Editorial: Speak incautiously about race, Mr. Mayor, and you invite federal scrutiny

Chicago Tribune

21-05-2025

On Sunday, Mayor Brandon Johnson visited one of Chicago's megachurches, the Apostolic Church of God in Woodlawn.
The mayor sat down in front of the large South Side congregation for a discussion with the church's pastor, Dr. Byron Brazier. Speaking about economic development, Johnson talked of the resources and investments his administration has made in Black communities and businesses.
He got to speaking about how Bowa Construction, a Black-owned company, had been awarded a contract to be the lead vendor on a cargo expansion project at O'Hare Airport. It was the first time in U.S. aviation history that a Black-owned contractor had won the lead on a major airport cargo expansion project, the mayor said.
All well and good. And to be celebrated for sure.
But then things got problematic. Very problematic.
In the context of the Bowa contract, Johnson said, 'One thing I know for sure I have to do over these next two years: every single dime that our people have been robbed of, I'm going to make sure that is returned two-, three-fold.'
Whether he meant it this way or not, the clear implication was that the Johnson administration would attempt to award as much business as possible to Black-owned firms over the rest of his term.
Johnson surely knows that there are strict rules when it comes to city contracting. All but the smallest jobs must be competitively bid. The rules can get complex and there long have been worthy programs to help minority- and women-owned firms win city business. But the rules exist to ensure taxpayers get the best work possible at the lowest possible price that bidders believe the process is fair and nondiscriminatory.
So while activists are free to opine on whether minority contractors ought to be favored because of the city's past discriminatory patronage practices, a mayor simply shouldn't do so. If he does, he invites reactions from those empowered to investigate, such as the U.S. Department of Justice.
In the same sit-down at the church, Johnson celebrated the many Black people who hold senior roles in his administration, listing their names one by one.
That prompted Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon to fire off a letter to Johnson just a day after his Sunday appearance saying she'd authorized an investigation into whether his administration is violating federal civil rights law in its hiring practices.
Johnson didn't help his cause when he prefaced that part of his discussion by saying, 'Our people hire our people,' not far removed from the infamous 'We don't want nobody nobody sent' phrase, tied to the Richard J. Daley machine.
Dhillon mused in the letter about whether Johnson's administration was showing a pattern of favoring Black candidates in employment decisions.
Vendors are a particular concern to us because of how much they impact taxpayers. Statements about 'making sure' favored firms get their piece of the pie — and then some ('two-, three-fold') — should impel more scrutiny of the administration's contracting practices.
The notorious 'Shakman decree,' a federal court order imposed on the city decades ago and barring patronage hiring practices prevalent in the days of the first Mayor Daley, was lifted in 2014 — during the mayoralty of Rahm Emanuel, ironically a frequent verbal punching bag for the current mayor. It shouldn't be a tall order for this mayor — or future mayors — to avoid the kind of rhetoric inviting a redux of such legal oversight.
Even if the administration hasn't put its thumb on the contracting scales in the way Johnson suggested Sunday, such reckless rhetoric could well discourage qualified companies from bothering to bid on future projects, to the disadvantage of taxpayers. Perception easily can become reality.
Then there's the corrosive message the rest of the city is hearing in these remarks. As 15th Ward Ald. Ray Lopez, a frequent Johnson critic, noted, the reaction to Johnson's messaging 'validates the concerns many people have throughout the city of Chicago that this isn't a mayor for everyone.'
Indeed.
There are ways for Brandon Johnson to communicate his record to voters without exacerbating the ethnic divisions that long have stymied progress in this city.
No, Chicago's record of racial discrimination is not confined strictly to the past. And too many neighborhoods held back by racist policies and practices by past powers-that-be still are feeling the effects. Plenty of folks of all races, creeds and colors realize that, and many have spent years trying to repair the damage.
But our mayor is supposed to be the mayor of the city of Chicago, not just some of its neighborhoods. Johnson sounds like he doesn't mind if he's perceived as caring about only some Chicagoans and not all.