The Black Political Class and the García Campaign’s Mistakes Re-Elected Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel

By Bruce A. Dixon

The results are in, and the truth hurts. Rahm Emanuel will sit in the mayor’s office on the fifth floor of Chicago’s City Hall four more years. Despite fudging police stats to make murders disappear, despite stonewalling on police torture and atrocities, despite deliberately shortening red light camera intervals to raise revenue for his buddies, despite closing and privatizing more than 50 public schools, almost exclusively in black and brown neighborhoods, than anywhere in the country, and despite his facing a solid progressive Democrat challenger, Rahm Emanuel carried every single ward in black Chicago, not by big margins, but by enough.

#BlackLivesMatter and Political Change in #Ferguson

Eight months after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown by officer Darren Wilson triggered raucous protests around the country and transformed the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter into a nascent movement, the political scene in Ferguson, Missouri where the shooting took place has changed dramatically.

Time to Get Rid of the Mayor, City Council, and Prosecutor in #Ferguson

If Michael Brown’s death is to lead to meaningful change, if he is not to become another Abner Louima or Amadou Diallo — shot by cops, protested about, and ultimately nothing changed — the struggle in Ferguson must become political, that is, it must develop a fighting electoral wing.

In the 20 years since the Rodney King beating inaugurated the citizen’s video camera as a new weapon in the fight against police brutality, there has been little to no meaningful police reform in the United States because such fights never developed such a wing.