Political philosophy Archives
January 20, 2018
Tangled Up in Blue
With apologies to Bob Dylan, this blog post has nothing to do with a book of poems written in the thirteenth century by an Italian poet! Instead, I wanted to talk for a bit about the nasty war of words being waged by two Democrats in my very blue home state of Illinois. A Democratic candidate for Governor started the nastiness (and really, he’s the only one keeping this blue on blue war of words going) by accusing the current Mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emmanuel, of being a racist:
Democratic governor candidate Chris Kennedy on Wednesday accused Mayor Rahm Emanuel of leading a “strategic gentrification plan” aimed at forcing African-Americans and other minorities out of Chicago to make the city “whiter” and wealthier.“I believe that black people are being pushed out of Chicago intentionally by a strategy that involves disinvestment in communities being implemented by the city administration, and I believe Rahm Emanuel is the head of the city administration and therefore needs to be held responsible for those outcomes,” Kennedy said during a news conference about gun violence in North Lawndale.
“This is involuntary. That we’re cutting off funding for schools, cutting off funding for police, allowing people to be forced to live in food deserts, closing hospitals, closing access to mental health facilities. What choice do people have but to move, to leave?” Kennedy added. “And I think that’s part of a strategic gentrification plan being implemented by the city of Chicago to push people of color out of the city. The city is becoming smaller, and as it becomes smaller, it’s become whiter.”