Vallas: Brandon Johnson’s war against Chicago’s Black community
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson claims racism is behind his inability to lead and help the Black community. But his policies on crime, taxes, migrants, education and jobs are the real villains.
Mayor Brandon Johnson is portraying himself as the Second Coming of former Black Mayor Harold Washington as he tries to rehabilitate his image with Chicago’s Black community.
He portrays his critics as part of a pattern of attacks on Black mayors across the U.S. He told political allies Chicago is undergoing a new Reconstruction era, an allusion to the period of rapid but ultimately halted Black advancement after the Civil War. He portrays his battles as part of an existential battle against a political establishment that doesn’t want Black Chicagoans to prosper.
But using race and racism to explain away every problem, deflect every criticism and justify every failure only serves to cheapen the real policy issues at hand plaguing both Chicago and the Black community. His rhetoric is little more than a political ploy to put critics on the defensive and to win back support in the Black community, where many feel abandoned by his migrant policies.
The truth is his policies have not been much help in the Black community. They often hurt more than help.
Public safety policies make Chicago — and especially the Black community — less safe
Johnson has consistently downplayed crime and violence. His budgets have eliminated 833 additional police vacancies, ensuring the city will continue to be 2,000 officers below full staff. Police response times have already slowed, seeing 52% of high-priority 911 calls go unanswered in 2023 — up from 19% in 2019. Arrests for violent crimes have fallen below 6%.
Chicagoans suffered 28,443 violent crimes in 2024. While homicides declined slightly, the city still led among major cities in total murders, school-age murders and mass shootings. If Chicago were a state, it would rank second only to California in mass shootings.
Most victims were Black. Yet Johnson continues to avoid directly condemning the violence, choosing instead to offer vague invocations of institutional racism.
Worse yet, despite widespread opposition – including from aldermen representing the city’s most violent neighborhoods – Johnson canceled the ShotSpotter program, which uses technology to detect gunfire and speed police and EMS response. He did this to appease activists who deemed the program “racist.” Of course, he conveniently extended the program’s life through the Democratic National Convention in August.
Eliminating public school choice hurts poor Black families
Johnson’s education agenda was clear long before his campaign. He has declared himself “against the structure” of education, opposing homework, standardized tests, school accountability, school choice and selective-enrollment schools. Chicago Teachers Union leaders – including Johnson himself – have sent their children to private, charter or magnet schools. Over 30% of Chicago Public Schools teachers do the same.
As a union lobbyist, he supported capping both the number and enrollment of public charter schools. As mayor, his appointed school board passed a resolution to “transition away” from public school choice options and phase out high-performing selective-enrollment schools. This would eliminate the only high-quality public alternatives many poor Black families have to failing and under-enrolled neighborhood schools.
Johnson’s Chicago Public Schools Board of Education has presided over the systematic lowering of academic expectations. Standardized testing has been vilified as “junk science.” Social promotion inflates graduation rates despite plummeting test scores. Johnson has reintroduced the racist relic of low expectations — and locking poor Black students out of opportunity.
Economic policies and priorities hurt Black residents and businesses
On economic development, Johnson has focused on expanding government programs and public-private subsidies rather than fostering an environment where small businesses can thrive. In his first year, he delivered on raising the subminimum wage for tipped workers and doubling family leave requirements for private businesses —moves that disproportionately burden small and minority-owned businesses.
He also placed his small-business-killing “Bring Chicago Home” real estate transfer tax referendum on the March 2024 ballot. Though branded as a “mansion tax,” over 90% of the revenue would come from commercial property sales, costs that would inevitably be passed on to renters and customers.
Though Johnson backed off other tax proposals, such as hotel tax increases, a jet fuel tax and the reinstatement of the head tax, they remain possibilities. His other ideas, including a service tax and congestion pricing, are all regressive and will hit Black and working-class communities hardest.
Johnson’s only clear, substantive economic development effort is his just-approved $830 million general obligation bond to make capital investments in affordable housing and infrastructure he promises will be on the South and West sides. The plan, however, is devoid of any real details.
The mayor’s affordable housing investment decisions to date create skepticism he will deliver on his promises. So far, the city’s most significant affordable housing investments have consisted of providing at least $324 million in subsidies to politically connected developers in exchange for creating 505 affordable housing units in areas across Chicago.
In a desperate attempt to claim a win, Johnson endorsed a multi-billion-dollar Chicago Bears lakefront stadium plan, complete with $1.5 billion in public subsidies – despite opposing public funds for a stadium during his campaign. He also approved $152 million in tax increment financing funding for a developer to convert four downtown buildings to residential use in exchange for them including 1,000 “affordable” units.
Socialist policies prioritize migrants over Black and Latino residents
Johnson’s migrant policies come at a direct cost to the Black community. His administration has committed over $600 million to migrant services while the state has spent over $800 million on migrant housing and other supports and nearly $1.5 billion more on migrant health care. Wirepoints estimates CPS alone has spent anywhere between $215 million and $410 million on migrant students. Even original Chicago Teachers Union contract demands included an extra $2,000 per migrant child.
Compare that to his support for Black Chicagoans: his “treatment not trauma” mental health initiative funded just four clinics. His reestablished Department of Environment consists of six new staffers added to an existing four. His reentry program for formerly incarcerated residents? Just a tiny office. His youth employment initiative? Only 4,000 temporary, minimum-wage summer jobs.
Chicago already has seen the largest Black exodus of any major U.S. city. Black Chicagoans are leaving because so-called progressive policies have left them in unsafe neighborhoods, denied them school choice and burdened them with regressive taxes. Johnson keeps offering more of what has made them leave.
His policies, programs and posturing are making things worse for Black Chicagoans. Expect more finger-pointing, not fixes.
Equity cannot be achieved without safe neighborhoods, high-quality schools, reliable public transportation and policies that build local wealth. Government dependency is not a substitute. Johnson’s actions make it increasingly clear he, at best, doesn’t understand that, or, at worst, doesn’t care.
Johnson will continue to play the race card as a catch-all excuse for problems inherited and his growing list of failures. The city would be far better served by serious, practical solutions.