By Raquel Mitchell -
Black Republicans are like the Jews of Nazi Germany “[selling] out the interests of their groups in return for personal benefit...”
The column written by Neil Steinberg of Chicago Sun-Times comparing Black Republicans to Jews that sold out other Jews during World War II is no surprise to Black Republicans. At least the insult is a century more current than the Civil War and Reconstruction characters we hear used so often - Aunt Jemima and Uncle Tom.
It is also no surprise that our hapless kamikaze, Governor Pat Quinn, aboard his doomed aircraft the “Illinois”, willingly re-tweeted Steinberg's comments to his followers. Black Republicans should not spend one moment on the absurd nature of this statement. Instead, we should embrace this moment as an opportunity to expose exactly who’s selling out whom.
Democrats have been in control of Illinois politics for over thirty years and William Hale Thompson was the last Republican Mayor (1927-1931) Chicago has seen. During all that time blacks have been told in exchange for their vote, they were being protected from the bogeymen -- those who wish to steal their rights and get rich off their hard work. In exchange for their vote, the Black community was promised more jobs, better education and safe neighborhoods.
While we Black Republicans were running for office and supporting candidates that understood how small businesses create jobs, Democrats convinced our own people to call us "sell-outs." They convinced our own people that we were betraying them while Illinois Democrats were pushing to raise taxes and fees on those very same businesses that would hire Blacks in need of jobs.
The Black unemployment rate among those age sixteen and up is 17%. The national average is 6.7% and Illinois’ unemployment rate is 8.4%. This is the consequence of unchecked spending and repayment of political favors on the backs of hard-working taxpayers. The Democrats owe their cronies and the unions their campaign promises first; the Black folks can get what’s left over –a few more weeks of unemployment, food stamps, and no jobs.
The Jews in Nazi-controlled Germany had to wait in line to get their scraps, too.
Year after year, Chicago Public Schools report far too many students who fall below math and reading proficiency standards. Black Republicans supported the school voucher bill in May of 2010 to offer families real choice in educating their children. Both House Leader Michael Madigan (D) and Governor Pat Quinn (D) - heavily backed by the teachers’ unions - didn’t want black families to have that choice. They worked against us who wanted to free those children from their circumstances and the bill was defeated.
As recently as March of 2014, Governor Pat Quinn said he still doesn’t support the voucher system and seeks to take more tax dollars to pump into those same failing schools. Just like Fascist dictators, Quinn and Madigan wish to keep blacks in their place – forever marked as uneducated and doomed to stay in the ghetto.
Black Republicans mourn the loss of 51 murdered Black men in Chicago that left behind children and grieving families this month. We, like anyone with compassion in their hearts mourn all the victims lost to gang violence in Democrat controlled Chicago. The Democrats promised the people safe neighborhoods. Those 509 victims murdered in 2012 or the 421 murdered in 2013 or the 67 total victims killed this year so far were all sent to the death chamber awaiting them in the neighborhoods where they lived and worked.
The Democrats promised Black people a quality education, job opportunities and safe neighborhoods for their vote. The Democrats got the vote, but the people in those communities hardest hit by repeatedly failed policies have not seen daylight.
When Neil Steinberg writes we are “...helping them to round up [our] own people in the hopes [we’d] be the last to go…” we Black Republicans regret to inform him that he is woefully mistaken.
Instead, Mr. Steinberg, we have landed on Omaha Beach and are fighting with everything in us to liberate our brothers and sisters from the shackles of broken promises.
Raquel Mitchell is a trustee in Will County's Wheatland Township and a GOP precinct committeeman.
