In the summer of 1988, The Chicago Community Trust created a Human Relations Task Force to consider the state of ethnic and racial affairs in Chicago. The report of that task force, issued in September, 1989, observed that “time and again, in neighborhood after neighborhood, the people of Chicago expressed fear and insecurity as a direct result of ethnic and racial tensions.”
That report told Chicagoans, in no uncertain terms, that the civil rights problems first identified in the 1960s have become the human rights problems of the 1990s.
The report was a call to remind people that, despite the investment by governments of millions of dollars in new agencies, new laws and new programs, segregation was still the rule and not the exception in our city.
Today, an African-American boy lies in a hospital bed, possibly crippled for life, after a vicious racial attack. Once again Chicago has been thrust into the national spotlight for the ugliness of its race relations and Chicagoans are shaking their heads, asking how could this have happened in our town.
Excuse us if we answer, “We told you so . . .”
The Human Relations Foundation of Chicago was created after the 1989 report to address Chicago’s racial issues. During its eight years of existence, we have worked in every corner of the city to keep people talking with one another. While we are proud of our record–Chicago has not had a major racial disturbance during the time we have been mediating groups in conflict–we have known all along that, without the support of the city’s leadership in all sectors, it was only a matter of time until racial peace was once again disturbed.
Time and again, we have told neighborhood and civic organizations, churches, social clubs, business groups and government leaders that Chicago was a tinderbox waiting to catch fire. Our entreaties have been met at times with enthusiasm but just as often with indifference.
It was almost as if Chicagoans were saying, “We fixed those problems in the 1960s. Why are you still bothering to bring them up?”
Excuse us if we answer, ask Lenard Clark why we continue to bring them up.
– We have sponsored conferences that have taught mental health professionals how to incorporate issues of race and culture into their therapies.
– We have worked side-by-side with major cultural and arts organizations, school districts, television stations and churches to show them how issues of race have created tensions.
– We have published an annual survey of racial attitudes in Chicago as a reminder that race remains the No. 1 cause of social unrest in our city.
– We have hosted a series of dinners across the city where people of different backgrounds have sat down and broken bread as a way of coming together over the issue of race.
Yet, when three young, white males are arrested for racial violence, when white high school students hurl racial slurs at an opposing basketball team, many Chicagoans say, “that’s how those people behave. I’m not a racist and neither are the people I live and work with.”
Excuse us if we respond, did you read the Texaco transcripts? Have you followed the dispute at R.R. Donnelley? Have you heard the instructions given to Avis employees by a franchise owner? Have you forgotten that not a single neighborhood in Chicago went through 1996 without a reported hate crime?
Chicago has come a long way since the 1960s. Work forces have never been more open to minorities and stores are filled with people of all colors. But in a thousand company cafeterias, in a hundred city parks, in football and basketball stadiums across the city, white people and black people still sit apart from each other. African-Americans walk the halls of the city’s top law firms but still cannot walk the private fairways where their white partners play golf on the weekend.
“Why,” you may ask, “are these rifts still so apparent? Why does race still divide us so completely?”
Excuse us if we reply, because not enough of us have cared. Not enough of us have chosen to reach out and break down the barriers that surrounded us every day. Not enough of us have seen the city’s racial tensions as anything but “their” problem. Too many of us have been content to merely fill quotas or percentages instead of asking ourselves, am I making this workplace, this school, this church or this city block a better, richer place for everyone here?
We told you so, and we are today telling you again (but with hope). You ask, “What can I do?” Begin by recognizing that each of us has a stake in the well-being of our city. If our schools fail to educate, your children will suffer as much as your neighbor’s. If your neighbor lives in fear, so will you. If one person on your block cannot take an evening stroll, no one can, and everyone becomes the loser.
Recognize that Chicago needs neighborhoods that are sources of pride and not prejudice.
Recognize that the civil rights movement of the 1960s removed only the formal barriers to integration. Take it upon yourself to tear down the personal barriers. When you go to a PTA meeting, take the time to call parents of another color and invite them along. When you see children of different backgrounds playing together, join them and support them. When issues of safety or public services rise in your neighborhood, invite all of your neighbors to voice their concerns in public discussions.
Above all, take the lead. It is our experience that prejudice disappears only when all of us have the courage to take a stand. It will take leadership from every sector–business, culture, government, education and religion–to eradicate the shame of racial hatred in our city.
This is our city. Let us take it from the forces that would make it anything less than the great city it deserves to become.
