Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Segregation. Chicago’s famously one of the most segregated cities in the country, and its segregation is organized around broad geographic areas. And when you segregate people, you segregate information, which is the fuel of conflict and change. It’s not just that it makes people with power and money less aware of those without, it’s vice versa as well. Does segregation, intentional or not, keep information, and people, from reaching the sort of critical mass needed to create change? It’s something I’ve been thinking about.
The Mayor’s co-opting of community organizers. This is a really important paragraph from Ben Joravsky’s piece “Is Obama a Chicago Politician?”:
Not to put words in Mick’s mouth, but my interpretation is that while Wright was busy damning America for its mortal sins, he (and many of his peers) were less likely to damn the city for its venal ones. And to state the obvious, lots of venal sins can be as deleterious as a couple mortal ones. Mick followed up with a post detailing the grants that Wright’s church received from the city over the years (including federal and state grants administered by the city). It looks, at first glance, like the money went to good causes that the church administers, but does it create dependence? Does it reduce the church’s ability to be an effective advocate against the powers that be?
