By Paul Vallas

June 28, 2024

Let’s be clear, addressing the injustices of and remnants of slavery is a serious issue. But using race and racism to explain away every problem, respond to every criticism and justify every failure only serves to cheapen the argument for any type of reparations. That’s exactly what Mayor Johnson has done with every problem plaguing Chicago and the Black community. Mayor Johnson’s “Reparations” gambit is nothing but a political ploy to put his critics on the defensive, and to regain support in the Black community that feels the Mayor’s migrant policies have left them behind.

While the Mayor “apologizes on behalf of Chicago for historic wrongs committed against Blacks in Chicago”, who is he apologizing for? Does it include the half of all Chicagoans who were not born in the city or the two thirds of Chicagoans who are either immigrants or the child, grandchild or great grandchild of immigrants. Or the 35% of Chicagoans who are white, descendants of immigrants, many whose ancestors themselves were victimized. My Greek immigrant grandparents, for example, descended from Greeks who endured 400 years of Ottoman Turkish oppression.

It is clear that he is not apologizing for the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) leadership, which since 2010 has systematically degraded a school system that is overwhelmingly Black, Latino, and poor through a series of strikes and work stoppages. Including forcing the district to close campuses for 78 weeks and denying poor families private and public-school alternatives to their often-failing neighborhood schools. This has had devastating consequences not only academically but also on youth health and safety.

He is not apologizing for his defund the police supporters, who have been responsible for a reduction of almost 1,700 police positions. This resulted in not enough officers to respond to half the 911 calls and not enough detectives to clear almost 95% of violent crime cases. This has particularly devastated the Black community who constitute 80% of murder victims and Black women who constitute a shocking 30% of all violent crime victims.

He is also not apologizing for the state’s Democratic leadership, which has for an exception of a few years controlled both houses of the legislature for more than four decades. Despite their claiming to place “equity” at the center of most everything it does, Illinois ranks last or near last on studies on racial equality. Meanwhile, studies show Illinois to have the highest consistently combined state and local taxes in the nation as the so-called progressive equity agenda that takes more and gives less.

There is little in the Mayor’s budget or policies that indicate he is going to move beyond his racist rhetoric and actually address the needs of the Black community. From policies on public safety, Chicago Public Schools, migrants, and handling businesses, Johnson has followed through on what he said he would do.

Unfortunately, this has come at the cost of making citywide problems worse, especially for the poor Black communities he claims to be seeking equity for.

*The Mayor is going to make Chicago and in particular the Black community less safe. 

Johnson has continued to openly excuse crime and violence. He declared the teen takeovers in summer 2023 as just kids being “silly.” He criticized those who complained of youth mobs taking over city streets, saying, “We’re not talking about mob actions… to refer to children as baby Al Capones is not appropriate.” Acts of violence and the destruction of public and private property are always blamed on institutional racism. Meanwhile, violent crime is terrorizing too many Black communities.

His rhetoric is matched by actions he’s taken to dismantle police officer strength. He eliminated an additional 833 police vacancies in the budget, guaranteeing the city always have almost will has 1,500 fewer officers than when Mayor Lori Lightfoot took office. This will make it difficult to improve police response times that has seen over 50% “high priority” 911 calls not having a car available IB 2023, up from 19% in 2019 and arrests rates for violent crimes plummeting to less than 5%.

Chicago saw the highest number of violent crimes in six years last year. While murders were down 14% overall, the city still led the nation in murders, school-age youth murders, and mass shootings compared to other major cities. If Chicago were a state, it would be second only to California in mass shootings. The overwhelming majority of the victims were Black Chicago residents. Still, Johnson has been reluctant to condemn the violence, almost excusing it by repeatedly blaming it on systemic racism. And there’s no sign of this trend changing.

Yet despite the rise in violence and the strong opposition from many Aldermen who represent Chicago’s most violent communities, Johnson earlier this year canceled the ShotSpotter program that detects shots fired dramatically increasing police and EMS response times, deterring further violence and saving lives to appease soft-on-crime advocates who declared the program “racist.” Of course, he conveniently extended the program through the Democratic Convention this August.

*The Mayor wants to eliminate public-school choice for poor Black families

Johnson staked out his vision for K-12 education long before he ran for mayor, declaring he was “against the structure” of education and decrying homework, standardized tests, school accountability, school choice, and selective-enrollment schools. This, despite the fact that Teachers Union leadership, including himself have sent their own children to private and magnet schools and almost 40% of Chicago Teachers send their children to private schools.

As a union leader and lobbyist, he supported the capping of both the number and enrollment of public charter schools. As Mayor his appointed school board issued a resolution calling for a “transition away from privatization” and selective enrollment high performing magnet schools which will deny poor Black families their only alternatives to underperforming and often failing and under-enrolled neighborhood schools.

Public charter schools educate over 54,000 students including 25% of all high school students and 10% of all elementary school students. Blacks and Latinos make up 98% and students from low-income families make up 86% of all public charter school enrollment. and selective enrollment. Of the students enrolled in magnet schools, over 70% are minority and 50% come from low-income families.

The district as a whole, is systematically abandoning standards and accountability. Testing has been demonized as a relic of the system’s racist past, and academic performance is minimized in student, teacher, and school evaluations. Social promotion allows the system to boast historic graduation rates despite abysmal test scores. Johnson is returning to the racist relic of the past, low expectations, which will perpetuate inequities.

*The Mayor economic development policies will not help the Black community and Black businesses. 

On tax hikes and business development, the mayor’s economic strategies have leaned heavily on an ever-expanding public sector and public-private subsidies, not in creating a climate conducive to businesses opening and expanding. During his first year, Johnson did deliver on his promise to move the subminimum wage for tipped workers and double family leave requirements for private businesses—but that only imposes unfunded mandates that will hurt small minority businesses most.

He was able to pass his small business-killing Bring Chicago Home real estate transfer tax referendum onto the ballot, though he was unable to secure the votes to enact it. Trying to sell it as a “mansion tax,” over 90% of the tax would have been paid by commercial property owners—most of whom would simply pass the tax on to renters.

Though he’s backed away from other taxes mentioned on the campaign trail—such as a hotel tax increase, jet fuel tax, and restoring the head tax—they remain in the on-deck circle. All these tax proposals as well as other initiatives being floated like a tax on services, a congestion tax, are all regressive, not tied to the ability to pay, and will disproportionately impact the Black community.

The only thing resembling an economic strategy is Johnson’s plan to use revenues from expiring tax increment financing districts to borrow $1.25 billion to build affordable housing and other developments in Chicago over the next five years. But few details have been offered on how these funds will be used and no safeguards are in place to prevent money mismanagement. The Mayor’s City Council leaders have blocked efforts to require transparency and City Council input.

Desperate to secure a win, the mayor signed on to the Chicago Bears’ plan for a new multi-billion-dollar stadium with more than $1.5 billion in taxpayer subsidies to permanently deface the lakefront, despite originally rejecting the idea of public subsidies for a stadium during his candidacy. Meanwhile, he approved handing a downtown developer $152 million in TIF funds in exchange for including 1,000 “affordable” units to his plan to convert 4 buildings to residences.

*The Mayor and his socialist supporters prioritize migrants over Blacks and current Latino residents

The Mayor’s migrant policies will come at the expense of the Black community. Migrants have dominated the Mayor’s administration as the Mayor continues to support Chicago’s sanctuary city policy that openly invites migrants, promising not to cooperate with the federal government on enforcing illegal migration while providing unprecedented handouts to new arrivals seeking asylum. This includes emergency shelter and housing; medical assessments and treatment; legal services; job-readiness support; benefits for victims of serious crimes; enrollment in public schools, among other things.

All told, the Johnson administration has committed nearly $400 million to migrant health and welfare so far, while the state has provided over $800 million for housing and other services and almost $1 billion more for migrant healthcare. The school district itself has spent between $212 million and $400 million on migrant students and the CTU is demanding an additional $2,000 per migrant child in the teachers’ contract. Contrast that spending with his other priorities in his quest to overcome historic injustices.

Meanwhile, the Mayor’s “Treatment not Trauma” program budgets for only 4 mental health centers. The so-called re-established City Department of Environment (DOE) to address environmental racism is the addition of 6 staff to the existing 4 individuals in the Mayor’s Office already dedicated to the issue. His prisoner reentry initiative, which like DOE simply creates a tiny office. His self-praised youth employment program adds a meager 4,000 temporary minimum wage summer jobs.

More Blacks have left Chicago than any other city as over 265,000 Black residents exited from 2000 to 2020, mostly middle-income families with school-age children. The population of Black children in Chicago age 17 and younger fell by 49% compared to a 14% decline in Black adults. Blacks are leaving because so-called progressive policies have left them in unsafe neighborhoods, denied them alternatives to failing unsafe schools, and burdened them with regressive taxes, fees, and fines.

Make no mistake, the policies, programs and posturing of the Mayor, the current CTU leadership and his socialist supporters will make things worse. Don’t expect him to change course. He will cry race every time. Consider his efforts to justify the blank check for migrants by blaming the crisis on “racist American foreign policy”, a white governor trying to hurt black mayors and equate migrant struggles with that of the descendants of slaves is particularly.

The reality is equity cannot be achieved unless all neighborhoods are safe, every family has quality school choices, every community has access to a public transit system that is reliable and safe. Government programs must prioritize strengthening families and creating local ownership and building local wealth, which is generationally transferable, not just adding more government dependents.

While the Mayor chooses to use the race card as the oversimplified catch all answer for all that ails Chicago and Chicago’s Black community, we’d be better served by thoughtful, practical policy responses.

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Paul Vallas formerly ran the public school systems in Chicago, Philadelphia and the Louisiana Recovery School District. He was a candidate for Mayor of Chicago.