I hate this time of the year with a passion. No, it’s not because of the weather or the upcoming Halloween holiday. So what could cause me to hate this time of year so much? Simple. It’s election season. And because these elected officials want to be returned to office to continue to do absolutely nothing, they bombard us with campaign promises.
Between reading the literature or watching their televised commercials, these elected officials sound like they are candidates to be Superheroes of America. They’re going to fight for this. They’re going to protect us from that. If they could promise with a straight face that they could turn water into wine, they would.
Yet in truth, our quality of life is not better. It’s absolutely worse. And it’s worse primarily because of many of the decisions they make or don’t make.
Many of the incumbent candidates have jumped on the Roe v Wade decision by the Supreme Court. I feel that abortion is a personal decision a woman makes, and everyone else needs to back off. What I would like to see are some comprehensive plans from these elected officials to deal with the current problems that we do have like: shootings, shootings and even more shootings; drag racing/reckless driving on the street is now as common as traffic occurring; carjacking still is a major concern, with the age of many of the jackers ranging from under 18 to as young as 10 and, sadly, predominantly, Black; and bicyclists continue to put themselves and others at risk as they don’t obey the law while riding on busy streets with major traffic.
Those are just some of the major issues. There are minor issues too. All in all, our politicians seem more in tune with promoting their party and getting re-elected to office.
I’m also tired of the way these incumbent politicians are passing out taxpayers’ money as if it comes from their own personal bankroll. The recently announced Cook County guaranteed income program doesn’t care about one’s immigration status. Why should citizens be required to do things like pay taxes and politicians pass it out to any and everybody?
The way I’m feeling, I’m voting for all the opponents. They may not do a better job, but we have to send the message to those in power that their power is not permanent. There’s even one person running for re-election who doesn’t even send out campaign literature because he knows everybody’s going to vote for him, even though the West Side still looks as bad as it did 35 years ago.
We can blame the aldermen, but we also need to blame every other level of elected officials going up. The Black community is always being underserved, and even more so by the Black folks that are elected who are supposed to have our backs!
