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Chuck Bagdade's avatar

Paul Vallas' comments about taking the city back are not necessarily tinged with race. Sure, they could be considered as such. But a huge swath of Chicagoans feel that their once great city has been largely taken over by criminals. While the entire city is not one huge crime scene, so much of it is- and citizens throughout Chicago have an underlying fear that crime might strike them or their community at any time. So unlike Lori Lightfoot or Judge Peacham, I don't see Mr. Vallas as leaning on racial division. And I might add that it should have no place in our politics.

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David Leitschuh's avatar

The apparent tolerance of Chicagoland in general to blatantly black racism appeals by Lightfoot and Bobby Rush is a textbook example how the city remains mired in tribalism and racial identity politics. Yes, individuals and some media have noted this, but only in relatively mild rebuke, and the Lightfoot campaign calculus is that the benefit of these nasty racial appeals outweigh the cost among reasonable minded voters. Imagine the meltdown in the media and in general today if Vallas or any other white candidate made such naked racial appeals to white voters.

If Vallas makes the runoff with Garcia or any of the black candidates, we can expect the race card to be played against him 24/7 until the runoff election. There is a long history of racial politics in Chicago, especially in the days of Harold Washington with overt racist appeals on both sides. It would be wonderful if Chicago voters would rise up in strong rejection to these despicable racial politics, but there is little reason for optimism this will occur any time in the foreseeable future. That is very sad, and leaves Chicago much less than it could be.

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