Congratulations to both Jesús “Chuy” Garcia and black voters for being winners. Unlike others, I will not lament today those voters who didn’t come out — at least in this column. Rather, I want to focus on the voters who were smart enough to not only come out and vote, but to not vote for the current mayor. Yeah!
Now that the hoopla is over, fear mongering is being aimed at the black community because Chuy is Hispanic. For the past 30 years now, black folks have been the major purveyors of the “Black and Hispanic” mantra. Blacks have championed Hispanics to the point that now black folks are saying “Latinos” as “Lah teeeen noz” to add a Spanish tinge to the word. For the past 20 years, blacks folks have watched as the once less than a million people of Mexican ancestry who were in this country as of 1970 has blossomed along with other Hispanic cultures to more than the entire population of black America. The majority reason is due to illegal immigration. It is still a situation that I am against. Yet without qualms, I want to be the first to say that I plan on voting for Chuy because I can never, under any circumstances, vote for a man who has already shown his dislike of me and my community.
I knew Rahm was a snake when he came here. How soon folks forget how he threw his tenant out of the house they were renting from him so he could claim residency. That was followed by the lie that he had purchased a city sticker while living in Washington D.C. Next, he used his legacy of having been second in command at CHA, then later working in the Clinton administration, to end public housing. Once elected to be the mayor, he bit the black community’s hand that put him in office by closing down schools, tearing down more rehab-able buildings (especially bungalows and greystones), installing speed cameras and additional red light cameras (while his own carpool runs them with impunity), and basically sell this city to his rich developer friends.
When the Westside chapter of the NAACP held a debate at Friendship Baptist, 5200 W. Jackson Blvd., for the second time (the first was during the 2011 election), he couldn’t make it. When Chicago State University held a debate, he couldn’t make it.
Now that he needs the black vote more than anything else, guess where he was the first day after the election? Why all of a sudden could he make it to 95th and the Dan Ryan el stop to shake black folks’ hands and act like he likes us?
But before the election, he thought all he had to do was bring in Obama and we, like dumb sheep, would just vote for him — well, that has proven erroneous. Did anybody see a single Re-Elect Rahm sign in the black community before the Feb. 24 election? No! How much of the $7 million dollars did he spend with African-American newspapers? His only commercials on WVON 1690AM were those featuring Obama.
If I ran Chuy’s campaign, this is what I would do. First admit that the distrust between blacks and Hispanics has been created by certain white elected officials. I watched Chuy’s speech following his second place win and it was filled with genuine gratitude for several African Americans who played a pivotal role in his thinking. Chuy needs to name his governing team now.
Most of all, Chuy needs to honor those commitments. It was very disingenuous of him to pledge to end the red-light cameras one day and then two days later change his tune. I have a wonderful idea to replace the red light cameras and it could generate not only income but employment!
Next, I would advise Chuy to bring on Willie Wilson, Bob Fioretti and William ‘Dock’ Walls as advisors to fine-tune his message.
I will elaborate more next week.
