We Turned The Web page

Photograph caption: Mayor-Elect Brandon Johnson together with his spouse and son (Photograph by Marcus Robinson)

By Delmarie Cobb

For 35 years, Black Chicago has been wandering within the desert. Ever since Mayor Harold Washington’s sudden loss of life, we’ve got been trying to find the Promise Land.

Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson is the primary Progressive mayor Chicagoans have elected since Washington. Sadly, we by no means bought to see if Mayor Eugene Sawyer was progressive. To the dismay of those that chosen him on that fateful night time following Washington’s loss of life, Sawyer did proceed and fund his predecessor’s applications and insurance policies–particularly, minority hiring and contracting. The substantial break up within the Black neighborhood that compelled the Particular Election leading to Mayor Richard M. Daley’s victory solid us to wander.

As Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. mentioned a the time of the 1989 Particular Election, “Harold Washington’s loss of life was the rope and the particular election was the grease on the rope.” In different phrases, the division in our neighborhood threw us into many years of chaos.

For less than the second time, in Chicago’s historical past, we rose to take the proverbial foot off our necks. After shedding 250,000 Black Chicagoans since 2000, a whole bunch of Black companies and jobs, the closing of fifty faculty buildings, tens of millions of {dollars} in regressive taxes, charges and fines, and paying a billion {dollars} for police misconduct and wrongful loss of life lawsuits, we selected somebody to steer the town with no connection to the Daley Dynasty.

On multiple event, I’ve said that I don’t fall in love with elected officers. They don’t seem to be to be idolized and placed on a pedestal. Moderately, they’re elected to signify us and we must always maintain them accountable always. I’ve usually said, “There aren’t any everlasting associates or everlasting enemies solely everlasting pursuits.” These are two of my core beliefs.

It shouldn’t be misplaced on us that Brandon Johnson was elected throughout Easter Week, essentially the most political story within the Bible. It shouldn’t be misplaced on us that Brandon Johnson was elected 55 years after Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated whereas in Memphis to help the placing sanitation employees. It shouldn’t be misplaced on us that Brandon Johnson was elected 40 years after Harold Washington grew to become mayor. It shouldn’t be misplaced on us that Brandon Johnson is the second Black man to be elected mayor in our metropolis’s wealthy Black historical past. It shouldn’t be misplaced on us that Brandon Johnson won’t be our savior. We’re our saviors and we took step one towards saving our metropolis by electing Brandon Johnson and turning the web page.

I shudder to assume how way more Black Chicago would undergo below a legislation and order mayor, a constitution faculty enlargement mayor, a raise the ban on video poker mayor, a Fraternal Order of Police endorsed mayor and a beholden to the Republican enterprise neighborhood mayor.

It’s previous time for many who can afford it the least, to proceed shouldering the town’s monetary burdens. Why shouldn’t the town’s largest firms pay a nominal head tax? Keep in mind, eliminating the pinnacle tax was Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s first nod to the enterprise neighborhood, which had been in place since 1973. On the level it was eradicated, the pinnacle tax was producing roughly $23 million a yr.

To make up for the shortfall, the Emanuel administration started an aggressive effort to ticket pink mild digital camera violators. From 2011 to 2016, his administration generated $285 million in fines.

When Mayor Lori Lightfoot created a brand new $35 ticket for dashing 6-9 miles per hour over the posted limits, $79.5 million was generated in little over a yr, from largely Black and Latino communities.

Property taxes, charges and fines, tickets, playing income and marijuana are all regressive income streams, which influence poor folks disproportionately. But, the enterprise neighborhood balks on the very point out of a head tax, actual property switch tax, resort tax or any tax suggesting they pay their justifiable share.

Johnson is proposing progressive insurance policies that ought to mirror our values to shelter the unhoused, present high quality public training, remedy not trauma, constitutional policing, public security, create jobs for all ability ranges and put money into folks and neighborhoods.

On Election Day, Chicagoans selected to conquer our dangerous previous and resurrect our good previous. Let’s hope our resolution offers the rebirth our communities and metropolis want.