--Gwendolyn Brooks, as quoted by new Mayor Lori Lightfoot
-0-
 |
| LIGHTFOOT: Chicago's new mayor |
I
couldn’t help but note the bit Monday where newly-inaugurated Mayor Lori Lightfoot
cited some words of wisdom from one-time poet laureate Gwendolyn Brooks.
The
first-ever black, female to be Chicago mayor found something wise in the words
of the first-ever black woman to win a Pulitzer Prize (1950, for poetry).
I
FIND IT refreshing to think that we are one, and that we all ought to be working
together if we’re to succeed.
Because
we’re in an era where some people are way too eager to peddle the notion that
everybody of any sense is fleeing Chicago, AND Illinois. Usually claiming that
it’s all BECAUSE OF Chicago’s existence that they don’t want to be a part of
our state any longer.
I
don’t doubt that some people have such a dismal outlook on life that they’re
willing to leave. Maybe they even think that places like Indiana, or somewhere
down South, are better.
I’m
inclined to think we’re better off without such people. We don’t need such
downers dragging us all down to their level in life.
MAYBE
IT’S EVEN appropriate for Lightfoot to look to Brooks. The poet was a Topeka,
Kansas, native who wound up living the bulk of her life in Chicago and became
as much a native as someone born and raised here.
Similar
to that of Lightfoot, a native of Massillon, Ohio, who wound up coming to the
University of Chicago to study and figured out that her life was here.
 |
| BROOKS: Providing words of wisdom |
And
now we can spend the next four years seeing whether Lightfoot is capable of
upgrading our city to the point where we won’t be griping four years from now,
wondering just “What was I thinking?” when we voted for her. If we can follow the
advice of Brooks and realize we are “one,” perhaps we’ll all be better off.
-30-
No comments:
Post a Comment