Dear Lori: A Letter To The New Mayor on Behalf of Savy Millennials Who’ve Had Enough

Mayor-Elect Lightfoot-
Congrats on your victory.
I personally didn’t vote for you because I honestly don’t know if you are a friend or foe.
For one, you were appointed by my philosophical foes (Richard Daley & Rahm Emmanuel).
Do you genuinely have the courage, conviction and moral compass to greatly improve our city with the  compassionate, bold actions that it desperately needs?
Or will your occasional tendency to protect the machine be the Mayoral legacy that you create?

I don’t know if I can trust you yet. 
What I do know is that it can go either way with politicians of your kind; (those who sky-rocket to power via insider access to the political status-quo  but are then magically re-branded as “outsiders”).  
You have a complicated record when it comes to holding police officers
and the police department at large accountable for misconduct.
But I am particularly annoyed by a tone deaf vision that sees more policing as the way forward to a better safer, more just and more spiritually balanced Chicago.
It is clear that only a vision that includes  transformative educational and economic policies can re-engage, renew and re-establish the communities that have been intentionally neglected by the very political machine that appointed you, Ms. Lightfoot.
So far, I am not convinced to you have or are deeply committed to such a vision.

So- Newly elected Mayor Elect Lightfoot,
allow me to introduce you to the New Chicago.
We are sick of empty platitudes about “Hope and Change”.
We are fed up with the marginalized and now the middle class being systematically denigrated and ignored.
We can no longer tolerate a Chicago that criminalizes the poor, the suffering and sick
while turning a blind-eye to wealthy crooks and political pimps who continue to accrue more power, while the rest of us beg for a few crumbs to drizzle down from the city’s mighty table.

  We’ve been double-crossed by establishment wolves- disguised as enlightened progressive lambs before.
So we actually don’t care if you’re the first or Black or gay or female.
Don’t get me wrong; all of those are phenomenal achievements on paper.
But those glorious accolades will be to your shame if you don’t
make the disenfranchised communities that made you such a trending, headline worthy candidate to begin with a priority on DAY ONE!

We invite you step boldly into your responsibility as a trailblazer
or prepare to succumb to the flames of voter rage and smolder into disgrace
much like your predecessor who you will soon replace.
Will you be Rosa Parks or Rahm?
Will you be Dorothy Height or just another Dick (Daley)?
The choice is yours.