Why I Would Never Cast My Vote for Rahm Emmanuel

There will be a vote for the new Mayor of Chicago on February 22nd. I've already cast my ballot, and as I said before, it was NEVER EVER going to be for Rahm Emmanuel.

I’ve been asked why I would never vote for Rahm. I’ve always said I never needed anything he did as COS to not vote for him, and I meant it. Look to the man’s own commercials. What does he brag about; pretty much how he helped Clinton be ‘ tough on crime’. Well, considering that I believe Clinton created the Prison Industrial Complex, which is on its 2nd if not 3rd generation of young Black men as commodities for said complex, why would I support anyone who brags about being part of the architects for it?

On a local level, they tout Rahm’s ‘ experience’ at the Chicago Housing Authority, while not releasing the memos from the meetings during his tenure at the CHA, where he oversaw the raising of public housing, so that they could get that land for gentrification purposes, all the while dispersing those folks into previously stable Black middle class neighborhoods that have since become destabilized.

Look at his record in Congress. He voted against CBC Proposals 128 times. He had no qualms in helping create the Prison Industrial Complex, but couldn’t find it to vote FOR measures that would help former inmates find re-entry back into society. Locally, another vote was against funding for the pharmacy school being set up at Chicago State University (a school that serves a predominant Black population).

Ask him for proposals for the Black community, and all he could come up with was that he’d ‘extend the Redline 'el train’. REALLY? ‘Extend the REDLINE’?


Don't ask me why I wouldn't vote for Rahm. What I want to know is why anyone Black WOULD vote for Rahm.
I want someone Black to come and tell me 5 things that Rahm has done in his public life that have ever benefited Black folk – and you can’t use anything that happened as COS. He has a legislative record. Find something in those votes.

But, I stand by what I said – I’d chew ground glass before I’d ever vote for him and never needed anything he did as COS as for the reason why.