BECOMING WOKE IN GALEWOOD.

Galewood is an economically stressed neighborhood of Chicago, in part thanks to farm policies that encourage the export of sugar to factories in third world countries to the detriment of neighborhoods once home to Mars and Brach, among others.  I'm using woke in its original sense, which is to say, becoming aware of reality.  The reality I have in mind is dawning on constituents of ward-heeler politicians.

There's a symbiosis between desperate people who like having a ward-heeler "fighting for them" and a ward-heeler who mau-maus the rest of the polity about the continued parlous condition of his or her constituents.  A ward-heeler cannot call out the constituents for engaging in self-destructive behavior, nor get re-elected in a district in which constituents discover, or re-discover bourgeois habits.  Better to have constituents rendered helpless by years of Democratic policies.  That's how Gwen and Bobby and John and Maxine achieve seniority in the Democratic caucus.

Yes, that's an old roll call, and yes, some of those Members of Congress have crossed the final summit.

Their successors, though, are learning that there are limits to doing nothing about the continuation of those parlous conditions.

Ald. Chris Taliaferro (29th) held a meeting Tuesday night to address the news he says he himself only recently learned about.

The alderman is upset, and some Galewood residents are livid, about the plan to use the fieldhouse at Amundsen Park, 6200 W. Bloomingdale Ave., as a migrant shelter.

The genial socialist pretending to be mayor of Chicago issued a ukase, and the alderman, and his Galewood constituents, are getting stroppy.

Taliaferro said the Mayor's office told him four days ago this was happening, whether he and his constituents liked it or not.

"I told them right away that I objected to it, because there had been no community engagement," Taliaferro said, "and the response given to me was, 'You're getting it.'"

The Chicago Park District building was used for senior programs and sports events. He said the Mayor's office said all park programs would be canceled.

"They said this is happening whether you object to it or not, and this is happening whether your community objects to it or not," said Ald. Taliaferro. "We have a migrant crisis. We're all aware of that. We know that."

There's another reason to miss Rush Limbaugh, he probably could find a midnight basketball reference to work into a commentary.  The constituents, fortunately, are reminding the alderman that he serves at their pleasure.

The plan to use the field house as a migrant shelter has also sparked outrage from residents who have lived in the neighborhood for decades.

"We're taxpayers. They're not paying taxes," said Mona Collins. "It's not fair to us."

"We're not anti-migrants," said Donald Glover, a member of the Amundsen Park Advisory Council. "But we shouldn't have to suffer."

Indeed, there was plenty of frustration from Galewood residents - some who have lived in the neighborhood for decades.

Is it too much to ask for the penny to drop?

I've been in my house 37 years, and I don't understand why we're being affected like this," said Charlette Johnson.

Glover said they the advisory council has put a lot of money into the field house.

"Every air conditioner in this whole building, we bought them," he said. "Refrigerator, stove, microwave - we bought it."

The neighbors have also asked for the showers to be fixed - and now with migrants coming, they work.

"Now they can fix up the showers in there today," Johnson said. "She's been asking for work, plumbing, and everything else for how long?"

Johnson said the migrants are being prioritized while residents of the neighborhood who use the park were not.

"We've got to make all kinds of different preparations because we don't count," Johnson said. "Now they're fixing it all up to beautify it, for what? How come we didn't have that service?"

You don't have that service, because the dynamics of Chicago elections were all about your neighborhood not getting those services because delivering on those services would end the ward-heelers' ability to mau-mau the rest of the city. Do the right thing, and turf the ward heelers out.

The residents may not have a say in what's happening, but they told us they will have a say about the mayor, and others, in the voting booth.

"Vote them out," said Collins. "We're going to vote them out of office."

That's more likely to happen if the voters have meaningful choices.  Color me pessimistic.

It is true that adding additional voters dilutes the effect of an individual vote, and changes in population can bring changes in local majorities.  It's also true that making appeals on the basis of ethnicity or tribe can get people who don't think of themselves in tribal terms to begin thinking in tribal terms.  But both major parties are turning demographics into a proxy for policy.

Hot Air's Jazz Shaw considers the possibility that the constituents are tired of the lip-service from the ward-heelers, and it's spreading beyond Woodlawn and Galewood.

Later, a town hall was held inside the [Galewood] fieldhouse and some local elected officials came to speak and take questions. Some of them clearly regretted it. The meeting was described as being standing-room only. And one woman took to the podium and called out the Mayor directly. She said, “What I want to say is, Mayor Brandon Johnson, we are disappointed in you. This is the community that supported you, how dare you!”

Another protest and town hall erupted on the same day in the Pilsen neighborhood, with locals objecting to a migrant shelter that had already opened there. They complained that the police were being called to that shelter daily and there was drug dealing and violence taking place in a formerly calm neighborhood. When local officials attempted to speak to them it didn’t go much better.

These people are clearly upset and want the city to change course. There are almost no Republicans left in Chicago and certainly none in high office. So these are Democrats screaming at Democrats. And in the video clips we’re seeing from the local media, these are primarily Black Democrats yelling at Black Democrats. These are supposed to be the people that the party cares about and relies on the most. But they’re fed up. Will this lead to a change in local voting patterns? Or at least better decisions by local officials that better serve the public’s needs? It’s too soon to tell, but it just feels like there are storm clouds on the horizon and a change is in the air. Time will tell.

It's going to take opposition candidates with a message that works, although a "great replacement message" might have purchase.  Let's turn to John Kass for that pessimistic perspective.  "Thanks to Biden’s Open Borders, in Dem Cities it’s Black vs. Brown."

The tension if not the physical damages are high, with longtime black residents told to step off the corner, to step back and give their place in line to illegal Latin immigrants who are being courted as new prospective voters by Biden Democrats. Black voters have been betrayed. Down deep they must know this. Will they stay angry and vote that anger? Urban political history tells me no, that the Democrats will come up with some shiny object to lure them all back to the Democrat political plantation..

I keep wondering whether another Malcolm X will be born again to come in anger and violence.  This cycle of political betrayal and anger is not only happening in Chicago but in all the other major urban centers from New York to Los Angeles. President Joe Biden’s failed immigration policy is completely broken and collapses in pieces upon the heads of the people, increasing tension and animosity to the point of violence, even as the Mexican drug cartels rule America’s southern border and city residents–including black Democrats who’ve been loyal to their party are told to make room for the newcomers.

“I say this to my friends, I very seldom say it in what I call in mixed company—we blacks far too often we’re holding the door open for everyone else and we’re last once again,” said former longtime Chicago Ald. Roderick Sawyer (6th) to Jeff Carlin and me on our WGN podcast The Chicago Way.

"Now Biden owns it," he continues. He's less optimistic about there being electoral consequences.

When do black Democrats say “I’m done Democrats, I’m not voting for you anymore?”

I asked Sawyer this:

“I think it’s coming close John ,” he said. “Black people starting to realize that we’re dismissed once again.”

Dismissed again…I’d like to think their pride would well up, that it would begin to boil, that they’d say they’re tired of being betrayed by the white lefties who manipulate them, and sick of Democrats who whisper old racist slogans to keep them in line, sick of media dumbing down what they say and what they feel and that they’re tired of all of it. And, that they’d stand up for themselves.

But they don’t stand up, do they? Instead, they just shut up and take it, like urban Democrats have been doing for years, taken advantage of, and dismissed, but still obediently holding open that door wide.

I repeat, it helps to have an opposition with a positive message. Perhaps that lies in Democrats renouncing the party's communist wing and the woke wine women.  Perhaps that lies in a new sort of Republican message.

Reality, though, has come up to bat in Galewood and Pilsen and Woodlawn, and we'll see what happens next.