Black Chicago's Electoral Priorities

Having spent a couple of weeks away from that dangerous love of my life, I ventured a visit and fell in love all over again.

Still mad at you, Chicago, but you’ve been in my corner when Bloomington, Manhattan and Jacksonville weren’t. We will work it out given time, patience, and perhaps a change in your perspective. When everyone who looks like me can get as much out of you as I have.

I was debating that fact with several “progressive” friends who live within the city limits. We argued back and forth, fueled by wine and hours of “The Cliff Kelley Show”. When you got past the conspiracies (“White people want all this land!”) and the questionable logic (“If Black folk just stormed city hall, they’d know we meant business!”), we were still at a loss. Say what you will about Richard Daley. Like his openly racist father before him, Daley keeps winning an overwhelming majority of Black wards every election. Even Chicago’s second most powerful political family, the Jacksons, are hard pressed to unseat Mumblin’ Richie and have made peace with the idea that he is Chicago’s Baby Doc, Mayor for Life.

Why Black Chicago? You get the worst of the city services. You complain the police in your areas are storm troopers. Your schools suck. Even your so-called leaders won’t live in your neighborhoods. You are almost half the population and get pennies on the dollar in lucrative city contracts your taxes fund. Why, I asked my friends, is this man still in office with all of your support after twenty years?

Unable to get a solid answer from them, I reached my own conclusion. I have finally figured out why Black people keep voting for mayor Daley.

Because he gives the best free concerts.

I was a teen during the Washington administration. Harold was long on fairness and equality, but the acts at the city festivals were sad. What we gained in patronage fairness, we lost in entertainment quality. You could walk to the Petrillo band shell when Mayor Washington ruled, and easily get front row seats to some has-been funk band performing their rendition of “The Hokey Pokey.”

As a result, the following fall, schoolteachers would strike and the Council Wars would be in full swing.

Black Chicagoans do not like to admit this, but since Daley has been in office, almost every year at the taste of Chicago, a major R&B artist has headlined. Grant Park, for a weekend, is a combination house party, soul session and feel good soiree hazed over by frying grease and barbecue sauce.

When Washington was in office (God rest his soul), we got groups that nobody wanted to hear. Like Living Color. You could actually hear people playing Tic Tac Toe while in the audience.

First year Daley was in office, “Man, you hear Morris Day and The Time gonna be at the Taste?” Every Black person within the Chicago city limits was rendered illiterate. Newspaper sales plummeted. Businessmen walked out City Hall's front door with money bags stenciled "Black Community."

Election years got the best artists. I can see folk in voting booths musing, “Yeah, my nephew got beat down by cops and my kids’ school is crumbling, but how is that Mayor Daley’s fault? Shoot, he was busy tryin’ to get Prince here last summer. He can’t do everything…”

Chicagoans, take note: whenever anything really insidious has been revealed in the papers, it is almost always countered by the announcement of some award winning act arriving that summer to perform for the citizens. For free.

Hired Truck scandal revealed? I think that was the year the skinny, headwrapped babe sang to Chicagoans about calling Tyrone.

Daley’s gonna put a Black man in the White House? Think the Smashing Pumpkins headlined that year. This works both ways, y’know. When Obama was slightly dipping in the polls to Clinton, we got Stevie Wonder the following summer…The people starting to wonder how in a city 42% Black they get 3% of lucrative city contracts? No problem. Richie’s got Kanye on speed dial. And the Gap Band are parachuting in for backup…

Be real. The power structure acknowledges your numbers. They have realized it is easier to placate you with something far less substantial than your piece of the pie. The summer you came closest to getting some real cash out of this cow, the Mothership landed. We sang “Da da da de da da da da da da daaaa” well into the night while the city council quietly passed the “We Don’t Share Money with Taxpaying Negroes” ordinance at a midnight session. Neighborhoods went up, and Black kids got beat down by police on GP. You got a concert. Daley got reelected by a landslide that November.

We dance our summer nights away, oblivious to the violence, the poverty, most of all, the corruption. Just keep John Legend coming back. Make sure that when the savvy middle- aged folk get riled up (face it, they’re the ones that actually vote) we do a double header: Earth Wind & Fire AND Kool n the Gang.

This is how you know there is some planning at play here. Never in the history of Chicago do you see as many smiling faces on necks above police blouses as you do during the Taste of Chicago concert series. Chicago cops are actually polite during these things. Doesn’t that make you suspicious? What other time do you have CPD happy to see Negroes in large groups being so obviously NEGRO, and downtown no less?

So there you have it. Please can stop callin’ VON and protesting. Put a rest to getting on national TV and embarrassing yourself. Please stop trying to shout down folk at city council meetings. When it’s all said and done, all of you that complain come out and vote for the man anyway. He has your priorities at heart. His father once reminded white folk the mayor need only be a glorified garbage man. For Black Chicago, it’s even easier. His son only need be a glorified booking agent.