A black neighborhood-only Mandela Road almost reeks of apartheid

MANDELA: Soon to have West Side tribute?

I don’t have a problem with some sort of permanent tribute to the late South Africa President Nelson Mandela.

I just happen to think that the proposal currently under review by the General Assembly is lame and borders on a sense of separation that brings to mind the whole concept of apartheid.

THAT, OF COURSE, was the name for the old structure of South Africa by which the overwhelming non-white majority were separated into specific camps away from everyone else.

It was the structure that Mandela fought his life in opposition to, spent more than two decades of his life in prison because of, but ultimately prevailed. Even though some people still want to spew the old rhetoric that Mandela’s opposition to segregation somehow made him a Communist.

The same thing they used to say all the time in this country about the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. – for what it’s worth.

Since Mandela’s death last year, communities all around the globe have expressed desires to memorialize the man – even Chicago, which doesn’t have a direct connection to his life (although Mandela’s mentality is something that ought to prevail the Earth).

THAT IS WHAT is behind state Rep. LaShawn Ford, D-Chicago, and the bill of his that the Illinois House of Representatives approved last week – the one that renames a part of Cicero Avenue for Mandela.

Mandela Road would stretch from Roosevelt Road north to North Avenue. Which means “Mandela Road” would be purely a creation of the African-American neighborhoods of the West Side.

Will sign someday differentiate Cicero from Mandela?

Just as “King Drive” is something that only exists in African-American neighborhoods of Chicago’s South Side.

It’s already a tacky-enough joke that you’ll never find a white person who lives on King Drive. Do we really need to do the same to Mandela’s image?

ADMITTEDLY, THE BILL had a larger goal in mind when Ford came up with the idea back in December.

He wanted to rename the entire length of Illinois Route 50 for Mandela. That route stretches from near Kankakee north to Skokie – and includes the whole length of the Chicago street known as Cicero Avenue.

Also too isolated from rest of Chicago

Which used to have the pedestrian name of 48^th Avenue (because it’s 48 blocks west of State Street). But the Cicero label has been around long enough that it’s a part of Chicago’s character.

That fact, and the idea that there are people in Will and Kankakee counties who have no enthusiasm for the idea that one of their major roads would have the “Mandela Road” label, is what caused Ford to scale back his proposal.

WHICH COMES ACROSS as a lame gesture now. A “Mandela Road” that exists only on the West Side somehow isolates the West Side from the rest of Chicago even moreso than it already is now.

If anything, it goes against the idea of bringing people together that Mandela touted throughout his life.

It probably would be interesting to see how the reaction would be if the bill in question had still kept some non-black neighborhood in the stretch of road under consideration.

Illinois Senate still to decide Mandela Road fate

Perhaps making Mandela Road a stretch across the entire length of Chicago, if not Cook County as well.

THAT MIGHT ACTUALLY shame the people in Will and Kankakee counties who wouldn’t get included in this project. But some people have no shame. I’m sure we’d get some rhetoric about how memorializing Mandela is fine – so long as it’s done somewhere else!

Then again, we’d probably have people in Chicago and suburban Cook who’d express the same sentiment. That might be the real shame – Mandela died before his work was complete.

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Some people wish Ryan, Blagojevich could just fade off into the sunset

Some people are just determined not to wither away into anonymity – no matter how much the ideologically-inclined of our society desire it.

RYAN: Beginning 'elder' statesman niche

Because I’m not as bothered as some by the fact that our former governors George Ryan and Rod Blagojevich both popped back into the news columns in recent days.

I ACTUALLY FOUND Ryan’s weekend appearance at the South Side church that calls Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., its pastor to be intriguing in the way that George H. was capable of calling on international ties that usually wouldn't be associated with a state official to get something done.

And as for Blagojevich’s attorneys appearing in court on Friday to argue the merits of why his convictions should be overturned (or at the very least, his 14-year prison sentence should be lessened), well, that’s part of the legal process.

He gets to appeal. For those who’d rather not allow him the opportunity to challenge the merits of his conviction, I’d argue that’s an “un-American” thought to have.

I make such a statement because I notice that the Internet commentary on both of these stories is so overwhelmingly negative. People use the anonymity of such comments to make racist comments about Ryan, while claiming that one-time first lady Patti Blagojevich and the attorneys all ought to be silenced.

REGARDLESS OF WHAT one thinks of the gubernatorial stints of both of these men, such attitudes may be more despicable than anything either man did. And let’s not forget that Blagojevich is in the early years of serving that 14-year sentence.

While Ryan wound up doing six-plus years in a federal Bureau of Prisons work camp for his acts.

In the case of Ryan, he made what is being considered his first public appearance since being released from prison earlier this year.

BLAGOJEVICH: "Free Milorod?"

It was a memorial service on the South Side for one-time activist and South Africa President Nelson Mandela, and Ryan recalled the time he got to meet with the man.

ACCORDING TO THE Chicago Sun-Times, Mandela’s minions initially rejected Ryan on the grounds that he was not a national leader or other world-renowned figure.

But Ryan did make that trip back in the autumn of 1999 to Cuba and had met with Fidel Castro. Which meant that Ryan’s people were able to contact Castro’s people, who then contacted Mandela’s people to put in a good word.

That resulted in the initial meeting, and the fact that later when Ryan was seriously contemplating clearing Death Row of its 160-some inmates because Illinois’ capital crimes statutes were so flawed, Mandela was able to get through directly to the governor to put in his thoughts (which were in line with doing away with the death penalty).

Let’s be honest. That is a key part of why many of Ryan’s critics oppose him. Internet comments were more than willing to tie Ryan to Castro, the Mandela that was considered a “Communist” and the Bobby Rush of the Black Panther Party of old.

AN UNPLEASANT REMINDER that some people in our society are determined to live in their own little world, and wish they could force the rest of us to live in it with them – under their subjugation.

Those same people were upset that Blagojevich is able to appeal his case – in which arguments were heard before a Court of Appeals panel on Friday.

Some got all worked up over the fact that some judges on the panel were more than willing to ask questions implying that perhaps the sentence was excessive. Or that maybe the former governor’s conduct wasn’t really criminal – and that politics itself isn’t automatically bribery.

Personally, I’m inclined to think those questions came from judges who wanted to see if the attorneys would come up with a pompous or otherwise-stupid statement that would then be used to reject Blagojevich’s desire for freedom sometime before he turns 67.

BUT SOME PEOPLE are just determined to rant and rage that their desires to go overboard on Blagojevich aren’t being blindly followed.

Blagojevich may wind up spending more time in prison (even if he gets the sentenced lessened slightly). But we’re going to have to accept that Ryan is destined to become that political elder statesman with a colorful past (just like one-time Congressman Dan Rostenkowski).

This was just the first of many such public appearances he’s likely to make.

Which means I need to stock up on Tylenol for the Internet-induced comments I’m going to have to endure as a result.

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Perhaps they should have dug up Garrett Morris for ‘interpreter’ duties

It has been some nearly four decades since actor Garrett Morris did his comedy sketches on Saturday Night Live as the head of the New York School for the Hearing Impaired.

Those sketches were actually written into larger sketches when Morris’ face would suddenly appear in the sketch and he would “interpret” for the hearing-impaired exactly what was being said.

THE GAG, OF course, was that all he did was cup his hands around his mouth and scream at the top of his voice. Which usually got bigger laughs than whatever the original sketch was about!

Because we all know that when dealing with someone who is deaf, it really doesn’t matter how loud (or how slow) one speaks. They still can’t hear you.

Although I wonder if Morris would have been a more legitimate deaf interpreter than the man who actually was on hand to perform such duties at the memorial service held earlier this week for Nelson Mandela.

The world was focused on Johannesburg, with leaders from around the globe on hand – including President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle. A man was on stage going through a series of intricate hand gestures that allegedly were supposed to clue-in the hearing impaired as to just what was being said by the assorted world leaders on stage.

BUT THE REUTERS news wire service reported that officials with DeafSA, a South African organization meant to help hearing-impaired in that nation, were upset. Because the gestures the man made were little more than physical gibberish.

They weren’t any form of real sign language. The group also noted that a real interpreter also uses their face to try to convey the mood of an event – apart from what comes from the mouths of the people who speak.

It also seems that no one is really sure just who this man was. The group claims not to have any recognition of him as a legitimate interpreter for the deaf. It’s almost as though a mystery man managed to get on stage and just take over.

So much for the security for the Mandela memorial service.

I SUPPOSE WE ought to feel fortunate that this man merely felt compelled to wave his arms about, rather than commit some serious act of violence during the event.

OBAMA: Did he realize the signing was gibberish?

Although the odd part is that officials investigating the matter of “Who Is He?” have come up with television clips of African National Conference events during the past year in which the same man did a similar routine in the name of “deaf interpretation.”

Some people are more concerned about the fact that deaf people would have trouble comprehending what happened at the event. Television stations broadcasting the service within South Africa had their own sign-language interpreters on hand to translate for the hearing-impaired.

But activists in London told Reuters that deaf people in the rest of the world essentially were excluded from being able to comprehend the Mandela memorial – an event they want to believe was historic in nature.

NOW I’M NOT downplaying the significance of Mandela. Although my own impression of such large-scale events is that unless you’re actually there in person, they don’t mean much.

It just doesn’t seem like being a part of history that many people the world over watched the same television program. Or in reality, had it on their television sets as background noise.

Unless you were among those in the 95,000-seat stadium, what did you really miss? And if you were there, it was most likely that you wouldn’t have been able to clearly see the interpreter and figure out what the gestures were.

 

Which makes me wonder that if the current incarnation of Saturday Night Live wants to mock this controversy, perhaps they ought to bring back Morris for a redux of his old routine.

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Mandela is evidence of our change

How far has our society changed with regards to race relations? My own barometer for that issue is our perception of Nelson Mandela.

 

The one-time leader of South Africa whose election as president after decades of incarceration as a radical subversive element to their society died this week – reaching the age of 95.

HE TRULY DID so much with his life at the end that it becomes very easy to forget the nearly 30 years that he spent in prison. In fact, I’m sure there are people who are now desperately trying to rewrite their own memories to erase that incarceration.

Because it is a blot that is uncomfortable to deal with. How could someone so worthy have ever been considered a criminal?

Yet I’m old enough to vividly remember when the only perception of Mandela was that of a criminal. Mandela was often the issue of concern during my college years when people felt the need to protest for social justice -- usually in protests meant to pressure U.S. companies to divest themselves of South African investments.

I remember being at an apartheid protest march (covering it for a college student newspaper) at Illinois State University in Normal when an outside group tried to cut into the event with their chants that Mandela was a “Communist” and otherwise un-American.

I ALSO CAN remember when going to some sort of public event invariably would attract a few people passing out literature while chanting “Free Nelson Mandela!,” whom most people had either never heard of – or were more than willing to believe the official party line that he was a criminal; or perhaps a "terrorist."

Invariably, those people in this country backing Mandela’s release from prison were also selling copies of various Communist Party publications.

I’m not exaggerating on that last point. I remember once in the summer of ’85 being at the University of Illinois-Chicago campus and engaging in an hour-long conversation with a woman peddling The Daily Worker.

In short, backing Mandela wasn’t a mainstream thought.

OF COURSE, WE were also back in the days of Ronald Reagan as president. Those people who put Bonzo’s one-time co-star in the White House were more than willing to go along with the idea that South Africa should be allowed to decide its own affairs.

If that meant being willing to look the other way when the concept of apartheid (the official policy by which South Africa’s white minority population kept the overwhelming black majority penned into certain, substandard parts of the country) was discussed.

For that was what Mandela and his African National Congress were so opposed to when he was arrested in 1961 for leading a three-day national workers strike. He first got a five-year prison term, then in 1963 was sentenced to life in prison along with other ANC members for allegedly subversive activities.

He ultimately served 27 years in prison, which puts the amount of time that Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., was detained in assorted jails into proper perspective.

I CAN RECALL the otherwise-sensible people who would dismiss Mandela as a “cause” because of that prison time. Too many people willing to believe that law enforcement authority was automatically correct, even though it wasn’t our system (which has mechanisms in place to catch its errors and correct them, to the best of its ability).

Of course, things changed when Mandela eventually got his release (his continued incarceration became just too much of an embarrassment for the South African government).

It also helped that Mandela, upon release, worked with officials to dismantle the segregationist ways of South Africa – for which he and former President F.W. de Klerk received the Nobel Peace Prize.

Only the most hard-core of ideological nitwits would continue to rant about Mandela after that. Although considering how much they whine about 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama, it’s clear we’re not completely over the old hang-ups – and probably never will be completely!

NOW, I’M NOT nominating Mandela for sainthood. I have no doubt the man has his flaws. All human beings have them (mine are being way too ill-tempered and grouchy at times to be around).

But the fact that we’re no longer hearing “Communist” rants about Mandela – and the fact that his death compelled just about everybody of any significance (I don’t know that I needed to know what Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis thought) to issue a statement expressing their condolences – shows we’ve undergone some sort of shift in thought patterns.

Shifts long overdue, in my own humble opinion.

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How much things change!

I got my chuckle on Wednesday from a Chicago Tribune report about how Gov. Pat Quinn has picked an official representative for the state of Illinois to attend a conference to be held in South Africa.



Just envision the scene THIS Jesse Jackson (center) would make in representing Illinois next week in South Africa. Photograph provided by Library of Congress collection.



For the record, Illinois’ official participant in the conference that celebrates that 100^th anniversary of the African National Congress will be the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

WHICH TO ME on so many levels is a radical statement of how much our society has changed (and yes, I believe, for the better). For I can recall a time when the idea of a political person who would have said Jesse Jackson would be the official Illinoisan on hand in Johannesburg would have been considered a radical concept.

Any politician who would have even contemplated picking Jesse would have been demonized. Then again, there wouldn’t have been anyone in the Chicago political universe who would have been broad-minded enough to even pick Jackson.

Then again, it also would have been considered radical to do something that would have been seen as supportive of the African National Congress – which now is a fully-legitimate political party.

But I can recall the days when people were quick to demonize it as nothing but a batch of Communist dupes who were willing to use the black majority to create unrest in that nation.

EVEN PEOPLE WHO were willing to publicly state the abhorrence of the apartheid policies of old in South Africa would have been reluctant to do anything supportive of the ANC.

Now, just another political party



Now, times have changed enough that we decide that our state should send someone to South Africa to partake in the festivities – and when one thinks rationally about it, who better than the Rev. Jackson?

During his trip (which is timed to commemorate the Jan. 8, 1912 founding of the ANC as an organization devoted to promoting the interests of the black majority of  South Africa, rather than the minority white Afrikaaners), Jackson will meet with officials of many other countries who will view this celebration as an excuse to “network,” so to speak, to boost economic relationships.

In short, they likely will view it as yet another convention to be attended. Which is a concept that I find radical. The ANC as just another organization.

IT IS BECAUSE I can remember my own college days of the mid-1980s – back when apartheid disgust was at its peak among more progressive elements of our society, but also when the Republican-leaning government that idolized President Ronald Reagan was more than willing to claim that the ANC was little more than a criminal organization.

I still recall one time I was at the University of Illinois-Chicago campus back in those days when I got into a lengthy conversation with a young woman who was handing out the leaflets urging people to support the freeing from prison of Nelson Mandela.

This woman was wearing all kinds of buttons expressing support for “radical” causes, and I believe she also was selling copies of the Workers Vanguard newspaper. Certainly not somebody worried about being part of “the establishment.”

The man who was a wise leader who brought moderation to his country (as portrayed by actor Morgan Freeman in the film “Invictus”) was still regarded as little more than a criminal who deserved his incarceration by many people in this country who want to think they were fully rational and sensible.

THEN AGAIN, THERE also were many of those same people who a couple of decades before were more than willing to believe Martin Luther King, Jr., was a communist sympathizer himself (and something resembling a sexual pervert).

I find it pleasurable to know that all of these ideas are relegated to the past. The fact that we can now laugh at the idiocy that ever led anyone to think such thoughts is a sign that we have moved forward.

As is the fact that we can now have the Rev. Jesse Jackson serve as Illinois’ official representative and seeing it get a mere news brief in the Chicago Tribune (a newspaper that once would have demonized the very thought) and know that no one is about to push for Quinn’s impeachment for doing such a thing.

Times have changed, and for the better. There’s only one thing I wish were possible.

IT’S TOO BAD we couldn’t get the Jesse Jackson of four decades ago to make such an appearance.

The one of the Operation PUSH days with the rhyming rhetoric of passion to go along with the big afro and the wild dashikis.

That would have created an image for Illinois that would be planted permanently in the brains of the world’s leaders. Perhaps that’s what it would take to get people to quit thinking of the “Land of Lincoln” as the place that produced the corrupt governor with the funky, big hair.

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Arizona “boycotts” in Cook Co. and elsewhere feel like South Africa encore

Anyone who has read my commentary either at this site or (more often) at the sister weblog The South Chicagoan knows that I think Arizona state officials made a serious gaffe when they felt the need to take it upon themselves to have their local police act on the federal issue of immigration.

So this commentary is not meant to be a plea to the Cook County Board to pass a resolution that condemns Arizona, or says that the county should not do business with Arizona-based companies. It is not even a hope that the county rejects a resolution that praises Arizona for meddling in the issue.

I DO HOPE they do both of those things when they meet Tuesday, since the county board is expected to consider dueling resolutions that have been introduced on the issue.

But what I find interesting about this issue is how it shows how little official government protest has changed throughout the decades. If I were to change a few names and dates, the kind of rhetoric we’re going to hear would be very reminiscent of what was a key issue back when I was in college a quarter of a century ago.

Back then, the abhorent place was South Africa, which was still under the control of the government meant to ensure that the white minority maintained a solid control – keeping the overwhelming black population in check through the system of laws and restrictions known as apartheid.

Nelson Mandela wasn’t a former national president and Nobel Prize winner – he was a convict and prison inmate. I am old enough to remember when it was still considered respectable to think of Mandela as a subversive – if not an outright communist.

WHEN THAT SENTIMENT started to change in the mid-1980s, it became trendy for universities, businesses and governments to try to make a symbolic statement by pushing for divestiture from South Africa. That meant cutting off business ties with entities that were based there, and refusing to invest in companies that were supportive of the South African establishment.

Politically, I can remember the more progressive elements of society pushing eagerly for this kind of rhetoric, while the more conservative elements would claim that opposing South Africa was “un-American,” sort of.

Other people tried to argue against divestiture by claiming that it was not the place of the United States to be meddling in the ways of South Africa – regardless of what one might think of the old apartheid restrictions that limited black people in terms of where they could exist, and what they could do in society.

Now that it is becoming popular for government entities to want to make a statement about Arizona, it seems like the same tone of debate is rising up again.

WHICH IS WHY I am not going so far as to say what I think the vote will be on Tuesday, but I can already envision the debate that will be spewed in the county board chambers.

Now Cook County is not the first government entity to take a stance against Arizona. South suburban Calumet City approved a resolution last month that says city government officials will not attend conferences held in Arizona, nor will they enter into contracts with companies based primarily in that state.

Supporters of that city’s move argued that the non-white majority population of that municipality means they should take a stance against a state whose actions threaten to be hostile to the growing Latino population of this nation.

Critics say it is none of our business how Arizona decides to conduct business. If we don’t like it, that makes it a good thing that we do not live there.

SO WHEN THE county board debates the resolution that trashes Arizona, we’re going to hear debate pro- and con- on the merits of the growing Latino population. We’re going to hear how it is a personal insult to the 1.5 million people of Mexican ethnic background who live in the Chicago area (and, according to the Mexican consulate in Chicago, spend about $20 billion annually) if our government officials do not take a stance opposing Arizona.

When the debate shifts to the resolution praising the state, we’re going to hear a lot of talk about minding our own business. We’ll probably even hear a lot of “trash talk” about how bad things have become during the years (ending in December) of county board President Todd Stroger. The implication being, where does the Government of Stroger get off saying anything bad about anybody!

Ultimately, the county is likely to pass the resolution by county board member (and former Illinois State Police trooper) Edwin Reyes – the one that says the county should not be doing the $6 million in business with Arizona companies that it already has.

This is, after all, the county that has followed the lead of Chicago in declaring itself to be a “sanctuary” for people with immigration issues – meaning that local police won’t bring the issue up because it really does fall outside of their areas of knowledge and concern.

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