By: Mark Glennon*
You’d hope this wouldn’t be a campaign issue in a city beset by so many other problems, but it is. It was sparked by an exchange we had in a November 2021 Wirepoints podcast with Paul Vallas, now a candidate for Chicago mayor.
Both the question and answer seemed harmless and obvious to us, but they were about racism to some. Brandon Johnson, Vallas’ opponent in next month’s election, issued a news release to certain media criticizing the exchange for racism, as reported by the Chicago Tribune and Crain’s, along with further comment by Johnson and Vallas.
Let’s look at what was said then amplify on the point validly made in the podcast (starting at the 20:45 mark).
In the podcast, I asked Vallas to talk about “critical race theory — or call it whatever you want, woke-ism, anti-racism.”
Vallas responded by describing all that was done under his term as school superintendent to teach African-American history year-round. He talked about “historically racist institutional obstacles.” When it distracts from quality instruction in the core subject areas, however, standards suffer and damage is done, he said.
I then said “I often wonder, if you’re a black kid, why wouldn’t you become a criminal if you’re hearing this stuff in school? Everyone with white skin is an oppressor, if you have black skin you are oppressed. That makes it pretty easy to justify pretty bad conduct, in my opinion.” Vallas agreed, saying it gives an excuse for bad behavior, “almost justifying.”
That was enough for Johnson’s campaign to issue its news release accusing Vallas of “racist beliefs about black families and teaching black history in CPS,” according to the Tribune. That news release apparently went to select media only. We haven’t seen it.
According to Crain’s, that release also says this:
“Chicagoans are starting to learn who the true Paul Vallas is — a man who does not respect Black people, our history or our daily experiences,” Johnson said. “Between his policies leading (Chicago Public Schools), his racist dog whistles on public safety issues, the hateful, right-wing extremists he associates with, his tweets and now this podcast, we see that Paul Vallas is never going to be someone who represents the interests of the diverse city we call home.
If I had learned through schools that everybody around me was my oppressor because of my race and that they’ve systemically rigged the the system against me, I’d be ready to break the rules, too. Wouldn’t you? That’s essentially all that Vallas and I said.
When asked later to expand on which comments were racist, according to the Tribune, Johnson said: “This is really not about -isms in this moment. This is about having a public education system that is committed to educating the wholeness of child.” Maybe he was backtracking on his campaign’s own news release.
Vallas, when asked about the matter, apparently preferred to focus on the issues he has been saying are destroying Chicago — crime, failing schools and fiscal problems. He said, “I have no response to Brandon Johnson, and he’s going to have his own record to explain or lack of record to explain,” Vallas said, according to the Tribune. “Brandon is going to attack because, you know, he can’t offer anything of substance so I’m going to continue to run an issue-oriented campaign.”
Vallas went on tell the Tribune that he has built schools that taught African American history year-round and allowed CPS local school councils to have their campuses “develop even more Afrocentric curriculum,” says the Tribune.
Vallas most certainly did not question teaching black history. On the contrary, he boasted in our podcast about teaching it year-round when he was Chicago school superintendent. Nor have I ever objected to teaching black history. The Crain’s article by Greg Hinz is flat wrong when it says Vallas “downplayed the value of teaching African American history” in our podcast.
What are the primary elements that many of us object to, apparently including Vallas, in the philosophy of wokism, anti-racism, equity or critical race theory? (Again, call it whatever you want, but forget the pointless quibbling about whether it meets a full definition of critical race theory.)
It holds that all whites are oppressors and all blacks victims, and that America is systemically racist. It rejects Martin Luther King’s goal of colorblindness, and rejects even the concept of meritocracy.
That rejection of colorblindness and meritocracy, by the way, is express in a 2021 resolution calling for critical race theory to be taught in schools by the U.S. Conference of Mayors – a resolution Mayor Lori Lightfoot sponsored.
The wreckage inflicted by that philosophy is hard to understate, especially in schools, which was clear from the start. St. Paul, Minnesota apparently was the first to incorporate the philosophy in its school system some ten years ago. The consequences were catastrophic, as laid out in detail in a now rather famous 2017 City Journal column.
Today, it’s pure bedlam in those schools, as reported just last week by the Star/Tribune. Violence has become normalized in schools there. “At this point, when you see someone with a knife or a gun, it doesn’t surprise me,” said one teacher. Teachers are terrified.
That pattern repeated in countless schools across the nation, including most of Chicago’s, contributing to the teacher shortage and plummeting educational outcomes. Those plummeting outcomes in Chicago and much of Illinois are the saddest consequence, which we’ve reported extensively and you can see in the links below.
Chicago schools may be the worst, apparently endorsing violence as retribution. It’s in the video we recently profiled, on the school district’s official website, that includes the following message:
How can you win? You can’t win, the game is fixed. So when they say ‘why do you burn down the community, why do you burn down your own neighborhood?’ It’s not ours. We don’t own anything. We don’t own anything there is.”There’s a social contract that we all have but if you steal or if I steal then the person who is the authority comes in and they fix the situation. But the person who fixes the situation is killing us so the social contract is broken. And If the social contract is broken why the f*ck do I give a sh*t about burning the f*cking Football Hall of Fame, and burning the f*cking Target…f*ck your Target, f*ck your Hall of Fame. As far as I’m concerned they can burn this b*tch to the ground. And it still wouldn’t be enough.
It goes far beyond schools. Especially during the 2020 riots, we heard frequent justification for violence based on that philosophy.
Johnson himself, who has worked for the Chicago Teachers Union, justified the rioting based on “systemic racism.” See the video from WGN here.
Don’t worry about the looted stores because they have insurance, he said. Black Lives Matter Chicago made the same case.
That’s the thinking – if you believe what wokism teaches.
In fact, violent protest are as American as apple pie, some told us in 2020. CNN, MSNBC and their guests often said violence is the only way protests actually accomplish anything. A Northwestern professor wrote that the violence was no different than the Boston Tea Party.
Most Americans reject all that, which is why they also reject wokeness, polls show nationally and in Illinois.
Rarely heard are the black voices that agree with us in the majority, like civil rights veteran Bob Woodson who says CRT “is a perversion of the civil rights legacy that I fought for.”
Or South Side Chicago native Glenn Loury, who was the first black, tenured economist at Harvard, now teaching at Brown University. Loury recently said this about wokism’s rejection of meritocracy:
We’re in the twenty-first century. The year is 2023. The country is changing and changing and changing. Tens of millions of non-European immigrants are making lives here. The politics of this country, the Hispanics are a more significant ethnicity than the blacks in the long term when you think about ethnic pluralism in the country. The Chinese are coming, the world is changing. Globalization. Nobody’s got time for a person who can’t read and who can’t count….I think this is shtick. ‘We were enslaved. We are black. We are owed something’ is a house of cards. The idea that, perpetually, you would warp American institutions to favor people who were not excelling on the merits because of these kinds of second and third-order claims about exclusion and racism? It shouldn’t happen and it won’t happen.
On Friday we invited Brandon Johnson to be a guest on a podcast. We look forward to his answer.
We hope it won’t be the answer Mike Flannery of FOX32 Chicago got last year from Johnson’s Chicago Teachers Union when asked about some Wirepoints research, which was “F— Wirepoints.”
*Mark Glennon is founder of Wirepoints.
Other pertinent columns by Wirepoints:
- Poor student achievement and near-zero accountability: An indictment of Illinois’ public education system
- Not a single student can do math at grade level in 53 Illinois schools. For reading, it’s 30 schools
- Don’t buy the hype: Chicago’s failing government schools aren’t a success story
- Chicago’s progressive agenda has been destructive for black communities
- ‘F*** Wirepoints’ Says Chicago Teachers Union When Confronted With Facts From The School District Itself
- Call Rioting What It Is: Moral Depravity. And Hold Its Enablers Accountable
- Illinoisans overwhelmingly oppose racial indoctrination now rampant in schools, yet they cower in silence
Audio and summary 
If this bill passes, say goodbye to local control over all Illinois parks and expect to see open drug and alcohol use, needles, no sanitation and fire hazards, but no ordinary park users.
The very premise of this argument is faulty. Criminality and academic apathy is conflated with blackness, harkening back to theories of scientific racism that dominated 19th century thought, politics, the law, and pop culture (which essentially is what CRT is designed to combat). All types of people commit crimes (cough: mass shootings); all types of people contribute as citizens who make this country a better place. One more thing: I have taught in predominantly white settings for over 20 years. These white kids don’t wind up feeling bad about themselves. But they do become angry when they realize there’s a… Read more »
Critical Race Theory is not taught in elementary schools. Secondly, Paul Vallas took African American History and African American Lit out of public school curriculum saying it was a part of American Lit and American History. The problem is white teachers will not teach it as part of American Lit or American History – thus it was not being taught. Secondly, to say that teaching CRT or Black History makes criminals is a racist statement. Black History is just that – history. It can’t be revised. To have come out of a system of slavery, out of reconstruction, out of… Read more »
Ms. Young: The question was about “CRT, wokism, antiracism, or call it what you want,” and yes, that certainly is being applied in K-12 schools. In fact, even CRT by name is often taught. Among countless examples I could give you reflecting that: https://www.ctuf.org/ctuf_course/critical-race-theory/ It’s completely disingenuous of you to conflate teaching African American history with what is at issue. I would hope nobody objects to teaching that history, and Vallas said he does not. If his approach did not in fact work as you claim, that should be fixed. And, by the way, I would not object to CRT… Read more »
Well said
Vallas and Wirepoint don’t seem to understand the basic fact the teaching American Black History IS about racism! Vallas would obviously whitewash American History or not teach Black History at all.
Another random commenter … shows up out of the woodwork … to spread blatant lies and misinformation …
Another Louser.
Please stop embarrassing yourself and start looking for a job, Louie. Your fake patron saint BLM Brandon will obviously treat your people like garbage–just as Jesse Hi-Jackson and Groot Lightfoot has done for decades.
The school systems were designed to teach, nothing more, nothing less. They weren’t designed to feed the children, teach them manners or how to avoid arguments absent violence. Knives and Guns at school ? How about metal detectors at the door. But in the pandemic of single parent homes, created over many decades, a multitude of welfare programs from groceries, transportation and rent have become endemic, expected and demanded. This ship needs to change course before we look and feel like Detroit, Baltimore or Watts. More Police, More Draconian and non-commutable Prison Sentencing.
Build More Prisons !
Seems rather unusual for Johnson’s campaign to have sent their “news release” on this privately to certain media. I don’t know what protocols if any the press has on such things, but shouldn’t it have been in a public press release? Shouldn’t we have gotten a copy, not because we are reporters but because we were one of the targets?
In conversation with progressive relatives in the last few days I learned: 1/ increasing violence in Chicago is an understandable reaction to the cruelty of black history in America; 2/ perhaps some level of social justice will emerge when white suburbanites start dying in carjackings and through fentanyl overdoses; 3/ a non-stop diet of WBEZ, CNN and MSNBC turns you into a raving lunatic. There is part of me that hopes Johnson wins, so the progressives get a good, hard dose of everything they are dreaming of, but that would be too cruel on the children’s education he would trash… Read more »
Glad, that I don’t have any progressive relatives.
Maximum Marxism is what Chicago wants
Turning the city to rubble is the point. Progressives also known as communists don’t think any further than what is in front of face. They aren’t intelligent people. They are angry, malcontented, and just want to destroy whatever they are looking at. Right now, in front of their face is Chicago, and they’re looking to destroy that too.
This is why nothing changes:
A cursory review of the Wirepoints home page returns absolutely nothing about republicans helping the community, making a difference, prospective candidates, etc. Furthermore, every picture on the home page is of a “radical” Democrat.
The IL Republican Party is dead. It has no power, it doesn’t do anything, it has no value. The IL Republican Party is as dead as the IN Democrat Party.
https://www.indems.org/
Project Rebuild
We’re rebuilding Party infrastructure from the ground up so we can hit the ground running in the 2022 elections.
2022?
Yup. Vallas (a dem) is probably the best hope for remaining conservatives. For the voters it will be a choice between “equity” and “crime”. If I had to guess, I would bet Chicago chooses equity.
The party might be dead or captured, but there’s a tremendous amount of people out there looking for solutions. In general, Republicans have more $$, resources and competent folks in their ranks. There’s no reason we couldn’t hit the ground running too! 5th column and RINOs are a large part of the problem and have done a great job of baiting folks into dead ends. Instead of relentlessly attacking Wirepoints, I’m compelled to set up my own 501(c)4. This “there are no Republicans in Illinois” trope is going to be the first myth I bust.
“[T]here are no Republicans in Illinois” is a strawman you intend to knock down. No one has said this. The reality is that there are about 2.4 million Republicans if we use Trump’s 2020 turnout. The problem is that 3.4 million Democrats either voted or had their ballots harvested. I’m sure many of these were fraudulent ballots. It’s no secret there is massive fraud in Cook County. But Republicans need to overcome this through their own massive ballot harvesting campaign and not allow even one single ballot in rural areas to remain unharvested. Your 501(c)(4) might be able to make… Read more »
How many of those are swing votes? Trump was a very polarizing figure. It’s becoming a game of strategy, resources, communication, and taking action. These clowns make tons of mistakes, and we’re going to expose them.
I hope you succeed. Then you can tell us so. I’m sure NY, CT and MA Republicans had similar hopes years back.
I’m having a great time drawing out all the glass half full folks! What are the odds I’d get a 7 to 1 downvote ratio and endless commentary for making common sense suggestions?
I’ve never met a guy at a rally that suggested everyone give up and go home. It’s really strange that this place is full of them. LOL
Leftist Democrats have a supermajority in the legislature , and all state offices, and the supreme court. The ONLY thing Republicans can and should do is point. If the Leftist Democrats are looking for an escape from their years of malfeasance, there are none.
Why are you still unemployed, Davey Boy? Why are we paying for your weed and Starbucks drinks? Get a job, you lazy bum!
So many influential racial/ethnic constituencies among Chicago voters other than Black. Hispanic, Asian, Arabic, Africans and Slavs – Chicago has one of the largest immigrant Polish communities in the world, I think. Learned that after I found myself in a huge trailer repair facility with several dozen employees in a building big enough to hold a dozen 53′ trailers under repair, and the only two people in the place not speaking Polish were myself and the owner I was talking to. He was, however, speaking in Polish to the mechanic working on our trailer – who was yelling in Polish… Read more »
Here we go again another political election where we have to decide between the lesser of 2 evils. I’m fed up with it. I don’t believe that’s the best we can do when it comes to finding someone to run for office.
We need to cultivate some new talent. We need to take a proactive instead of reactive approach to all of this and start planning for the next election.
In 2020, Trump 2,446,891 votes in IL. One of the best turnout for a Republican candidate ever. But Biden had 3,471,915. The only way Republicans can win anything in 2024 is develop a voter and ballot harvesting operation to find roughly 1,250,00 new Republican voters that didn’t show up in 2020 or 2016.
Why is it a bad idea for Republicans to ballot harvest when Democrats do it all the time, -1?
Oh, so it is a bad idea. Rules for thee are not for me. Now I get it.
It’s not a bad idea. Debtsor is a self-defeating libertarian.
I’m not a libertarian. Not by a long shot. Libertarianism is an ideology that utterly fails, by its very nature, to confront the existential threat that progressives pose to the libertarian. You as a libertarian, may not want to impose your values on the progressive; but the progressive is most certainly going to impose his values on you. By force of imprisonment, using the will of the state, if necessary. Our state is the prime example of progressives squashing libertarian values with its heal. Oh you want guns? Too bad, banned. Oh you don’t want your children gender-bending? Too bad,… Read more »
One last thing about self-defeating: WE HAVE ALREADY BEEN DEFEATED. We have no statewide offices. We are super-minorities in the house and senate. There are no elected Republicans in Cook County. We have only 3 Republicans in congress. The most red of collar counties have turned dark blue. Even McHenry county is now purple and is the lone holdout in the Chicago area.
So if you want to be realistic here, accept your defeat, and find a new strategy, because whatever anyone else has been trying for a decade now has utterly failed.
The math in Illinois no longer works. The number of voters who are either current receiving or are working toward their public sector pension is about one million. So if seven million people vote you are starting one million votes behind. You need to win the remaining six million votes at a 58% rate to eek out a win statewide.
Why are you here? Telling folks things are only going to get worse doesn’t seem very productive if you’ve already made up your mind. LOL
Good luck Chicago – you wanted this soooooo very bad.
Anyone not interested in the hate filled Leftist nonsense of Democrats, I suggest you leave before it’s to late.
Jack suggested you leave if you don’t like it, so, leave or stay out of it.
You sound like a teacher. I’ve ruffled your fragile feelings it seems.
Jack, read what I wrote again. I’m agreeing with you. No need to be so offensive. No, I’m not now, nor have I ever been a teacher.
The underlying theme is lack of agency. Do you perceive yourself as an individual who belongs to a community yet with some sort of semblance of personal accountability? Or are you some interchangeable component in a community with no individual traits that simply wanders the streets in a zombie hoard?
Progressives simply don’t see the Black community comprised of individuals in control of their lives. It’s actually quite insulting, so I’m not sure why many are lapping it up. Maybe it’s easier that way. After all, when everything happens to you, why do anything at all?
Black people need to stop letting the Democrats tell them who they are and what they can be.
The Democratic Party = Promoting class and racial division since 1828. Good to see some things never change. Paul should win, get in and then switch parties or turn independent. As much as they will pump the race card there just are not enough blacks left in Chicago to swing it and a lot of them are not falling for the race baiting anymore, it’s like they can think for themselves and don’t need a Democrat party apparatchik to tell them what to think.
Marko the problem is the so called White Progressive will vote Brandon White Guilt what a SAD way to go thru life HATING ones self Vallas must get the Hispanic Vote in big numbers to win
Wow, didn’t take them long to play the race card. Problem is, there are some dumb voters that will believe him.
If this crap does not stop then it will become the 50’s again in South Africa, remember the
Mau Mau uprising. People stock up on skyrockets and BAR’s.
Load and lock
Like so many of us, In 1910 my entire family (nine brothers & sisters) came over on a boat from Kiev. Of course, no one spoke the language, antisemitism was pervasive and their skill set was ‘hard work’! They stuck together as they learned the American Ways. They all went on to learn the language, build their own small business’s and all of their children flipped burgers, waited tables and mopped the floors. Not a single great aunt or uncle was ever arrested, raped, robbed or assaulted their fellow citizens. Was there no Antisemitism, of course there was. Were they… Read more »
it’s the classic story. Blacks obviously had a different path, but I think you can really say the decline to the year 1965 and the War on Poverty. Poor whites in Appalachia didn’t do any better either.
-1 must be a BLM member or supporter that’s why they don’t give a damn about the poor whites in Appalachia. Talk about being obvious!
Two parents in the home, a work ethic and a full stomach is all children need !
Many families like yours survived hard times and lack of education and still made a life for themselves and their children and grandchildren in this country. My people came from Poland and suffered some insults-remember Polish jokes so prevalent in the 50’s? Yet we worked hard, took advantage of opportunities in education and have led successful lives. It takes work, family love, faith in God and a positive attitude and Everyone can succeed.
“Johnson himself, who has worked for the Chicago Teachers Union, justified the rioting based on ‘systemic racism.’”
Isn’t Brandon Johnson currently employed by CTU?
If not, when did he cease to be a CTU employee?
He has been variously referred to as a CTU organizer / Legislative Coordinator.
Good question. I could not confirm an answer so I gave him the benefit of the doubt and worded it that way.
Chicago Sun-Times Garcia questions whether Johnson, a CTU organizer, can be an objective mayorCook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson is a paid organizer for the Chicago Teachers Union who helped lead it in two strikes and two job actions since 2012.By Fran Spielman Feb 17, 2023, 2:12pm CST “U.S. Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, D-Ill., questioned Friday whether Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson can represent the interests of Chicago taxpayers when his mayoral campaign is bankrolled by the Chicago Teachers Union and he is a paid CTU organizer who helped marshal support for two strikes and two job actions since 2012.” “‘That a… Read more »
Chicago Tribune
VOTER GUIDE
2023 Chicago mayoral candidates answer Tribune questionnaire: Brandon Johnson
Chicago Tribune
Jan 31, 2023 at 10:00 am
“Political experience: Chicago Teachers Union organizer (2011-present)”
https://www.chicagotribune.com/voter-guide/ct-chicago-mayoral-brandon-johnson-20230131-3q6rjrpzxnejdej7qhhhnzgbgi-story.html
What Brandon does as a CTU employee is a matter for CTU and its members. It’s not our money. Let them burn it for all I care. The better question is how much time is he spending on his duties as county commissioner.
For now the City of Chicago Mayor appoints Chicago Public Schools (CPS) board members. Those appointments are being phased out, to be replaced by voter elected board members. For just one example, the current CPS / CTU contract expires in 2024. Is it in the best interest of taxpayers to have a Mayor that is a long time union employee / legislative coordinator / organizer (2011 – present) appointing CPS board members who are supposed to represent the taxpayers, not the union. In theory traditionally the Mayor is on the management side of the equation, not the labor side of… Read more »