Under Mayor Johnson’s leadership, this city has made unprecedented investments in our future. The number of youth summer jobs has increased by 39% since 2022. We’re seeing historic declines in violent crime. Mental health clinics shuttered under previous administrations are being reopened. For the first time, trained mental health professionals — not just police — are responding to mental health crises. That’s not just a policy change; it’s a shift in the value system of our city.

Under the transformative, new Chicago Teachers Union contract, class sizes will shrink for every grade level, and librarians and social workers will return to schools in greater numbers. Sustainable Community Schools continue to grow. Protections for undocumented and LGBTQ+ students are not just rhetoric — they’re policy. And yes, this administration has established a reparations task force to begin righting generational wrongs.

But instead of celebrating progress, the media has chosen a different story: one of chaos, incompetence, and crisis. There was no outcry when billions of dollars went to corporate and real estate interests. But now that resources are flowing to the South and West Sides, to our schools, our communities, and our children, we’re being told that it’s too much, too fast, too irresponsible.

Let’s call this what it is: a strategic campaign to undermine a progressive Black mayor using the same old tools — fear, division, and dog whistles about mismanagement. The media plays a role, not by reporting, but by echoing these narratives without context, without care, and without regard for the people most impacted.

The right-wing has made it clear: divide and conquer is the strategy. We saw it when Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott began busing migrants to sanctuary cities like Chicago. It wasn’t about immigration; it was about disruption. A zero-sum game to pit immigrant communities against Black Chicagoans, fueling a false narrative that one community’s survival must come at the cost of another’s.

But Black and Brown communities are natural allies, not enemies. We have been marginalized, overpoliced, underinvested, and now vilified in the press. The same forces trying to criminalize immigrants are the ones who supported mass incarceration. The same people cutting food assistance are cutting access to housing and health care. This is a shared fight, and unity is our only path forward.

We’ve seen what happens when progressive leadership is branded as irresponsible and dangerous. In New York, after critiques of former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s modest progressive agenda, current Mayor Eric Adams stepped into power and has led the city to a crisis point — flooding the subways with police who have shot recklessly at fare evaders, failing to protect tenants from rents that are at an all time high, and attempting to cut funding from critical city services. As Adams’s public reputation tanks from corruption allegations, the Trump donor-backed Andrew Cuomo has emerged as the front-runner in the mayoral race, proving how pernicious anti-progressive narratives are, even in major blue cities. 

We cannot let that happen in Chicago. We are building something different here — something rooted in care, justice, and accountability.