Race Doesn't Trump Class, at Least in Chicago's 
Mayoral Race
By Salim Muwakkil
In These Times
February 17, 2011 * Web Only
http://www.inthesetimes.org/article/6965/race_doesnt_trump_class_at_least_in_chicagos_mayoral_race/

    Class issues have divided African-Americans since
    slavery forged their unique identity, and the legacy
    of that process is still fueling intra-racial
    animosities.

In a heated exchange during a Chicago mayoral debate
last month, candidate Carol Moseley Braun accused
candidate Patricia Van-Pelt Watkins of once being
"strung out on crack." While Braun's comment was an
angry retort to a Watkins goad, her pointed barb burst
the bubble of pretense that race trumps class in
fashioning a "black agenda."

In some ways, Braun's very presence in the mayoral race
is a function of that pretense; she was selected as the
"consensus candidate" for a black Chicago with widely
divergent class interests. Her dismissal of Watkins for
a past of drug abuse is exhibit A in how those interests
often diverge.

Braun's charge came at a candidate forum after Watkins
criticized Braun for being "missing in action" as a
voice on Chicago issues during the last two decades.
"Patricia, the reason you didn't know where I was for
the last 20 years is because you were strung out on
crack," Braun said, snarling. "I was not strung out on
crack. I don't have a [police] record."

At the time, Braun was polling second, way behind front-
runner Rahm Emanuel, in the six-person race, and her
eruption of anger at an obscure candidate who was less
than one percent in the polls, puzzled observers. The
other candidates are Gery Chico, incumbent Mayor Richard
M. Daley's former Chief of Staff, City Clerk Miguel del
Valle, and William "Dock" Walls, former aide to late
Mayor Harold Washington.

Braun is a former U.S. Senator and Ambassador to New
Zealand who became the consensus candidate through a
selection process among black politicians, activists and
business people. Activists initiated the process to
unify the black electorate after Daley made a surprise
announcement he would not seek another term. Their
search initially centered on six black candidates,
including Rep. Danny Davis, State Sen. and Rev. James
Meeks, and State Sen. Rickey Hendon-who exited first in
a gesture of consensus. Meeks and Davis initially were
considered the candidates to beat, but both bowed out in
favor of Braun.

However, Watkins and Walls refused to leave the race.
Both presented their candidacies as the voices of lower-
income Chicagoans and claimed the leading candidates
were ignoring their issues.

Braun's snarling attack on Watkins bolstered that claim,
since so many black Chicagoans are victims of
overzealous drug enforcement. Even more damning, Braun's
remarks came in the wake of a report that found enormous
racial disparities in drug sentencing in Illinois. The
Illinois Disproportionate Justice Impact Study
Commission had just released a study that one group of
black drug defendants in Cook County-those arrested for
Class A drug possession-were eight times more likely to
be sentenced to prison than whites, although both groups
use illegal drugs at roughly the same level.

Watkins has admitted to a history of drug abuse while
growing up in the notorious Cabrini Green housing
projects, and had incorporated her rough past into a
populist narrative of a projects' girl who triumphed
over adversity to earn a Ph.D. Braun unwittingly
amplified that theme and bolstered Watkins popularity.

Of course, class issues have divided African-Americans
since slavery forged their unique identity; field slaves
vs. house slaves, lighter skinned vs. darker skinned,
etc. In fact, it made sense that the stewards of
America's slave-based economy would do whatever was
necessary to divide the loyalties of those enslaved.

For most of African-American history, those divisions
have bedeviled all attempts to unify the black community
into a common political strategy. From the 1970s on,
urban black populations have managed to submerge some of
their differences around the electoral campaigns of
black mayoral candidates. Chicago's turn came with the
Harold Washington victories of 1983 and 1987.

But since those days, divergent interests and class
divisions have prevented any unified attempt to wrest
power from Daley, mayor since his 1989 defeat of Eugene
Sawyer, who took over after Washington's death. The
black consensus effort of 2010 was an attempt to bridge
those differences enough to mount a unified challenge to
the political forces that Daley entrenched. Most
analysts argue those forces will retain power under an
Emanuel administration.

But the diverging interests that sundered the Washington
coalition have spread even further apart during the last
21 years. Many more African Americans joined the middle
class during that period. But many more are under the
control of the criminal justice system, crippled by
failing schools and dysfunctional families and trapped
into very low-wage employment.

That is why it was almost humorous to follow black
leaders' search for a "consensus" candidate. I say
"almost" because the issues confronting black Chicago
are not funny.

Nevertheless, the days when an abstract racial consensus
could command widespread allegiance within a diverse
black community are long gone.

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