Tuesday, September 28, 2010

We Need A What Mayor?

Looking for a What Mayor?

Back in 1989, then-mayoral candidate Richard Daley got into political hot water for telling a group of Polish supporters that Chicago needed “a white mayor who can sit down with everybody.”

You could immediately hear the city’s collective knickers twisting. Racial politics are of course unseemly, divisive and unacceptable. In a political pickle, Daley chose to claim he had actually said Chicago needs a “wet” mayor. “Come on”, you say, “Nobody would fall for that,” especially since the actual “white mayor” comment had been recorded and replayed on radio and tv ad nauseum, or ad delighteum if you were a Daley opponent.

In 2010, after almost two decades in office, Mayor Daley would beg to differ.

Now comes State Senator Rickey Hendon. He describes himself as “the black Sarah Palin,” whom I consider the white Al Sharpton. Senator Hendon desires, as do various other melanin-rich pols, to become the “consensus black candidate” for mayor.

To Senator Hendon, a fellow westsider, I say, “wrong move Rickey!” We already have enough Palin clones to keep the makers of black lip liner in business for decades. Chicago needs a post-racial, big tent mayor to unify the city. And Rickey might be just the guy to do it. He needs merely to reset his pitch and rise above a color campaign to one directly focused on crucial issues like how to avoid federal prison - no wait, that’s the campaign for governor, my mistake.

But seriously, Rickey Hendon needs to renounce his current, color-conscious position-- he needs to pull a Daley. He could claim that he didn’t say we need a consensus black candidate but a consensus blank candidate, a clean slate upon whom Chicagoans could write their dreams of a fairer, more prosperous city.

“Sure,” Hendon could say, “‘consensus blank candidate’ is a ridiculous, meaningless phrase that makes no sense in English. Which proves my qualification to be mayor of Chicago.”

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