Social justice candidates can win on the North Shore – if we vote

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

This kinetic tension is evident in national politics: red vs. blue, Right vs. Left, conservatives vs. liberals. Indeed, the electoral game for most states permits only two viable parties, Republican and Democrat. This polarization came to a head in 2020 with record-high engagement in a presidential election. Between the upheavals of the pandemic, a surge of pledges in support for Black lives, and the struggle for voting rights among marginalized peoples, the calisthenics of opposition was in full force.

But Newton’s third law of physics doesn’t necessarily apply to suburban politics.

A uniformity of status quo mediocrity and self-satisfaction prevails in Chicago’s northern suburbs. It’s a consensus built on an ethos of racial and economic exclusivity.

“People moved to the North Shore to get away from diversity,” Rabbi Robert Marx, the civil rights leader who died last week, told me back in the mid-1990s when I turned to him in frustration as I tried to organize more than the usual suspects of religious leaders and residents to promote integration in this lily-white and affluent region.

The Wilmette Life at that time called diversity “the d-word” in an editorial that admonished readers that if we wanted it, we should move to Evanston.

But last year, the people that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. characterized as more dangerous than the racist – the good white moderates who remain appallingly silent in the face of racism – woke up.

Following the videotaped murder of George Floyd by police, thousands in this region, as in the rest of the country, not only hit the streets in protest but named and pledged to end systemic racism and white supremacy where they live, work, study, play, and worship. They started to speak out at city council meetings and were surprised to see the extent to which “public comment” is a charade, with elected officials not even making eye contact, let alone responding to or considering their ideas.

Many were inspired to run for office. Or to come out of political retirement, as former State Senator Daniel Biss, now mayor-elect of Evanston, told me.

Upending suburban complacency is not easy. Entrenched ruling parties decide to run more people of color, thinking that will distract the electorate away from digging deeper into policies that promote luxury development at the expense of struggling residents and workers.

If you are a registered voter in the northern suburbs, you may be among that vast, newly politicized majority of moderates. Regardless of ethnicity, you might never have known or cared about local politics before 2020. In 2013, I did my own analysis of the spring elections in our suburbs and found that only 18 percent voted on average.

But today, you know what’s at stake. The kind of community you want to live in is grounded in the moral values of mutual respect, antiracism, and participatory democracy.

You have joined Facebook groups that were born following the 2016 presidential election like Action Ridge (Park Ridge), Evanston Fight for Black Lives, Skokie Citizens for Action, or Northbrook Working Families. I joined many of you in 2015 to organize a grassroots campaign, The Justice Project: The March Continues, to reinvigorate activism for civil rights and racial equity that prevailed locally in the ‘60s.

In short, you want a community that treats its residents, workers, and visitors of color equitably, and you want to know how to vote.

For the April 6th election, I recommend that you check out candidate guides produced by local Leagues of Women Voters that lay out in a nonpartisan, comprehensive format where individuals running in all races stand. For Evanston, I recommend A Progressive Voter Guide for the Local Evanston, IL 2021 Election published by Evanston Fight for Black Lives.

I would also recommend that you evaluate candidates based on their stance and record around The Justice Project’s Principles of the Welcoming Community, a framework of actions across issue areas that taken together, usher in suburbs that are open, inclusive, and diverse.

In Evanston, I am a co-founder of Community Alliance for Better Government and we have endorsed a slate based specifically around a platform for government transparency and racial equity. We endorsed only one incumbent in a contested race: Ald. Tom Suffredin. The other endorsed Aldermanic candidates – Clare Kelly, Darlene Cannon, Nick Korzeniowski, Diane Goldring, Carolyn Murray, Mary Rosinski, and Devon Reid – along with Stephanie Mendoza for City Clerk, are newcomers.

In other suburban races, I share my personal evaluation, not representing The Justice Project but using the Welcoming Community Principles as my criteria.

In Glenview, like Evanston, the challengers to the conservative incumbents are residents who take a strong stance for inclusion and racial equity. Here they are running as a slate, Glenview Next: Paul Brancky, Sheri Latash, and Cathy Wilson.

Skokie, where I live, is a one-party town, the entrenched Caucus Party, and rarely do candidates for Village Trustee or Mayor have challengers. This year, James Johnson, an independent, is running on a platform virtually identical to the Welcoming Community. That’s why he will get my vote.

By contrast to Skokie, Northbrook residents elected enlightened Caucus Party trustees a few years ago. Last December, they adopted an overwhelmingly popular set of mixed-income housing policies, designed to ensure that people across the wealth spectrum and people with disabilities can move into or remain in the Village. Their challengers are trying to return to power, including the former Village President, and using tired, disproved shibboleths about affordable housing lowering property values. The Northbrook Caucus slate – Kathryn Ciesla for President, and Muriel Collison, Dan Pepoon, and Joy Ebhomielen for Trustee – deserves to be elected.

Park Ridge native Julianna Lopez de Philbrook is running for Alderman of the 2nd Ward and noteworthy for her advocacy for policies mitigating climate change and increased mental health resources. She also promotes accountability and openness in government.

Finally, in Wilmette, residents have the opportunity to elevate Joel Kurzman from Trustee to Village President. A founder of the grassroots Dry Out West Wilmette, an environmental group, he has stood up for sustainability, mixed-income housing, and alternatives to use of force in policing.

In 1965, Jack Mabley, a former Village President of Glenview, posited in his news column supporting open housing, Can Love Win over Fear on the North Shore?, “I may be wildly unrealistic, but I believe that in a community like the North Shore 90 percent of the people are decent, moralistic, patriotic human beings who will do the right thing when given some direction.”

I am optimistic in 2021, Dr. King’s Beloved Community, both a process and a destination, will finally hold, for keeps, proving anew Newton’s first law of physics: an object in motion will tend to stay in motion.