Southwest Suburban voters: It's time to take a stand against hate

What will it take to stop the rhetoric of hate that’s growing in Chicago’s southwest suburbs?

Depending on where you live, you may not be aware of the way anti-immigrant, far-right sentiment has been allowed to snowball in Chicago’s Southland, seemingly in response to the diverse communities that thrive there.

Take Illinois’s 3rd U.S. House district, for example. An actual former member of the Nazi party, Art Jones, is the Republican nominee for this seat. Sit with that for a moment. The possibility exists that voters, perhaps unfamiliar with Jones’s denial of the Holocaust and other hateful beliefs, could put him in a national Congressional seat. Even Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican thousands of miles away from us in Texas, pleads with voters to “vote for the Democrat” in this election.

Then there’s Palos Township Trustee Sharon Brannigan. Residents of the area have watched for more than a year as protestors have called for her to resign due to her anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim rhetoric. Her statements, which go back as far as 2015, have targeted immigrant children, business owners and average citizens. Yet she’s allowed to remain in her post.

As a side note, it’s been interesting to see that each month the Palos Township Board holds monthly meetings that barely last ten minutes so as to avoid the ire of voters in the public comment period who call for Brannigan’s resignation. One wonders exactly what the Palos Township Board actually does to earn its salaries. For those who think Illinois has too many units of government, perhaps we could start with disbanding this one, which seemingly does very little.

The common thread in both these instances is the head of the Cook County Republican Party, Sean Morrison, who is also Cook County Commissioner for the 17th District. His failure to recruit a Republican candidate for IL-3 and refusal to call for Brannigan’s resignation suggest he doesn’t understand the growing problem under his leadership. While Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle has called for Brannigan’s resignation and removed her from her role on the Cook County Women’s Commission, Morrison has done nothing.

We can dismiss Jones and Brannigan as fringe actors, if we like. But others will see the lack of pushback and refusal to act as silent assent to their views. We need only to look at recent events in Pittsburgh to see how inaction on these matters allows violence to thrive.

This isn’t just about social justice or doing the right thing. We’ve all seen corporations pull business out of areas that aren’t welcoming to all. Even a cursory look at economic growth data shows that more diverse communities create a healthier financial picture for a region.

Cook County literally can’t afford this hate.

Morrison is up for re-election this Tuesday. It’s unclear why he hasn’t done the bare minimum to demonstrate to the diverse community of the Southland that he will fight for their basic rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that are threatened by far-right rhetoric. Perhaps Morrison’s obsession with President Preckwinkle, the pop tax and his side business as a security consultant have made him too busy to do the work of Cook County Commissioner for the people of Palos, Orland, La Grange and elsewhere in the 17th District. Voters can determine whether he should pay the price for all this.

But this isn’t just about Morrison. When our political leaders refuse to lead, it’s up to all of us. Regardless of what happens on Tuesday, average citizens, business owners and community organizations need to be united in the fight for all people - regardless of ethnicity, religion or skin color - to be treated fairly and equally by our government. We need to ensure our political leaders hear us on this issue, whether in local political meetings, in the streets or in the voting booth.

The price we’ll pay for not doing so is just too high.

Scott Smith is a board member with the Southwest Chicago Diversity Collaborative, an organization which advocates for racial, educational and economic justice.