Latest news with #ChicagoPolitics
Fox News
4 days ago
- General
- Fox News
Chicago's Mayor Johnson is so focused on race he can't see the truth about humanity
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson recently stoked the racial fires once again. I guess this is the only way he can break news these days, because he doesn't have significant accomplishments to speak of. This time the mayor was visiting the Apostolic Church of God, located in my South Side neighborhood of Woodlawn, when he said, "The reason I hire so many Blacks to run Chicago is because we're planet Earth's most generous race." This is Black supremacy, plain and simple. Like the racists of America's past, Mayor Johnson believes in attributing supremacy and inferiority to an individual based on skin color. And he has made no secret of his belief that one's black skin makes one superior and one's White skin makes one inferior. In 2022, he told the Chicago Tribune, "People are going to criticize the fact that we have [the most] Black and brown folks in the history of Chicago. Yes, we are the Blackest administration, and I'm proud of it." And what does he say about White people? In July of 2024, he told a concert crowd that he blamed whites for running the city down to the ground: "Y'all look, white supremacy is real- I'm going to say that one more time." He clearly forgot that the preceding mayor of Chicago was Black. The man has no problem admitting his racism out loud and clear. That is why I applauded the recent decision by the DOJ's Civil Rights Division to launch an investigation into whether or not Johnson's administration engaged in discriminatory hiring practices. Specifically, they will examine whether the city's employment practices systematically favored black candidates over others, violating federal anti-discrimination laws. I don't want a mayor who plays racial tribalism for power and to hide the fact that our city is suffering profoundly. That is why his comment about blacks being the most generous race on earth was offensive. If one looks at my neighborhood through a racial lens, we are 90% all Black and we have an epidemic of Black-on-Black crime. I have said time and time again that the problems we face are human problems. We are not "Black" but human beings born in the greatest country known to mankind and it is time that we start thinking of ourselves in that regard. In 2023, 70% of our homicides were Black-on-Black. Blacks are both the killers and the victims. How is this generous? To make matters worse, 70% of those homicides go unsolved in predominantly Black neighborhoods like mine. How is this generous? I could go on about other crimes, but I think the point is made. The fact that Mayor Johnson chooses to overlook the horrors playing out on our streets every day so that he may engage in his racial fantasies reveals that we truly have no one leading our city. After all, "Black" cannot lead the city of Chicago. What does "Black" do? How does "Black" run a city? How does "Black" fix violence? How does "Black" fix the education epidemic? How does "Black" fix the lack of stable family households? How does "Black" replace the father the kid never had? And how in the world is "Black" generous? chic The racial stupidity that comes out of this mayor's mouth is unfathomable. This stupidity costs lives and ruins futures. Our problem is not race. Being Black has never done any good for us. If it was so great, then why are we called the permanent underclass? Permanent, as in there is no hope for us. That's where being Black has gotten us the last 60 years. Where is the generosity in that? I have said time and time again that the problems we face are human problems. We are not "Black" but human beings born in the greatest country known to mankind and it is time that we start thinking of ourselves in that regard. I tell the children in my neighborhood: look how lucky you are! God has blessed you with two feet, two hands, two eyes, two ears, and the most powerful tool known to man: your brain. That is why every single ounce of our efforts must be focused on developing the full humanity of the people in my neighborhood. That is all that matters. And we must do this despite having a mayor that hides like a coward behind race to mask his inferiority when it comes to solving the problems of our city. We will never allow such a lowly man to bring us down and that is why I pray for my city and her people every day.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
‘Our people hire our people': Long before DOJ probe into Mayor Brandon Johnson, racial politics coursed through City Hall hiring
Mayor Brandon Johnson sat onstage at a cavernous Woodlawn church and shot back at the criticism that he only cares about hiring Black people with his most forceful defense yet of the representation among his top appointees. Addressing a Black audience last week, he quoted the Rev. Jesse Jackson: 'Our people hire our people.' Then one by one, he shouted out six of his Black deputies and a Black-owned business recently awarded an airport contract. Less than 24 hours later, his remarks reached the walls of President Donald Trump's Justice Department, triggering an investigation into City Hall's hiring practices. But while Trump's crusade against diversity policies that he views as discriminatory against white Americans is unprecedented, the practice of powerful officials hiring from within their own ethnic group is a tried-and-true tradition in the bare-knuckle arena of Chicago politics. Long before DEI, or diversity, equity and inclusion, entered the political lexicon, the city's various racial groups each approached the power struggle for jobs with the ethos of 'Where's mine?' Johnson, while maintaining he's looking out for the entire city, has also argued that now it's Black residents' turn. 'Why wouldn't I speak to Black Chicago? Why wouldn't I?' the mayor challenged reporters when asked about the DOJ probe last week. 'It would be shameful if I were to repeat the sins of those who have been in this position before because they did not speak enough to Black Chicago.' Former Ald. Ed Vrdolyak, a ringleader of the white opposition to Mayor Harold Washington in the 1980s, once laid out Chicago's ethnic political principles in stark terms, as an outsider taking stock of the Daley clan's decades of iron control of the city's levers of power. 'You've got to understand something about the Irish, the Daley Irish,' Vrdolyak told the Tribune in 1996. 'It's the Irish first, and everybody else is a Polack. Everybody. I'm Croatian, and to them I was a Polack. The Blacks are Polacks. Latinos, everybody … are Polacks. That's how they are.' Ald. Walter Burnett, 27th, the most veteran sitting member of the City Council, chuckled recently when he heard the quote. 'Isn't that something? This is real talk in Chicago.' 'We keep going through this evolution of who gets the short end of the stick,' said Burnett, who is Black. 'And when you have been oppressed and neglected for such a long time, you know you are going to continue to try and get more. It's just a natural reaction.' During the 20th century, European immigrants came to Chicago in waves, with each group starting from scratch when it came to amassing economic and political might. Longtime white Chicagoans often didn't accept the newcomers at first, but eventually the burgeoning populations of Irish, Italians, Polish and others established their own unique enclaves across the city. Most famously, the Irish American Daley family came into power and built a formidable political machine from the 11th Ward in Bridgeport, making a point to hire and promote other Irish Chicagoans. Other white ethnic groups such as the Polish did the same. That reward system came under fire in the early 1970s under Mayor Richard J. Daley, when federal courts issued a series of orders prohibiting patronage employment in Chicago. They were known as the Shakman decrees. The DOJ probe into Johnson hinges on whether he 'made hiring decisions solely on the basis of race,' in potential violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, according to a notice issued by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon. Flashback: Chicago's Council Wars pitted defiant white aldermen against a reform-minded Harold Washington Washington, the city's first Black mayor, bucked the status quo by recruiting a coalition of Black and Latino aldermen to counter Vrdolyak and other white ethnic members of the Democratic machine who tried to thwart him, in a period known as Council Wars. After Washington's death in office in 1987, however, that so-called Rainbow Coalition waned as Mayor Richard M. Daley took over in 1989. Daley assembled his own alliance of ethnic whites and Latinos as the 1990 decennial ward remapping process loomed to prop up a wedge against a growing Black influence at City Hall. Latino hiring did surge, thanks to the Daley-allied Hispanic Democratic Organization — until a federal investigation into its patronage hiring practices kneecapped the group. Faced with these setbacks, some Black politicians have tried to take matters in their own hands. 'I've always liked patronage,' the late Ald. William Beavers was quoted saying in the Tribune in 1988. 'Why change the game when Harold Washington became mayor? You should be allowed to hire whomever you want.' Or as former Cook County Board President Todd Stroger once argued, 'Patronage has been as American as apple pie.' Ameshia Cross, a Democratic strategist who grew up in South Shore, said comparing the racial politics of then versus now is imprecise, however. While earlier generations of European immigrants have since assimilated with white Americans, Black people remain in 'an entirely separate bucket,' she said. Cross said the city has yet to fully rectify its sordid legacy of redlining, discriminatory banks and other practices that segregated the South and West sides. That's why the modern apparatus of government jobs serving as a 'backbone' for the Black community is so critical for Johnson to protect, she said. 'Even though Chicago has never been a part of Jim Crow, Chicago very much had a separate but equal stance,' Cross said. 'There is a movement, and has been for at least the better half of the past three and a half decades, to ensure that many of those gaps reach a level of closure. … That's one of the things that this White House is trying its darnedest to erase.' One of Washington's signature lines that encapsulated the promise behind his Rainbow Coalition was, 'You're going to get your fair share,' as former U.S. Rep. Luis Gutiérrez recalled hearing the late mayor promise constituents. In the decades since, Chicago's racial interests have scarcely agreed on what a 'fair share' looks like. Gutiérrez, who joined Washington's ranks as an upstart Puerto Rican alderman, has since gravitated toward more establishment positions. He said the current political climate doesn't need more inflammatory rhetoric like Johnson's. 'Why would a mayor that represents everybody tout exclusively about the Black people that he's hired?' Gutiérrez said. 'The city of Chicago has come a long way, a long way, and I don't think it needs a mayor that fans the flames of race as an issue.' Since Johnson took office two years ago, he's faced pushback from Latino leaders who want his staff and cabinet makeup to be more reflective of Chicago's shifting demographics. For his part the mayor says he has the 'most diverse administration' in the city's history, which is true when measuring his share of nonwhite employees against his last three predecessors, at the very least. But the 'most diverse' label becomes more fraught when breaking down the nonwhite representation. Over the past decade, Latinos have surpassed the shrinking Black population for the first time, leaving Chicago at about 30% Latino, 29% Black, 31% white and 7% Asian. The map that ultimately passed the City Council in the most recent ward remap following the 2020 census had 16 majority-Black wards and 14 majority-Latino wards — one fewer than what the Latino Caucus wanted — while forming the city's first majority-Asian ward. The makeup of the entire mayor's office staff is 34% Black, 24% Hispanic, 30% white and 7% Asian, according to the latest numbers provided last week. Johnson's cabinet was much Blacker, however, hovering at about 44% as of last year, according to the Triibe news website. The mayor's press office did not provide updated figures to the Tribune. When asked last week whether the strong Black focus among his staff leaves Latinos, Asians and other marginalized groups behind, the mayor retorted that's 'the type of divisiveness that this president wants us to have.' He then listed seven Latinas across his leadership and cabinet team. Ald. Gilbert Villegas, 36th, a frequent Johnson critic, said he will continue pushing for the mayor's Latino representation to be closer to 30%, arguing that Latinos will likely surpass white Chicagoans in next decade and become the largest group. 'There are going to be some communities that get ahead, but it should not be because of the fact that you're saying, 'Oh, because it's my community, I want to get them ahead,'' Villegas said. 'This is not the 1970s and '80s, and if we want to revert back to that, it's the wrong approach.' Villegas was chair of the Latino Caucus during the most recent ward redistricting process under then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot, leading the failed effort to secure an additional majority-Latino seat. Then under Johnson, Villegas unsuccessfully threw his hat in the ring to be appointed Zoning chair after the coveted leadership role was vacated by Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, 35th. Johnson found himself in a monthslong quagmire last year because he had promised the seat to the Latino Caucus but was unable to pick a candidate he could both trust and muscle through the council, so he opted to go with Burnett and boost the Black Caucus' chairmanships instead. While remaining steadfast in defending the prioritization of the Black neighborhoods he says have 'borne the brunt' of policies such as the 2013 mass school closings, the mayor has also sought to challenge what he sees as a cherry-picked narrative over how he approaches race. 'It sounds like to me that people tune in to what they wanted to, because the fact of the matter is that I've shown up for this entire city,' Johnson said last week. 'The city of Chicago has suffered from a great deal of pain because of the political and the racial dividing lines that have existed in this city for a long time. I'm going to break those.' For Ald. Nicole Lee, who represents the new Asian-majority 11th Ward, the drop in Asian representation at the senior levels was 'striking.' Lightfoot had four Asian Americans in her leadership team, while Johnson has had no Asian representation among his appointees to his office for the vast majority of his term. 'I would question how we define the most diverse,' Lee said. 'It is disappointing that his administration doesn't feel representative of my own community, and it's not something that's lost on the community, either. It is definitely a topic of conversation among folks.' Lee said she's voiced this concern to Johnson before and suggested Asian American candidates for open positions, but they were not selected. Last month, the mayor did appoint Jung Yoon as policy chief. Victor LaGroon, former chief diversity officer at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, said it's not realistic for governments to match their constituents' demographics one-to-one. When the age-old bickering over 'where's mine?' does spill over, that is more a reflection of a historic scarcity of opportunity within those populations, LaGroon, who also served in Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration, said. 'The communities who view themselves as waiting for their turn to be served can view themselves in a very myopic way and say, 'Hey, we didn't get what we needed. Where's ours?' It's unfortunate,' Lagroon said. 'While mayors today try to get it right, I think it's also important to notice that many of our mayors are trying to also undo some of the harm done in the past.'
Fox News
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Sen Mike Lee accuses Chicago mayor — who called Trump a 'monster' — of 'bragging about' violating the law
Print Close By Alex Nitzberg Published May 23, 2025 Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson called President Donald Trump a "monster," and U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, has accused the mayor of "bragging about" violating the law. Johnson accused the president of "animus towards women, people of color, [and] working people." "We have always known who he has been," he declared. "This is not a surprise. He's a monster, period. We have the most diverse administration in the history of Chicago, and he is threatened by that." Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment but did not receive a response by the time of publication. DOJ LAUNCHES INVESTIGATION INTO BLUE STATE CITY OVER ALLEGED RACE-BASED HIRING The mayor's fiery comments come in the context of the Justice Department launching a probe into whether Chicago is engaging in race-based discrimination. "Our investigation is based on information suggesting that you have made hiring decisions solely on the basis of race," a letter signed by Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Division, Harmeet Dhillon declares. The letter points to comments the mayor made while speaking to Dr. Byron T. Brazier, pastor of the Apostolic Church of God. During the exchange, Johnson pointed to various roles occupied by Black individuals and said, "when you ask, how do we ensure that our people get a chance to grow their business, having people in my administration that will look out for the interest of everyone, and everyone means you have to look out for the interests of Black folks … that's how we ensure long-term sustainable growth …" POLICE RAID DC SHOOTING SUSPECT ELIAS RODRIGUEZ'S CHICAGO APARTMENT Dhillon's message to the mayor notes that "we have not reached any conclusions about the subject matter of the investigation." "Chicago's mayor is about to find out," Sen. Mike Lee declared in a post on X. "Racial discrimination is illegal." "There's no such thing as benevolently racist hiring policies," Lee said in another post. "Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is breaking the law And bragging about it Then calling Trump a monster because his administration won't tolerate that," Lee wrote, adding, "He's about to find out." GIANNO CALDWELL SEEKS JUSTICE FOR BROTHER KILLED IN BLUE CITY 'ENAMORED WITH CRIMINALS' RIGHTS': ALDERMAN CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP The mayor's press office also did not respond to Fox News Digital's comment request by the time of publication. Print Close URL
