicago’s illiberal progressivism can still be cataloged at some length, something else is emerging now in the post-primary mayoral contest. It’s true that appeals to race could still end up a decisive factor after walk-in voting closes the night of April 4. But a growing post-racial mood is evident. We are all in this together and things are way off course, is how it might be summarized. The shift may not fully take hold until Chicago hits rock bottom, and we may not be there yet. But change is afoot.

Particularly revealing are endorsements from some prominent black and Latino Chicagoans of white crime-focused candidate Vallas. A long-time City Hall hand, he has run Chicago’s public schools and its budget office, also taking assignments heading Philadelphia and New Orleans schools, and working post-disaster in Haiti. Vallas’ law-and-order, pro-school choice priorities contrast pointedly with Johnson’s stances. Vallas ran away with the primary vote among the nine contenders, garnering 33 percent to Johnson’s second-place 22 percent. 

The run-off is polling much tighter than that but high-profile black and Latino endorsements for Vallas suggest the shifting ground in Chicago’s politics. Not because endorsements necessarily sway many votes, but because defying progressive orthodoxy and censorship still requires rare courage in Chicago. The more who do it, the more will others, too. The signs of change are many.

• Crime concerns of voters proved great. Despite identarian warnings from Politico that mayoral primary candidates would have to be careful taking on the incumbent Lightfoot because she was black and a lesbian – and despite another indefensible Politico claim that crime was not a “reality” in Chicago – Lightfoot was solidly rejected in this year’s February 28 mayoral primary election by voters. It was the first time in 40 years an incumbent Chicago mayor had been turned out after just one term. This was in no small part for Lightfoot’s ugly denialism about the city’s wrenching crime problem. That light-on-crime finalist Johnson is still in the picture shows the strength of the progressive electorate. But Lightfoot botched crime and paid the price.

• The leading black vote-getter in Chicago’s nine-candidate mayoral primary Feb. 28 after Johnson and Lightfoot was well-off, self-made businessman Willie Wilson. Now he has endorsed Vallas. Wilson accented concerns about Johnson’s “defund” police leanings, and tax proposals adding up to somewhere between $760 million and $800 million. He also highlighted Johnson’s fealty to the CTU. Wilson said, “These kids graduating from these schools right now can’t even read or write. Can’t even tie their shoes. That’s a serious concern of mine. If they can’t do that now, and every year there seems to be a strike, how are you gonna improve that? What else is gonna happen if the CTU gets even more power?”

• Then with Wilson brokering, dozens of black ministers endorsed Vallas. Wilson added, “I’m asked a lot, why do I support a white man over a black man? My answer is simple: Paul and I have been on the same wavelength…We should not look at color. We have to look out for our best interest.”

• Young black mayoral candidate and nonprofit founder Ja’Mal Green only got 2.17 percent of the primary vote but that was more combined than the two experienced and respected black aldermen running for mayor, the late Eugene Sawyer’s son Roderick Sawyer, and Sophia King. Green endorsed Vallas and issued a stinging and viral rebuke to progressives and to Johnson’s main campaign funders, the CTU. Neither Sawyer nor King would have ever had the stones to do that. It’s generational. It also goes to character, and the urgency of the moment in Chicago.

• The Latino Leadership Council was co-founded by fourth-place mayoral primary finisher U.S. Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, a stalwart old-school Chicago progressive.  He traces his political lineage to Harold in the 80s. After losing, he endorsed Johnson. But the Latino council endorsed Vallas. A top official of the group, David Andalcio, said, “Latino voters are centrists who share Paul Vallas’ immigrant values. We want safe streets, world-class schools and a thriving business opportunity. Like Paul, the Latino community values family, is hard-working and has a strong entrepreneurial spirit. We do not want a handout. We want a hand up.”

• Former Black Panther and long-time, now-retired U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush endorsed Vallas. He said Vallas – who has the endorsement of Chicago’s police union – also has “the most significant, the most relevant experience” and “the independent, sound judgements…to move our city forward.” This is quite a shift for a politician who only four years ago attacked Chicago Police while playing the race card hard in endorsing Preckwinkle over Lightfoot for mayor. Rush had said, “If any young black male or female is killed by a police officer, under a Lightfoot administration, then the blood would be on those voters’ hands who elected her.”

• CTU’s President Stacy Davis-Gates, a strong backer of Johnson, found it necessary to make a racialized gibe at the construction trades unions that have endorsed Vallas. That prompted trades union blowback accenting racial unity, not division. Politico reported she emphasized the black leadership of unions backing Johnson in contrast to the “white guys in hard hats” heading the construction trades unions behind Vallas. A top Building Trades Council official retorted, “The building trades are a diverse group of highly skilled men and women of every race, color and creed.” The Chicago Federation of Labor’s chief added, “we have to make sure that we can disagree with each other without getting to a point where it divides us – because the labor movement has to endure.” 

The big Race Hustle is slipping away. Chicagoans are waking up.

The upshot today is clear. As a highly-charged, racially-tinted mayoral election approaches its final 12 days, understanding grows daily in Chicago that racial tribalism is not the solution to the city’s deep troubles. It is part of the problem.

This understanding will grow regardless of the mayoral election’s outcome. And it will provide an ongoing jolt to professional race-hustlers in Chicago, Cook County, and Illinois who see racial disparities in income, education, and criminal justice system exposure as de facto proof of “systemic racism.” That’s wrong. Choices individuals make, and that parents make, have consequences. 

“Equity” is the cry of race-based activists but its meaning has been made hollow. The term now suggests the primacy of managed, and equalized outcomes. Which cannot ever occur as long as inputs are so often disparate. Equity once implied earned ownership. “Sweat equity” was one form of that, something many property owners understand. It’s a good phrase to remember. At least until a progressive calls it evocative of slavery.

Real “equity” in Chicago and Cook County, as anywhere else, stems from personal investment, not handouts. Government certainly must prime the pump, but the exact manner of that priming is key. Equity has to flow from growth and opportunity stoked by low taxes, safe streets, and parental choice in education. That should include state-authorized school vouchers or better yet, educational savings accounts (ESAs) in K-12 education. 

Equally essential to real equity is human capital development. That unalterably begins with reading proficiency first rooted at home with two married parents playing a crucial role. We cannot put it all on teachers, schools, police, and courts.

Martin Luther King Jr. famously said we should judge others by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. 

In family life, character is shown above all else through how well you do by your children. How you help prepare and guide them to become self-sufficient, ethical, caring, non-violent, and fully law-abiding citizens. Too many parents in Chicago, whose offspring have become young criminals, have character problems of their own. 

I’ve visited at length with black people living on the South Side, where I grew up, who have no use for the stale game of “Keep Whitey On The Hook.” That’s the old posturing that feeds racial politics and still poisons political discourse and decision-making in Chicago. They say that instead, life is what you make it, so make it right.

Character in politics is revealed by each candidate’s words, their deeds, and their proposed policies compared to current conditions.

All Chicago voters would do well to shrug off the old tired yoke of racialized politics, and consider closely who the two mayoral finalists really are; and what they really propose to do. The next chapter in the history of our deeply troubled city depends on it.

Read more from Wirepoints:

• Why can only 6 of every 100 Chicago black students do math at grade level? Chicago Mayoral candidate Brandon Johnson offers some clues.
• There’s no place for race-baiting when looking at Chicago’s mayoral election results
• A reminder for Chicago voters: 20 times Lori Lightfoot failed the city
• Brandon Johnson’s views on tolerance for violence and defunding police are absolutely clear. Here are his own words.
• Lori Lightfoot gets the boot in murder-capital Chicago. What does that mean for mayors of other homicide hot spots?