- AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh
- Asked about segregation in yesterday’s debate on Chicago Tonight, Mayor Emanuel noted that Chicago and Illinois voters have elected a lot of African-Americans.
Chicago’s most fundamental problem finally got a scrap of attention in the mayoral campaign last night. Fifty-one minutes into a one-hour debate on WTTW’s Chicago Tonight, moderator Phil Ponce asked the candidates why Chicago is still so segregated. The candidates then discussed the issue for two minutes and thirty-seven seconds. It was less time than red-light cameras got, but still.
That includes the city’s reluctance to fight housing discrimination when African-Americans try to move into white neighborhoods. A recent study suggests such discrimination is still prevalent. The agency charged with combating it is the Commission on Human Relations—whose budget the mayor has slashed. There’s also the city’s unwillingness to ensure that affordable housing is available throughout Chicago.
Was the mayor saying that segregation has produced more African-American elected officials? That may be true: the city and the state have a long history of drawing racially segregated voting districts to protect incumbents of all races. I wrote about this back in 1981. If you’ll take a look at our cover from that story, you’ll notice, beneath a photo of a very youthful Mike Madigan, a map that looks an awful lot like the maps of segregation in our story this week.
