Black Chicagoans Care More about a Ceasefire at Home

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson speaks during a press conference after a CPS student was murdered near Senn High School earlier this week.

The Chicago City Council in a symbolic vote on Thursday passed a resolution calling for a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas taking place in Palestine. Rookie Mayor Brandon Johnson provided the deciding vote breaking a 23-23 tie with four alderpersons abstaining. In the meantime, Black Chicagoans at home and abroad would like to see political leaders do more to resolve the crisis of violence in the city’s streets. While the murder rate has been going down the past few years, the number of carjackings continues to rise, as longtime Morgan Park baseball coach Ernest Radcliffe was a recent victim, who thankfully was unharmed. Shootings revolving around domestic violence also increased by 19% last year, according to the city’s own data.

You would think this would be the focus of the 50+1 charged with creating legislation to address criminal issues. Instead, they are wasting their time arguing and voting over something nobody is paying attention to, especially the ones who are doing all of the bombing and shooting on the other side of the world. Mind you now, this is the same legislative body and Mayor complaining that the federal government isn’t fixing the migrant crisis, which is affecting the nation’s third largest city more than anything that is happening in Gaza. Passing a resolution that flies in the face of what the President of the United States is doing, you know the guy you need to help you fix the migrant problem, is not a good way to accumulate political good will, which is one of several reasons why the entire thing is stupid.

For Black Chicagoans, who have legit complaints about a lack of employment opportunities, few mental health services, underperforming schools and along with the rest of the citizenry crime, Gaza is not a priority. While many Black Chicagoans believe Israel is using heavy-handed tactics, they also saw when Hamas fighters started this latest skirmish between the two entities back in October. Conflict in the region has been going on for the past 70 years, so forgive us if we’re yawning.

The Polish proverb “not my circus, not my monkeys,” is how most Black Chicagoans look at the situation. We don’t have a dog in this fight and frankly are offended by those who keep trying to rope our community into this mess. It is not that Black people don’t have empathy for those suffering in Israel and Gaza. We just have to prioritize our time, focus and anger, which much of it is reserved for what is happening in the Chicago area and in our communities in particular. Gaza is 6,130 miles away from Chicago by air. I think we’re safe from what is happening there.

In the meantime: these potholes are taking out cars faster than the Blackhawks are losing players to injury, as city crews have been slow in repairing them in Black neighborhoods on the south and west sides. The influx of migrants into Black communities has caused friction with longtime residents and Mayor Johnson has yet to come out with a concrete plan to address it. Red light and speeding cameras are still raking in the dollars and drawing the ire of Black people, whose communities the cameras are most deployed in. Three CPS students have been shot outside of schools in the past week, to go along with a 14-year-old freshman girls’ basketball player at Kenwood who was assaulted when she was struck in the head with a basketball thrown by her now fired coach back in December. CPS officials won’t release video that recorded the incident despite repeated FOIA requests. Not a good look for a mayor who ran his campaign promising transparency in city government.

“Open access to information and open government are essential to our democracy. The role of the press, in particular, is “to serve the governed, not the governors,” and FOIA requests by media outlets are key to providing access to information for the general public,” is what Johnson told the Better Government Association when he was campaigning.

Johnson’s administration has been opaque thus far, reluctant to release environmental studies on a proposed migrant shelter site, walling off parts of the council chambers and city hall for that matter from the public and reticent to talk about the Shot Spotter program that he was not in favor of on the campaign trail and vowed to eliminate. His tone-deafness to the Black community’s concerns will be his undoing.

Walk into any barbershop, hair salon, lounge, Black church or family gathering and you will hear what Black Chicagoans are concerned about. They ain’t talking about no Gaza. The discussion revolves around what the Bears should do; trade the number one pick and stick with Justin or start with a new franchise quarterback? It is a question that has been going on about as long as Israel and Palestine have been fighting and with the same intensity. I will put my money on the Bears solving their problems before Israel and Palestine figure out a way to get along and that’s a longshot bet at best.