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Thursday, October 04, 2007

Progressive politics in Chicago

Yesterday I promised to get back to the Revenge of the Second City column from the Airbags section of Gaper's Block. I didn't get back to it and instead I posted this instead. Today I will get back to it.

As we all know Chicago is a diverse city. Go around the city and you'll see various cultures. Arabs, Pakistani, Indians, black people, Irish, Polish, Mexican, Puerto Rican, the Chinese and of course the list could go on and on. Basically we should all know that the population of Chicago can easily be divided up in thirds bu three major population groups (I'm using this for a lack of a better term) there are whites, blacks/African-Americans, and then hispanics. Each of those groups make up at least 1/3 each of the population. Not much more and not much less. Everybody else might be one percent or so.

So what is my point?

Well let's talk about how these groups politically. Race plays a big role in Chicago politics more so I imagine than anywhere else. Sometimes it pays for the disparate groups around the city to get together and form an alliance or a coalition of sorts. That's what the Second City column discusses. Progressive hispance coming together with independent black leadership.

They talk about the Democratic machine of 2007. A different animal from the machine we really think about. The one that gained power in 1931 with Anton Cermak as mayor gaining the support of different ethnic groups around the city, including black Chicagoans. Accordingly this machine once it gained power used their gains mainly in the form of patronage to solidify its support. This machine also helped to elect the "last of the big city mayors" Mayor Richard J. Daley. And of course the machine went down why the elder Mayor Daley passed away but it has seen a resurgence of sorts. Though it can't give out jobs like it used to.

Anyway here's how the column starts...
The standard narrative for immigrant groups knitting themselves into Chicago political fabric is a narrative of exclusion. Initially viewed with suspicion by native-born white groups, newer immigrant groups prove their worth largely by drawing strong contrasts between themselves and the one group everyone can agree to exclude — African-Americas. Eastern and Southern European immigrants, under suspicion of being somehow less than ideally white, proved their whiteness by adopting the same exclusionary attitudes towards African-Americans as earlier arrivals. It is interesting how much of the coverage of the debate over immigration reform in the Chicago media danced around this narrative, especially in gauging African-American attitudes towards the various proposals. Behind hand-wringing about competition for decent low skill jobs was the implicit question: "Why should we as African-Americans trust Mexican and other Latino immigrants?" The essential question for many African-American leaders is whether Mexican and other Latinos will be "as brown as we are black" or seek to prove their whiteness by working to continue the marginalization of African-Americans in Chicago.

African-American leaders have good reason for pessimism. The most visible Latino organization in the city of Chicago is the Hispanic Democratic Organization (HDO), a machine organization that seeks to maximize patronage for its members while playing the game of who's in/who's out. Nevertheless, there is some reason for hope. Despite the media focus on the Hired Truck scandals and black-brown political and social tension, there exists a new generation of activists and politicians working to carry on the legacy of Rudy Lozano and other progressive Mexican leaders. This group of young, educated, mostly second- and third-generation sons and daughters of Chicago's Mexican neighborhoods have quietly built an independent political organization capable of defeating the HDO and maybe, just maybe, revitalizing the black/brown/white liberal coalition that brought Chicago its one shining moment of progressive, non-machine politics.

Apparently this column is focused on a race for the Illinois senate in the 12th district...
With Luis Gutierrez delaying a watershed open race for Congress, the race in the 12th Senate District becomes the epicenter of a political struggle between those independents and progressives among the Mexican-American community who would share a common with for African-Americans and other marginalized groups across Chicago and those leaders whose sole concern is winning elections, dealing out patronage and pork, and becoming acceptable to the downtown power establishment. It is no accident that in the last election Martin Sandoval trotted out a number of mothers who claimed that they had been at the hunger strike but could not send their children to the shiny new school because CPS had drawn the district to include African-American students from North Lawndale. Despite questions over the authenticity of the women's testimony, Sandoval's trick attempted to cast doubt on the crowning achievement of independent politics in the Mexican community. It effectively raised the specter of race and division. It also effectively appealed to people's innate desire to exclude and cast out the other.

It was not, however, effective as a political strategy, at least not in Chicago. Despite strong HDO presence, Garza lost the Chicago precincts by only 82 votes, although he was soundly defeated in Cicero. The success of Garza's ground operation in Chicago, largely made up of the aforementioned young, progressive activists, spurred the formation of Southwest Democrats. While these activists have spent the period before this February's primary election consolidating their political base in Chicago and retooling efforts in Cicero, Sandoval, true to HDO form, has showered pork largesse on Cicero while adopting a strange wait-and-see approach to pressing issues for Chicago's Mexican-American community.

In many ways, the 12th District senate campaign is a writer's dream. An older HDO candidate is relying on patronage and pork to consolidate his support among more conservative suburban voters while a young, 31-year-old political child of the Little Village hunger strike is relying on an organization of equally young, progressive leaders who talk the talk of independence and an end to the divisive politics of patronage and pork. It is irony of the tastiest sort that one of the Southwest Democrat's main leaders is Rudy Lozano's son, Rudy Jr.
So that's the hope there. A new politics and a more constructive politics. And I would surmise no more divisions. No more playing to racial fears.

I should point out another article to you from Clout City about progressive independent politics on Chicago's city council. That's worth a good read too...
A few months ago a few aldermen with relatively independent voting records began trying to organize a City Council opposition bloc, which they were calling the Progressive Caucus. Fourth Ward alderman Toni Preckwinkle, one of the caucus organizers, said as many as 20 aldermen would be invited to its meetings, with police accountability, living wages, and affordable housing its top issues.

From afar, it hasn't looked like much has happened since. Mayor Daley got most of what he wanted when aldermen--including, in the end, Preckwinkle and her closest allies--passed an ordinance that reshapes the agency that investigates charges of police misconduct. A couple weeks ago, when the Department of Housing presented its quarterly report to a council committee, none of the progressives was around to hear how the city was doing on affordable-housing issues.

And only six aldermen voted against Daley's plan to create a new city department that will supposedly ensure fair hiring, which is already supposed to be ensured by the city's human resources department and monitored by the Inspector General's office. Though it's opposed by court-appointed hiring monitor Noelle Brennan and attorney Michael Shakman, who's led the antipatronage fight for decades, some aldermen who might have voted against the measure said they had no idea Preckwinkle, 22nd Ward alderman Ricardo Munoz, and 49th Ward alderman Joe Moore were going to oppose it, so they played it safe and went with the council majority. "Many aldermen didn't know they were supposed to vote 'no,'" said someone involved in organizing the caucus. "And some of the old [veteran] guys didn't talk to them about it, because they aren't used to having backup."
That post was entitled appropriately "A change is gonna come". It surely will. They always do.

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