Speaker 1: Pushing yo. Man. Remember when we ran high school and
Speaker 1: we won the city champion public school city tennis championship.
Speaker 1: We won ten years in a row, right, Oh man,
Speaker 1: Well we didn't, but I think it was our tenth
Speaker 1: grade year and we went to city hall and we
Speaker 1: got to meet the mayor who was then Harold Washington.
Speaker 1: I know, I mean we were all dressed up and
Speaker 1: you looked ridiculous in like this old man blazer. I didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't own a suit. I didn't own
Speaker 1: a jacket. I had to borrow my dad's jacket. You
Speaker 1: are exactly right. Your memory is correct. But we did
Speaker 1: get to meet Harold Washington, to meet Harry, I want
Speaker 1: to forget that. And boy I was beautiful. Boy did
Speaker 1: that turn out to be historic. I'm Khalil Gibra Muhammed.
Speaker 1: I'm Ben Austin. We are two best friends, one black,
Speaker 1: one white. I'm a historian and I'm a journalist. And
Speaker 1: this is some of my best friends are some of
Speaker 1: my best friends are dot dot dot. In this show,
Speaker 1: we wrestle with the challenges and the absurdities of a
Speaker 1: deeply divided and unequal country. And today we are talking
Speaker 1: about one of the most legendary Chicago politicians, Mayor Harold Washington,
Speaker 1: who's the subject of a recent documentary Punch nine. For
Speaker 1: Harold Washington. We're gonna learn about his Rainbow Coalition, where
Speaker 1: it came from, and how it's working today. Yep, yep,
Speaker 1: that's right. We're also going to talk to someone who
Speaker 1: is carrying on that legacy in Chicago right now, an
Speaker 1: older woman from Chicago, Rosanna Rodriguez Sanchez. Hey, man, I
Speaker 1: am really interested in what's happening in Chicago right now.
Speaker 1: We have a ton of black people and Latino people
Speaker 1: running for mayor. The current mayor, Laurie Lightfoot, has been
Speaker 1: on her heels for a long time. And I know,
Speaker 1: you know this doesn't make a lot of sense to everybody,
Speaker 1: but Chicago has been a bell weather for the nation
Speaker 1: for a long time. I mean, the first black yeah
Speaker 1: Chicago is the first black politician since Reconstruction came out
Speaker 1: of Chicago. The obviously, the first black President of the
Speaker 1: United States came from Chicago. The first black woman to
Speaker 1: go to the US Senate came out of Chicago. So
Speaker 1: what happens in Chicago matters to the rest of the nation,
Speaker 1: right man, that's right, that's right. You know, this mayor
Speaker 1: election is historic in so many ways. And one way
Speaker 1: which is surprising is there's only one white candidate in
Speaker 1: the race. Right, Oh wow, yes, that has to be
Speaker 1: the first time ever in the history of Chicago. I
Speaker 1: did not only one white candidate. Actually didn't realize that.
Speaker 1: That's really fascinating because you and I watched this documentary
Speaker 1: Punch nine, and it is a history of the first
Speaker 1: black mayor of Chicago, Harold Washington, when the script was
Speaker 1: totally flipped away from you know, a gazillion white mayors
Speaker 1: and one of the most ruthless machine politicians, old Man
Speaker 1: Richard J. Daley mayor for life. He was mayor for
Speaker 1: twenty one years. But yeah, Harold Washington, his election in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three was such a big deal for us
Speaker 1: as young people. Then we were early teenagers. Maybe we're
Speaker 1: eleven or twenty, maybe that's not teenagers even. And I
Speaker 1: do remember my dad working on the campaign. I remember
Speaker 1: people campaigning all around our neighborhood. Yeah, I remember this
Speaker 1: being really such a huge deal. Yeah, yeah, no, I
Speaker 1: mean I think you know a lot of times we
Speaker 1: take for granted, like you know, Jews working on this
Speaker 1: campaign with black folks. For example, in that documentary, there's
Speaker 1: this moment where, you know, you can hear in the
Speaker 1: documentary all these slogans that are being crafted, like Hunky's
Speaker 1: for Harold, which of course is like ethnics, nerve for
Speaker 1: Hungarians or Eastern Europeans. And the one I love was
Speaker 1: locks and bagels for Harold. So that's that's kind of
Speaker 1: like the energy that this this Rainbow Coalition was unleashan
Speaker 1: Carol Washington is asking for support from from this huge
Speaker 1: group of progressive allies, and everyone called him Harold like
Speaker 1: this sort of personal he he had this sort of avuncular,
Speaker 1: grandfatherly way like connected to him, but he also had
Speaker 1: this this forcefulness, you know, like he didn't take shit.
Speaker 1: And he also his language. He used this you know,
Speaker 1: sort of um, you know, like phosaurus words all the time.
Speaker 1: You had to look up the words that he was saying.
Speaker 1: He was just so erudite. At the same time, it
Speaker 1: was sort of like captivating you as like Shakespearean. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like me, I love that, thank yes, yes,
Speaker 1: not at all, not at all, you know, So so
Speaker 1: looking back on this history for me, and you know,
Speaker 1: I studied this uh for many things, including the the
Speaker 1: book about public housing. For me, Harold Washington, that moment
Speaker 1: in time is about participation in the democratic process. I mean,
Speaker 1: we often talk about how the civil rights were sort
Speaker 1: of disconnected from our childhood in the eighties, but this
Speaker 1: is the closest connection to me. One hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: thousand people were added to the voting roles at this time.
Speaker 1: That's so many people who were like, want to participate
Speaker 1: in the democratic process who weren't part of it before,
Speaker 1: and a huge number of them were Black people. Yeah. Man,
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you talked about him increasing the voter
Speaker 1: roles and increasing the number of black voters because in
Speaker 1: many ways, I mean, he was inspired by earlier movements
Speaker 1: for participatory democracy. He was inspired by the Black Panther
Speaker 1: Party in Chicago that ultimately coined the phrase Rainbow Coalition,
Speaker 1: and those folks moved from civil disobedience and grassroots organizing
Speaker 1: the Young Lords, which was a Puerto Rican inspired organization
Speaker 1: the Young Patriot to a working class white people. They
Speaker 1: all came together in this so called Rainbow Coalition to
Speaker 1: fight for equity, to fight for justice in Chicago, and
Speaker 1: in the end, that era of the nineteen sixties under
Speaker 1: Hall Washington translated into the power of the ballot, the
Speaker 1: power of the vote, the power to take charge of Chicago.
Speaker 1: And that's what was so exciting about his candidacy. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Harrod Washington actually begins his father is part of the
Speaker 1: Democratic machine, and Harrow Washington gets elected into into first
Speaker 1: state office and then he's a congressman. And you couldn't
Speaker 1: do that without having sort of the approval of the
Speaker 1: daily machine. But he breaks with them, and it's issues today,
Speaker 1: you know, police brutality and standing up against it, you know,
Speaker 1: issues of black disenfranchisement and not being part of the
Speaker 1: process of not really sort of participating in the city.
Speaker 1: And yeah, he makes this total break and becomes an
Speaker 1: outsider candidate. And you know, how do you do that?
Speaker 1: How do you sort of you know, fight the powers
Speaker 1: that be and and you know, build this huge coalition
Speaker 1: to try to overcome it. It was it was it
Speaker 1: seemed like it was impossible in Chicago, and we lived
Speaker 1: at a time when we saw it happen. That's right,
Speaker 1: It seemed impossible, but it wasn't. And the threat of
Speaker 1: his success as the leader of this rainbow coalition in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three, Chicago produced a moment in time which
Speaker 1: is still reverberating to this day. Of course, since Chicago
Speaker 1: I was talking about, you're talking about now like the
Speaker 1: white backlash against this movement or yeah, yeah, I'm talking
Speaker 1: about when Harold Washington was finally nominated as a Democratic
Speaker 1: candidate for mayor and instead of it being a shoe
Speaker 1: in for the general election and becoming the next mayor,
Speaker 1: the white working class haters who Harold Washington said were
Speaker 1: racist from rib to rib, he said in this amazing
Speaker 1: eclip from the documentary, ultimately be yan to rally Chicago's
Speaker 1: blue hardcore Democrat daily voters start to rally around this
Speaker 1: you know nothing candidate Bernie Epton as a way to
Speaker 1: save white Chicago from Harold Washington. One of the things
Speaker 1: that's crazy, as you were talking about, you know, Jewish
Speaker 1: people like my family supporting Harold Washington and people on
Speaker 1: the South Side. Bernie Epton lived like on the same
Speaker 1: block as Harold Washington. He lives in Hyde Park. He's
Speaker 1: a Hyde Park Jewish guy, a lawyer. Oh. I didn't
Speaker 1: realize that he's a Republican. But being a Republican in
Speaker 1: Chicago then meant absolutely nothing. It was just sort of
Speaker 1: like a nominal thing. Right. But because of this threat
Speaker 1: of the first black mayor and sort of taking power,
Speaker 1: people felt something was being taken away from them, replacement theory.
Speaker 1: They started rallying behind this guy that nobody even knew,
Speaker 1: and Bernie Epton. He has this campaign slogan, Bernie Epton
Speaker 1: before It's too late. Yeah, that's our hotel out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's some hometown stuff right there. I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: know if you you you had told me before that
Speaker 1: you saw this documentary and you were struck by sort
Speaker 1: of the somehow the overt racism, how how staunch it was,
Speaker 1: how out there it was. Yeah. Well, I mean again,
Speaker 1: we were children at this time, I mean, barely teenagers.
Speaker 1: And so to think that white people in Chicago were
Speaker 1: articulating views as racist as you know, white people in Birmingham, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't. I didn't witness it directly, but
Speaker 1: in this documentary it's there, It's in plain view. And
Speaker 1: of course I'm a historian, I'm not surprised by it,
Speaker 1: you know, in an intellectual sense, but it is very visceral. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then so Harrow Washington, he does eke out of
Speaker 1: victory against against this guy Bernard Epton, but but barely,
Speaker 1: which is crazy, Like it's incredibly close, and it's true,
Speaker 1: like you know, the turnout is insane and um, once
Speaker 1: he gets into office, there we have fifty aldermen in
Speaker 1: the city council, as you know, twenty nine white aldermen
Speaker 1: form a coalition and they're basically saying it's like some
Speaker 1: tea party stuff. They're like, we are not going to
Speaker 1: let any legislation pass. We are going to vote down
Speaker 1: every measure. We're just basically going to shut down city council.
Speaker 1: They're called the Verdoliac twenty nine for this guy, one
Speaker 1: of the aldermen from the South Side, Eddie Verdoliac Fast
Speaker 1: Eddie people Eddie as he was always sorry doing deals
Speaker 1: and he does eventually go to prison himself. But but
Speaker 1: they shut down everything and it is it is completely
Speaker 1: along racial lines. You know, all of the twenty nine
Speaker 1: or white, um, some of the there's some white people
Speaker 1: on the on Harold Washington's twenty one the other aldermen,
Speaker 1: but they're also black and Latino aldermen. Yeah, so when
Speaker 1: you say, you know, this is some tea party stuff
Speaker 1: it is. It's like it is a dress rehearsal for
Speaker 1: the Republican obstructionism that we saw Mitch McConnell lead when
Speaker 1: Obama was elected in two thousand and nine. And it's
Speaker 1: a lot of what we continue to see in the
Speaker 1: Republican parties down to, like, you know, every form of
Speaker 1: denialism about the white supremacy in white nationalism that runs
Speaker 1: through the party. But I want to talk now about
Speaker 1: Harold Washington winning and governing and what his success as
Speaker 1: a mayor for the time that he was mayor pressages
Speaker 1: for the kind of battles that are taking place across
Speaker 1: the nation right now. I mean, here's a man. You know,
Speaker 1: he broke the machine. He ended patronage. Yeah, so he
Speaker 1: does ain't patronage. He annacts these this legislation, the Shackman
Speaker 1: decrees that makes it illegal to actually hand out city
Speaker 1: contracts and city jobs to people. Yeah, and so you
Speaker 1: can no longer do that. You have to find other
Speaker 1: means to hook folks up. And he makes the city
Speaker 1: ultimately way more responsive to many more Chicagoans, the kinds
Speaker 1: of working class, black and brown voters that had been
Speaker 1: traditionally ignored except on election day or had just been
Speaker 1: given favors by the machine. And then finally he elects
Speaker 1: more women to positions of lead ship in his administration
Speaker 1: that had ever been there before and some say ever since. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean seriously, one of the tragedies of Harold Washington
Speaker 1: is he ends up winning re election and then winning
Speaker 1: enough seats and city council of people who support him
Speaker 1: that it breaks the virdolia twenty nine, so you can
Speaker 1: start passing much more legislation, and very early in his
Speaker 1: second term, and I remember exactly where I was when
Speaker 1: I got this news. I had just picked up my
Speaker 1: brother from the airport and we were driving back because
Speaker 1: I was a junior in high school. We hear on
Speaker 1: the radio that's he's died at his desk in office. Yea,
Speaker 1: he has a massive heart attack, and so sort of
Speaker 1: the possibility of what he could have done with with
Speaker 1: with the city and with support we never got to
Speaker 1: really see. Yeah. Yeah, In fact, you know, he had
Speaker 1: he had bragged after he won election that he was
Speaker 1: going to be mayor for twenty years. He was going
Speaker 1: to match old Man daily in his tenure. And I
Speaker 1: have to say the thing that his death meant to me, then,
Speaker 1: is the closest that I imagine what it was like
Speaker 1: when Kennedy was assassinated in nineteen sixty three. I don't
Speaker 1: I didn't know him in the way that adults did,
Speaker 1: but I knew him enough as a young person to
Speaker 1: feel the loss. And I actually honestly thought he was
Speaker 1: poisoned at the time. No one put that in my head.
Speaker 1: I thought it on my own because I just thought
Speaker 1: this disk just can't be true. Yeah, you said, Harold
Speaker 1: wanted to be mayor for for twenty years. Where we
Speaker 1: got instead with his death was Richard M. Daily being
Speaker 1: mayor for twenty two years, the second coming, you know,
Speaker 1: King Richard, the second somebody I heard someone call him
Speaker 1: just recently. And so much of the city changes with that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it's not the same kind of machine,
Speaker 1: but it's a different kind of consolidation of power, and
Speaker 1: it represents a loss for for black Chicagoans. And over time,
Speaker 1: you know, from that time to the present, the city
Speaker 1: has gotten whider, it's gotten wealthier, there's been more economic stratification.
Speaker 1: Black population has diminished and left the city. And yes,
Speaker 1: we finally had a second black mayor and mayor Laurie Lightfoot,
Speaker 1: who was elected four years ago, and there's been huge disappointment,
Speaker 1: and maybe that disappointment is a big reason why we
Speaker 1: haven't really come to terms with the legacy of Harold
Speaker 1: Washington's Rainbow Coalition, that that potential seems to me to
Speaker 1: still be unrealized. Yeah, And I just want to add that,
Speaker 1: building on what you just said, is the city has
Speaker 1: gotten whider. We've lost about two hundred, two hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty thousand black citizens since then. They've moved away from Chicago,
Speaker 1: but the city has also gotten browner. There are many
Speaker 1: more Latino people, and so the possibilities of coalition building.
Speaker 1: And this is in Chicago and really in any city
Speaker 1: and most democratic cities in the United States. This is
Speaker 1: the demographic mix up that you know, the mix are
Speaker 1: you saying, are you telling me some some good news?
Speaker 1: This is the possibility we have come full circle, that
Speaker 1: the Rainbow Coalition can be reassembled. This is why this
Speaker 1: is the reason why I think we need to look
Speaker 1: at this documentary. We need to think about Harold Washington's
Speaker 1: mayoralty and his past. Even though it's forty forty damn
Speaker 1: years ago, it's so much a part of this president,
Speaker 1: what's potential. That's also why I asked someone to be
Speaker 1: on the show today for the second half. Rosanna Rodriguez
Speaker 1: Sanchez is an older person, an alder woman here in Chicago.
Speaker 1: So she's one of now the city council members. She's
Speaker 1: on the northwest side, the thirty third ward. I heard
Speaker 1: her talk about Harold Washington documentary and you know it's
Speaker 1: been airing here, Yes, the Punch nine document it's been
Speaker 1: airing here. And there was a public screening and and
Speaker 1: I heard her talk about here. You know, she's a
Speaker 1: young Latina politician in Chicago currently today in twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: and she was talking about how this history was completely
Speaker 1: relevant to her right now. This was about her politics
Speaker 1: and the work that she's doing today to try to
Speaker 1: bring the city together. Yeah. I'm so excited to learn
Speaker 1: from her because I think her work, as I've come
Speaker 1: to learn from you, really suggests that she's doing some
Speaker 1: of the same work that Harold Washington did to build
Speaker 1: a rainbow coalition forty years ago. And she's knocking on doors,
Speaker 1: she's organizing black and brown and white people to really
Speaker 1: focus on policies and the values that matter rather than
Speaker 1: just the color of the skin or the representational politics
Speaker 1: that have so often passed as substantive change over the
Speaker 1: last forty years. Yeah, yeah, I think that's exactly right.
Speaker 1: And we're going to talk to her. She's campaigning right now.
Speaker 1: She's been out all day, but she took some time
Speaker 1: and she's running for Alderman on the thirty third Ward
Speaker 1: to come and speak with us, to come in from
Speaker 1: the cold. And so after the break we will be
Speaker 1: back with Rosanna Rodriguez Sanchez, Rosanna Rodrique Sanchez and older
Speaker 1: women from the thirty third Ward in Chicago. Thank you
Speaker 1: for being on. Some of my best friends are Thank
Speaker 1: you for having me. Yeah, yeah, we Khalil and I
Speaker 1: have been talking about Harold Washington and this documentary Punch nine,
Speaker 1: and we've been thinking so much about Harold Washington's legacy
Speaker 1: and particularly in the way that he brought together what
Speaker 1: he called the Rainbow coalition of white people, black people,
Speaker 1: and Latinos that also included Asian people. It'll include it
Speaker 1: included lgbtq I people, and it was a true diverse
Speaker 1: coalition of people that were really trying to change the
Speaker 1: way politics we're done in Chicago. To me, it was
Speaker 1: a really beautiful thing to witness because from what Harold
Speaker 1: Washington did, we know that it is possible, that it
Speaker 1: is not out of reach. That is something that we
Speaker 1: can do, and here in Chicago, we have been working
Speaker 1: really hard to be able to get to that point,
Speaker 1: and I think that we have had a lot of
Speaker 1: successes and I am very proud of what we have
Speaker 1: been building here in Chicago. Yeah, I mean so that,
Speaker 1: you know, that's a question. I saw you give a talk,
Speaker 1: You're a part of a panel discussion talking about the documentary,
Speaker 1: and it really struck me seeing you up there. You're
Speaker 1: a young Latina politician in Chicago, and these events from
Speaker 1: Haward Washington's election and then his mayoralty are like forty
Speaker 1: years ago. It's like so long ago, and it's interesting
Speaker 1: to hear you talk about how it still resonates with you,
Speaker 1: like like seeing this story feels part of your political
Speaker 1: life and your life in Chicago. Yeah. You know, when
Speaker 1: I think about myself in this context, um, sometimes I
Speaker 1: think about these hiccups in history where something all of
Speaker 1: a sudden happens and it can change the course of things. Um.
Speaker 1: And when Harold Washington won and that then you know,
Speaker 1: ended up in the Council Wars because nobody wanted you know,
Speaker 1: the people that were already there and were entrenching power,
Speaker 1: they didn't want things to change. Um. And for a
Speaker 1: little bit of time, you know, for those four years
Speaker 1: that Harold Washington fought back against Everdolia twenty nine, a
Speaker 1: group of twenty nine white aldermen that oppose everything that
Speaker 1: Harold Washington did. We can we stop on that for
Speaker 1: a moment, Bresana, Like, how did you actually either experience
Speaker 1: or learn about this? Like what was your what was
Speaker 1: your pathway into the Harold Washington years? Was it like
Speaker 1: political education? Just want to sit you down and say, hey,
Speaker 1: this this is what happened. These are the lessons we learned. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm a social and in order to be a socialist,
Speaker 1: you get a dig into history, right, Like you have
Speaker 1: to be able to understand what are the things that
Speaker 1: historically have have and materially what the current reality is
Speaker 1: built on. Right. Um. So I have always been very
Speaker 1: curious about history, and I have studied, you know, black
Speaker 1: power movements. I have studied, um how the Puerto Ricans,
Speaker 1: for example, and colonized people have fought back in order
Speaker 1: to be able to get power and build power, real power, right,
Speaker 1: real people power, not the power that entrenched politicians get
Speaker 1: from the like the original Rainbow Coalition kind of power, right,
Speaker 1: the young lords and Chicago, the young patriots, the poor
Speaker 1: whites on the on the North side Chicago. That's the
Speaker 1: kind of history and socialism and grassroots organizing you're talking about.
Speaker 1: So that inevitably leads you to Harold Washington. So a
Speaker 1: lot of us have continued to build in Chicago with
Speaker 1: the hope that we could create something like what Harold
Speaker 1: Washington was able to create. And let's unpack that story,
Speaker 1: your story of entering that a little bit, because even
Speaker 1: in the documentary, there's this politician, as you said, part
Speaker 1: of the Verdoliac twenty nine, these white politicians who are basically,
Speaker 1: like you know, stopping all activity from happening in the
Speaker 1: city council. One of them is this guy Dick mel
Speaker 1: He's unapologetic. He chooses essentially race over his Democratic Party
Speaker 1: and you know, white race. And he was the older
Speaker 1: men in the ward where you now hold the office.
Speaker 1: And what is your story with his family and how
Speaker 1: did you come into office? Like can you tell us
Speaker 1: that story? Yes? Absolutely, So in twenty fifteen, a teacher
Speaker 1: from a community decided to run for the seat. We
Speaker 1: supported him because he was running on platform for the
Speaker 1: nine and he was also trying to interrupt the corruption
Speaker 1: inside of city council. And when you think, like, what
Speaker 1: is corruption, like people give them one another contracts or so.
Speaker 1: So the biggest, the biggest power that aldermen have is sowning.
Speaker 1: And if you have the power of soning, you can
Speaker 1: get a lot of contributions from developers who want soning
Speaker 1: changes to increase the worth of the property or to
Speaker 1: create big developments. Right. So Dick mel was in office
Speaker 1: for thirty eight years, and this is so Chicago. What
Speaker 1: he does. This is so when he decided to retire,
Speaker 1: he passed the seat on to his daughter. And you
Speaker 1: might ask, oh, my god, how do people do that.
Speaker 1: The way of people do that is that you have
Speaker 1: a really good relationship with the mayor. You go to
Speaker 1: the mayor and you say, I want you to open
Speaker 1: my daughter, and the mayor is going to say, okay,
Speaker 1: we gotta do like this little song. And then here
Speaker 1: we're gonna say that we're going to interview candidates, and
Speaker 1: then we're going to say that the most qualified candidate
Speaker 1: is you're so, wait, I have a clarifying question because
Speaker 1: I'm not in Chicago. So are you saying that this
Speaker 1: is a retirement before an election, So it creates a
Speaker 1: need to fill a seat. That's how it works. Then
Speaker 1: it falls to the mayor to appoint somebody, Okay, and
Speaker 1: then the person becomes an incumbent, and then more or
Speaker 1: less everyone's like, oh, this person's great, let's vote for them.
Speaker 1: It's a way to cement your power. So, Rosanna, you
Speaker 1: actually run against Dick Mel's daughter, then yes, So he
Speaker 1: retired halfway through his term. She of course carried his
Speaker 1: last name, and then she served for two years and
Speaker 1: then she had to run for reelection. That's when Timmy
Speaker 1: and run. We run him in twenty fifteen. We were
Speaker 1: seventeen votes away from a runoff with them, and we
Speaker 1: had no idea of how to run an electoral campaign,
Speaker 1: and we had no money. We were like, we're just
Speaker 1: gonna do this and see what happens. And one thing
Speaker 1: about socialism, and one thing about organizers, is that we
Speaker 1: know how to organize. Like we might not know a
Speaker 1: lot about electoral politics, we don't know how to organize okay,
Speaker 1: and we were really motivated to change things right, and
Speaker 1: what we decided to do was to start an IPO
Speaker 1: and independent political organization, which were very popular during the
Speaker 1: time of Harold Washington because of how entrenched the Chicago
Speaker 1: machine was in the electoral the official electoral Democratic Party.
Speaker 1: So you're actually using you're actually using a mechanism from
Speaker 1: that path. That's actually the history is alive for you
Speaker 1: in this present. That's really interesting. For three and a
Speaker 1: half years, we spend all of our time organizing around housing,
Speaker 1: around immigrant rights, and around education. We knocked on people
Speaker 1: doors to talk about items that we put on ballots
Speaker 1: like rent control or mortoriament charter schools, and we were
Speaker 1: having conversations with people all the time. Right. Organized, organized, organized,
Speaker 1: We organized with tenant unions, We organized to protect immigrants
Speaker 1: and go to court with them, fund raisers for families
Speaker 1: of immigrants that were being deported. We were doing all
Speaker 1: of that work. Rosanna, I want to try to finish
Speaker 1: that one question here, because like a true organizer and socialist,
Speaker 1: you you talked about the collective and not about yourself.
Speaker 1: And even when we asked you the question about how
Speaker 1: you got into politics, you talked about the person you
Speaker 1: ran before you why you? Then then you ran like
Speaker 1: why did just like in a real you know, you
Speaker 1: could say quickly like why did you want to become
Speaker 1: older woman? And like why did you? So? So the
Speaker 1: first answer I would say is that I didn't want to.
Speaker 1: But when the time came to run for office, to
Speaker 1: run somebody, it became evident that I was that it
Speaker 1: was if it was not me, If I didn't say yes,
Speaker 1: nobody was going to do it that had our values right.
Speaker 1: So at that point I really wanted somebody to be
Speaker 1: able to be on the seat and I and I
Speaker 1: decided to say yeah, even though I was incredibly scared,
Speaker 1: Like I ran, I was scared every day. I didn't
Speaker 1: think that I was the right person to do it.
Speaker 1: But now I know that I am the right person
Speaker 1: to be to be on the seat. I absolutely am.
Speaker 1: I want to unpack that a little bit because one
Speaker 1: of the things that we're that I'm interested in, and
Speaker 1: I know Ben and I are both curious about this,
Speaker 1: So I'm interested. I don't even know what you're gonna say,
Speaker 1: but I'm I'm interested that don't don't leave me out
Speaker 1: of this. I'm part of it, well, you can speak.
Speaker 1: You can speak for both of us, because I mean, listen,
Speaker 1: you and I and Ben, the three of us are
Speaker 1: a version of a rainbow coalition, and Ben and I
Speaker 1: identify as progressives. But it seems like right now in
Speaker 1: the country, in twenty twenty three, when I pick up
Speaker 1: the newspaper, like, I'm reading that in California, significant number
Speaker 1: of Latino voters struck down an affirmative action referendum. They said,
Speaker 1: you know, we want to keep things as they are,
Speaker 1: to ban affirmative action in California admissions. When I look
Speaker 1: at Florida, it is obvious that a significant Hispanic and
Speaker 1: Latino population supports Donald Trump. When I look at Nevada
Speaker 1: and Arizona, I see a you know, a blue ripple
Speaker 1: fighting against you know, a red wave, and it's winning
Speaker 1: sometimes and it's a it's a toss up. So help
Speaker 1: me understand. In Chicago on the ground, what is the
Speaker 1: difference between like Latino voters who are moderate and centrist
Speaker 1: it might even be Republican leaning in some of their
Speaker 1: national politics, versus progressives who are committed to these issues.
Speaker 1: I mean, you've just talked about rent control. A tenant
Speaker 1: strikes I mean, I'm not hearing a lot of national
Speaker 1: polling about those Latino voters. So tell us, help us
Speaker 1: understand the difference between how you think of progressive politics
Speaker 1: and how I'm hearing about Latino voters who are way
Speaker 1: more moderate and centrist and kind of on the bubble
Speaker 1: in terms of national politics. I think, I mean it's
Speaker 1: a matter of context. Chicago is a place where we
Speaker 1: organize a lot. It is never ending, and I think
Speaker 1: we have gotten to a point here of organizing, very
Speaker 1: successful organizing. I'm going to give you the best example
Speaker 1: that I have. We at this point here in the
Speaker 1: northwest side of Chicago, specifically the Northwest side of Chicago,
Speaker 1: which is very heavily Latino, we have been able to
Speaker 1: elect a block of around nine very progressive elected at
Speaker 1: all levels of government. We have state reps, we have
Speaker 1: state senators, all of us. I mean, we are Latinos
Speaker 1: and we are very progressive, and we are making sure
Speaker 1: that we are getting this message across. But it just
Speaker 1: takes organizing. It takes knocking on doors, It takes organizing
Speaker 1: people and ensuring that just like the Black Panthers and
Speaker 1: the Young Lords organized with mutual aid and making sure
Speaker 1: that people could see each other as allies. Right, we
Speaker 1: are doing that here and it is showing results like
Speaker 1: you can see it. Right when in the last election,
Speaker 1: there was a very interesting dynamic here in the Northwest
Speaker 1: Side because Delia Ramirez was running in a very progressive
Speaker 1: platform and there was another Latino, Guilvijas, who is part
Speaker 1: of City Council, that was also running for that seat.
Speaker 1: He was running on tough on crimes though he was
Speaker 1: running on a moderate platform, and they started calling Delia
Speaker 1: defone Delia, and they sent so many mailers making her
Speaker 1: look like she was like anti police and she just
Speaker 1: wanted crime. She won in a landslide. A landslide, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because we talked too much about Eric Adams and like
Speaker 1: the consolidation of working class black voters around a tough
Speaker 1: on crime agenda and a lot of you know, very
Speaker 1: conservative ideas about how to run the city. And you're saying,
Speaker 1: just the opposite is happening in at least this ward
Speaker 1: of Chicago, in the Northwest Side as a whole, not
Speaker 1: just my ward. Delia won. Delia won the suburbs. Delia
Speaker 1: won the whole West Suburbs in her platform, which received
Speaker 1: a lot of attacks as a defaunt platform right. So
Speaker 1: we actually believe that we are making a lot of
Speaker 1: way to progressive to progressive ideas in our communities, and
Speaker 1: I think that people it is easy for people to
Speaker 1: go right and to adopt right wing ideas when they
Speaker 1: can't imagine anything else and you are presenting problems like crime,
Speaker 1: but you don't have any other alternative, and you are
Speaker 1: not engaging with people either at a level where people
Speaker 1: feel like they're being hurt and that there's something for them.
Speaker 1: We're going to take a break, but when we come
Speaker 1: back from that break, we're going to talk about how
Speaker 1: Chicago is or isn't a version of the future as
Speaker 1: it has often been in the past, and the degree
Speaker 1: to which we can teach a national audience what to
Speaker 1: learn from what's happening in your ward and on the
Speaker 1: Northwest side of Chicago about the future of a Rainbow Coalition.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back, So, Rizanna, we've learned so much
Speaker 1: about the effectiveness of organizing around key progressive issues and
Speaker 1: really pushing back against the kind of representational politics that
Speaker 1: so often cloud the actual needs of people rather than
Speaker 1: there's a black or brown or an Asian in office,
Speaker 1: and so I'm really curious, you know, do you think
Speaker 1: right now what you're seeing on the ground in Chicago,
Speaker 1: mix the Rainbow coalition that we've been talking about still viable.
Speaker 1: Do you think this is something? And then I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't even know if you what you think about this?
Speaker 1: Do you think this is something that we ought to
Speaker 1: be talking a lot more about? Yeah, Khalil, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about this a lot. We have a mayoral
Speaker 1: election going on, but I'm also thinking about the demographics
Speaker 1: in Chicago. So we were talking about Harold Washington. When
Speaker 1: he was mayor, the Latino population was not that big.
Speaker 1: It was like around fourteen percent or something, and we
Speaker 1: had this huge flux, especially people from Mexico, over the
Speaker 1: next you know, twenty thirty years. And now, at least
Speaker 1: in theory, we have this beautifully diverse city of like
Speaker 1: thirty percent Latino, forty five percent White, thirty percent Black,
Speaker 1: and another sort of seven percent Asian. Now we're madly segregated,
Speaker 1: so it doesn't feel crazy diverse, but but the total
Speaker 1: makeup is this amazing thing. And that's probably true of cities,
Speaker 1: you know, democratic cities all across the country. Chicago is
Speaker 1: representative in that way of a rising Latino population and
Speaker 1: sort of thinking about the jumble of these politics and
Speaker 1: and like partly what we were talking about with Harold
Speaker 1: Washington is sort of this white backlash to this progressive
Speaker 1: movement and to this this you know, in interracial connections.
Speaker 1: But I'm really interested in sort of like the the
Speaker 1: also the black Latino divides that happened, and like to
Speaker 1: think about how that's also taking shape in Chicago because certainly,
Speaker 1: like you know, I think the black community in some
Speaker 1: ways feels like they're losing out of power, you know,
Speaker 1: but maybe Rosanna feels differently of seeing this on the ground, um,
Speaker 1: and even seeing it in the city council which has
Speaker 1: this you know, fifty aldermen, older people, alders, older women
Speaker 1: and alder men, all of them. But but you know,
Speaker 1: so so yeah, I think it's it is this. It
Speaker 1: is this example of what's happening nationally here. I think
Speaker 1: there's a lot of work to do to be able
Speaker 1: to build, um, the same structures in black communities, and
Speaker 1: it is very challenging right now. Um, we are in
Speaker 1: the middle of this mayoral election and United Working Families,
Speaker 1: which is our effort to create a workers Party um
Speaker 1: in Chicago and the top of the ticket is Brandon
Speaker 1: Johnson for for mayor, which I believe that he is
Speaker 1: trying to build that rainbow coalition and Brandon's black just
Speaker 1: even I know that from from national reporting. Again, yes,
Speaker 1: so so here so the so what I am saying
Speaker 1: is here in these Latino neighborhoods, right, the different organizations
Speaker 1: that have been built around all of these other candidates
Speaker 1: at different levels of office, this is something that we
Speaker 1: haven't been able to build yet in black communities, and
Speaker 1: because of segregation, right, it has been a very different reality.
Speaker 1: Are you saying that when you say we, you mean
Speaker 1: the party has not been effective on some of the
Speaker 1: black wards and districts on the south and west sides
Speaker 1: of Chicago. That's what you mean by the week? No,
Speaker 1: what I mean is that what it means that those
Speaker 1: efforts haven't gotten on their way. So can you give
Speaker 1: an example of an organizing effort to get a program
Speaker 1: in place or a policy that hasn't yet worked among
Speaker 1: Black Chicagoans. One example of this is Treatment not Trauma
Speaker 1: is a bill that I introduced in twenty twenty to
Speaker 1: create a mental health response holistic mental health response in Chicago.
Speaker 1: We put it on the ballot in the last election
Speaker 1: in November. We were here in my ward thirty three,
Speaker 1: and in two wards that are predominantly black, which are
Speaker 1: the sixth Ward and the twentieth. People knocked on doors,
Speaker 1: people have conversations. This is how we do it, right, Like,
Speaker 1: we go to people, we talked about what are the
Speaker 1: problems that we're having, Well, this is a possible solution.
Speaker 1: How do we do this? But we haven't been doing
Speaker 1: that necessarily in a lot of black communities here in
Speaker 1: the north northwest Side. We started doing it, but we
Speaker 1: haven't been able to go through that process there. And
Speaker 1: I say we because this is everybody's responsibility, right, I
Speaker 1: say we. I am in my community doing what I can,
Speaker 1: but we haven't been able to have that level of
Speaker 1: organization in this particular context. But we are on our
Speaker 1: way to do that. Rosanna, I'm interested in this idea.
Speaker 1: So you're endorsing a black progressive candidate in the mayoral election.
Speaker 1: There's a very prominent Latino candidate as well, who actually
Speaker 1: emerges from Harold Washington's coalition. We know Twee. Garcia, Yeah,
Speaker 1: who I met a few years ago. It seemed like
Speaker 1: a really lovely guy I got. I'm thinking about two
Speaker 1: things here. One is is it controversial that you are
Speaker 1: siding with a black progressive and not a Latino And
Speaker 1: maybe you can explain sort of how your progressive politics
Speaker 1: kind of supersedes racial politics. And then two like, say
Speaker 1: you're knocking on doors and you go to an older
Speaker 1: family in your ward and you know a Latino family
Speaker 1: and their two week Garcia supporters, how do you convince them?
Speaker 1: You're like, no, no, no, this this this black guy
Speaker 1: who who actually has your interests? Brandon Johns Better Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Well those conversations, um usually start with an issue, right,
Speaker 1: like what is the issue that you care about? And
Speaker 1: it is not easy, And I would like to start
Speaker 1: saying I have a lot of respect for Congressman Garcia. Um,
Speaker 1: I know him personally. I did meet with him alongside
Speaker 1: all of the Northwest side elected progressive Latino electeds. He
Speaker 1: was not ready to commit to running when we met
Speaker 1: with her, and Brandon was. And Brandon sat down with
Speaker 1: us and we talked about all of the different things
Speaker 1: that we needed, and he committed to fighting alongside us
Speaker 1: for those things. So I am going to support the
Speaker 1: person that is going to go too bad for the
Speaker 1: progressive agenda that we have right so we couldn't commit
Speaker 1: to it. At that point. He didn't even know if
Speaker 1: he was running. I'm sorry, we have to run somebody
Speaker 1: against my her life foot So this is what we're doing.
Speaker 1: And I am very proud to be supporting Brandon just
Speaker 1: so because I know what his history is a movement.
Speaker 1: I know that he's a union person. I know that
Speaker 1: I know where he has been and what he has
Speaker 1: been doing, and I do think that it is important
Speaker 1: for Latino communities to understand who is fighting in their
Speaker 1: best interests, and I think Brandon is going to be
Speaker 1: doing that. When I go into a household and we
Speaker 1: talked about the issues at hand, I am very comfortable
Speaker 1: saying Brandon has committed to treat me not trauma. Brandon
Speaker 1: already committed to that, and I know that I'm going
Speaker 1: to be able to count on him to deliver that.
Speaker 1: I want to just sort of round this out with
Speaker 1: an issue that I think is a third rail around
Speaker 1: this question of coalition politics, and it certainly is in
Speaker 1: New York City, it is in a lot of places.
Speaker 1: So you keep talking about treatment not trauma, and I
Speaker 1: want to understand like, how does that intersect with larger
Speaker 1: debate about Chicago crime. Just like many other cities and
Speaker 1: in a lot of other places, it's most certainly derailed
Speaker 1: progressive ideas. It has derailed the attractiveness of progressive politicians
Speaker 1: who have been saddled with the stigma of hating police
Speaker 1: officers through the quote unquote defund movement. And it seems
Speaker 1: like this isn't this doesn't animate any of the people
Speaker 1: that you're talking to. Do I have that right? And
Speaker 1: if so, how is that possible? Well, that's what I
Speaker 1: was just talking about. With the election of the Lea
Speaker 1: Ramirez and Anthony Gasawa and all of the slate that
Speaker 1: just swan like they were attacked. Literally everybody was saying
Speaker 1: everybody against them was saying, these people are defaunt the
Speaker 1: opposition got money from the FOP, like, yeah, seventeen thousand
Speaker 1: dollars from the FOP, And what happened was that it's
Speaker 1: backfired because those values do not belong in our communities.
Speaker 1: And we called it out. I was in, you are
Speaker 1: taking money from people who are you know, like the
Speaker 1: president of the FOP in Chicago is a terrible human being.
Speaker 1: His racist He has made so many islamophobic remarks. He
Speaker 1: was okay with the riots in the in the capital
Speaker 1: and January six he said he said the only the
Speaker 1: only law he saw broken was trespassing. That was his
Speaker 1: quote at the January six So so I'm sorry, we
Speaker 1: are not going to stand by those values, right, and
Speaker 1: I think that we need to speak clearly about those things,
Speaker 1: but also speak very clearly as well about what is
Speaker 1: that we imagine, right, because people need to be able
Speaker 1: to imagine how is it that you're talking about safety
Speaker 1: and what are the concrete things that you're going to
Speaker 1: do and treatmental trauma, for example, is trying to reduce
Speaker 1: the amount of calls that are going through nine on
Speaker 1: one by developing other approaches that are well, like way
Speaker 1: better and an evidence base to handle things that are
Speaker 1: public health based, to handle things that are human service
Speaker 1: social service based. So expanding the care pilot that we
Speaker 1: fought for so that you don't have to send police
Speaker 1: to deal with mental health emergencies, creating walking crisis centers
Speaker 1: that are open twenty four hours so that you have
Speaker 1: a place to transport right, you don't have to go
Speaker 1: to the police station or to the ear making sure
Speaker 1: that you have I like to call them clinicians instead
Speaker 1: of talking about cops all the time. You actually need
Speaker 1: social workers that are going to go and are going
Speaker 1: to monitor the people and places that are most likely
Speaker 1: to go into crisis because you already know what's happened
Speaker 1: and there are where those people are, build trust, monitor them,
Speaker 1: figure out how you can prevent crisis. Right. It is
Speaker 1: actually not like rocket science, and this is working in
Speaker 1: other cities as well. So when I hear that somebody
Speaker 1: is behind the treatmental trauma approach, wish let me tell you.
Speaker 1: In the last several minnear old debates, treatment no trauma
Speaker 1: has been in everybody's mouth. Everybody's talking about treatment trauma.
Speaker 1: When I first introduced that, nobody wants to hear anything
Speaker 1: about it. But now we do need to be thinking
Speaker 1: about safety in a different way and use the right
Speaker 1: and proper tools to address each social issue. And what
Speaker 1: we're doing of throwing police that everything is just not working.
Speaker 1: I think this is really really helpful to me as
Speaker 1: an outsider, and I'm curious to Ben, so Ben, I
Speaker 1: haven't hearing all these policies. Yeah yeah, but I haven't
Speaker 1: heard you mentioned this, So I mean, how if you're
Speaker 1: hearing much of this for the first time, then, like,
Speaker 1: does Lloyd Lightfoot have a chance in hell? Like how
Speaker 1: the square her as current mayor with a gigantic city
Speaker 1: of millions of black people as well as whites, we
Speaker 1: have you know, we've been talked about the white population
Speaker 1: that much, and so like, Rosanna is making a whole
Speaker 1: hell of a lot of sense here. But yeah, you're
Speaker 1: saying that her policies and politics are your politics and policies,
Speaker 1: but not just my politics. They're they're working on the
Speaker 1: ground in local politics. And yet I have there's no
Speaker 1: news reporting on this. They mean, So I'm just trying
Speaker 1: to figure out, like is Lightfoot consolidating support in the
Speaker 1: same way that an Eric Items or Joe Biden has
Speaker 1: that it kind of just turns what she's talking about
Speaker 1: into something unrealistic. Is she hiding the fact that these
Speaker 1: programs are working? Is she taking credit for them? Like
Speaker 1: what's going on? The programs don't exist yet, there's a bill.
Speaker 1: There is a little pilot that we have to push
Speaker 1: her to create, but it is only one team and
Speaker 1: now it will probably expand to two, but not enough
Speaker 1: to be able to even have enough data to make
Speaker 1: decisions so the problem has been that she has resisted
Speaker 1: this approaches the whole time because she has stood by
Speaker 1: the tough on crime narrative. So what we are trying
Speaker 1: to do now is and it's one of the reasons
Speaker 1: why treatment of trauma is now being used by every
Speaker 1: other my rural candidate because they understand that she has
Speaker 1: resisted this, that she has blocked this, and that they
Speaker 1: need to signal right that they are open to other approaches,
Speaker 1: that they are open to doing things in a different way.
Speaker 1: So I feel really good about it because I didn't
Speaker 1: really think that we would be in this place at
Speaker 1: the end of the term. And I have fought so
Speaker 1: hard and we have done everything that we can to
Speaker 1: make sure that the public knows about this, Like putting
Speaker 1: it in the ballot was great. We were able to
Speaker 1: have so many conversations with people and let them know
Speaker 1: this is what we're trying to do, you know. Yeahs
Speaker 1: And I mean one of the things that so great
Speaker 1: about hearing this and we wanted to learn from you.
Speaker 1: It's when I when I saw you speak at that forum,
Speaker 1: I was like, this is somebody I want to talk
Speaker 1: to more and learn from because you were talking about
Speaker 1: these progressive politics on the ground and organizing and and
Speaker 1: I actually personally believe in these policies that you're talking about.
Speaker 1: And this is partly an answer to what you said, Khalil, Like,
Speaker 1: this is a big ass city. So you know, Rosanna
Speaker 1: is talking about finding many like minded people, and there
Speaker 1: are a lot of, you know, areas of the city
Speaker 1: where people feel very differently and their politics don't align
Speaker 1: with this, but the margins are pretty slim, even around
Speaker 1: things like crime and so on. But yeah, you're talking
Speaker 1: about how many of these issues cross racial lines, and
Speaker 1: in this city where it's so often zero, some politics
Speaker 1: around race that's really powerful and encouraging. I'm gonna ask
Speaker 1: you maybe a way to close this conversation out a
Speaker 1: more playful question, which is, like we watches Harold Washington
Speaker 1: documentary Punch nine, and we saw again these council wars
Speaker 1: where the essentially twenty nine white older men were fighting
Speaker 1: with the other older men who were more progressive and
Speaker 1: didn't want to let any legislation pass, and it just
Speaker 1: seemed like madness in there, screaming and yelling. Tell us
Speaker 1: a story about being in city council where it felt,
Speaker 1: if not a war at least like, you know, a skirmish.
Speaker 1: We have had several of those over the time that
Speaker 1: I have been there. Not long ago, there was a
Speaker 1: there was a discussion that we had our own curfews
Speaker 1: because there was a shooting in Millennium Park and a
Speaker 1: kid got killed. And it's always, um, you know, like reactive,
Speaker 1: like we never stopped to think, what is a sustainable
Speaker 1: way that addresses the root cause of things. So me
Speaker 1: and Carlos Ramirez Rosa, we went on God a bunch
Speaker 1: of studies about curfews, right, um, Carlos, me and Matt Martin,
Speaker 1: and we printed them out and we put them on
Speaker 1: everybody's desk, trying to get them to at least for once,
Speaker 1: do some evidence based legislation because it was ane yar
Speaker 1: reaction to to the you would not believe like how
Speaker 1: crazy the conversation got. We were talking about you know,
Speaker 1: studies and and and evidence, and people started yelling at
Speaker 1: us that we didn't know how to raise children, that
Speaker 1: they always knew where their children were when they were
Speaker 1: growing up. Somebody said, like the end of the conversation
Speaker 1: was one of my colleagues saying, um, my grandma used
Speaker 1: to say that after ten PM, the only thing opened
Speaker 1: our liqueur stores and legs, and I'm there with my
Speaker 1: my abstract. I just gave you all of this evidence
Speaker 1: based information and this is what you have to add
Speaker 1: to the conversation. Um, it gets crazy in there, it
Speaker 1: gets really crazy. Well, listen, I think that the jury
Speaker 1: is probably still out as to whether the rainbow coalition
Speaker 1: has legs nationally. I know that, you know, Obama sort
Speaker 1: of represented a kind of rainbow coalition nationally demographic that
Speaker 1: was really just purely representational and symbolic, meaning that people
Speaker 1: of color voted for him and they made the difference.
Speaker 1: And it seems to me the Democratic Party nationally is
Speaker 1: stuck on this issue. But listening to you as a
Speaker 1: you know, I think that there's a lot of hope
Speaker 1: to be embraced around how local organizing still matters. It
Speaker 1: certainly mattered in the sixties, it mattered during Harold Washington's day,
Speaker 1: and as you've just shared with us today, it matters now.
Speaker 1: So folks listening, we got to get out there, We
Speaker 1: got to knock on doors, We got to talk about
Speaker 1: issues not about the color of people's skin. Although a
Speaker 1: lot of people of color suffer the most from these issues,
Speaker 1: so they certainly should be at the table in terms
Speaker 1: of decision making and power. So I want to thank
Speaker 1: you so much for being on our show today. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for having me so much fun talking
Speaker 1: to you. I hope to be back. Yeah, And also, listeners,
Speaker 1: you've got to answer the door when somebody comes knocking.
Speaker 1: It's not just that you got to knock at it.
Speaker 1: You got you gotta listen to folks like Rosanna and
Speaker 1: hear what they have to say, especially because it's called outside.
Speaker 1: Let us in and give us super cool. Yeah. Thanks
Speaker 1: so yeah, and good luck with your own re election.
Speaker 1: With good luck with your own re election. May thank
Speaker 1: you the mayor race. Take care. Oh man, that was
Speaker 1: a really great conversation. And I have to say, like
Speaker 1: something that really jumped out at me when she was
Speaker 1: talking was like when she just so forthrightly said I'm
Speaker 1: a socialist, Like you don't hear that every day? Of that?
Speaker 1: You know, you don't hear that every day? Don't hear that? eACT.
Speaker 1: Probably if we in another conversation with her, that's all
Speaker 1: we would talk about. Unpack that. Please tell us everything
Speaker 1: that you mean by that. How did you come up
Speaker 1: with that? Is what's your response when people say that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that I think about is
Speaker 1: when she said that socialist study history, and she's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: because that's how we learned about the Black Power movement.
Speaker 1: And man, I could not help but think like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, Ron de Santis, the governor of Florida, is
Speaker 1: exactly right to be afraid of black studies because if people,
Speaker 1: young people like Rossana learned this history, it's hied to
Speaker 1: run for office, organize people door to door, run on
Speaker 1: a platform that is about values, about equity, a word
Speaker 1: that's nearly been banned in the state of Florida right now.
Speaker 1: Then you actually get a different country, you get a
Speaker 1: different city, you get a different politics. And even her
Speaker 1: studying Harold Washington, she's actually learning strategies directly from Harold
Speaker 1: Washington how outsiders outside the political power structure developed their
Speaker 1: own independent political organizations to then get power. This is
Speaker 1: the lesson that she has studied and learned and that
Speaker 1: she's trying to like to make come to life again
Speaker 1: in the present. Yeah. Yeah, so we learned a and
Speaker 1: black studies. Yes. Man, See see here we wear a
Speaker 1: rainbow called coalition, and now it's the glue that advids
Speaker 1: it all together. You know, it's the glue. It's it
Speaker 1: makes it all work. The rainbow comes together. All right, man,
Speaker 1: all right, love you, Love you too. Some of My
Speaker 1: Best Friends Are is a production of Pushkin Industries. The
Speaker 1: show is written and hosted by me Khalil, Gibron Mohammed
Speaker 1: and my best friend Ben Austin. It's produced by Jonasanti
Speaker 1: and Lucy Sullivan. Our editor is Sarah Knicks, our engineer
Speaker 1: is Amanda ka Wang, and our managing producer is Constanza Gallardo.
Speaker 1: At Pushkin thanks to Leitao Mulad, Julia Barton, Heather Faine,
Speaker 1: Carly Migliori, John Schnars, Greta Khne, and Jacob Weissberg. Theme
Speaker 1: song Little Lily is by fellow chicagoan the Brilliant Avery R. Young,
Speaker 1: from his album Tubman. You definitely want to check out
Speaker 1: his music at his website Avery R. Young dot com.
Speaker 1: You can find Pushkin on all social platforms at pushkin pods,
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Speaker 1: and if you like our show, please give us a
Speaker 1: five star rating and a review and listen. Even if
Speaker 1: you don't like it, give it a five star rating
Speaker 1: and a review, and please tell all of your best
Speaker 1: friends about it. Thank you. You and I have this
Speaker 1: funny like literary joke right that we love Ralph Ellison
Speaker 1: right and rebel passage in Ralph Ellison when and the
Speaker 1: protagonist is working at liberty white white, right, the whitest white,
Speaker 1: The whitest white is made up by black dope, meaning
Speaker 1: this chemical substance of black that is dropped into the
Speaker 1: paint to make it as white as white. So it's
Speaker 1: it's a it's a brilliant chapter. It's a brilliant part
Speaker 1: of that brilliant book. I'm with you,