Odds and ends with some a bit odder than others:
The prism of race: A few weeks back I was interviewed by Matt Murray, an Oak Park fellow, who has launched Oak Park Podcast. A simple premise. Lightly produced and well-edited interviews with a range of interesting local people, of which there are no end.
Our conversation, set up in my office, was, I thought, a good one. Murray offered me the chance to review the piece but since I hate when people I interview ask for that privilege — and I always say no — I told him that whatever I said, I said.
Didn’t keep me from wondering what exactly I had said, and so when he sent me a link to the freshly posted piece I listened in. Not bad. In fact, I thought it was one of my more lucid explanations of my part in launching this newspaper just about 36 years ago.
Regular readers, or even those whose first visit was last week’s missive, will not be surprised that race and integration were on my mind then as now. A kid growing up in Oak Park in the 1960s and 1970s, I was fascinated and stunned watching as the West Side rapidly resegregated and most experts assumed virtually all-white Oak Park would be next.
It wasn’t. And the why and how became a story I wanted to help report. That’s the origin of my interest in community journalism and it remains to me the single most compelling aspect of Oak Park.
As I said in the interview for the podcast, I know there are people in town who think the Journal looks at most everything through the prism of race. Those would be perceptive folks. We do mostly. And pretty much unapologetically.
Education, housing, business and development, faith, crime, youth sports, politics. All have aspects of race and class that ought to be reflected, not ignored. How real has power sharing become? How do we relate to communities of color that surround Oak Park?
There are fantastic stories of diversity to tell. And there are issues where we need great persistence and courage. How do we talk to each other about race when it is often so much more comfortable not to? Through the shared connection of a local, independent publication, I’d say.
You can find the interview at OakParkPodcast.com.
Speaking ill of the dead: I did not know Eugene Moore well. The former 7th District state rep died last week at age 73. He was the first black person to hold that office. Later, dutifully, he rose to be elected to Cook County Recorder of Deeds. He had many friends, I know, and I can see why. He was pleasant, present, and I will stipulate, he was the best dressed man I have ever met.
He also gave me the most candid and singularly pathetic answer I have ever heard in 36 years of sitting in on endorsement interviews for the Journal. He was running for re-election to Springfield and I started the interview with a typical softball question.
“What is the single most important thing you want to focus on if you are re-elected?” I asked. “Well, absolutely, we have got to address the many problems of public education in Illinois,” he said. “OK, and how would you do that?” I asked. “Well,” he replied, “I’m still waiting to hear from Mike Madigan on that.”
Did he say that out loud? He did.
Illinois is in a world of hurt — in considerable part it is because our political leaders are so woeful. We have a history of elected officials who are either corrupt or inept. There are exceptions. They are rare. We get what we deserve.
Again, that corner: Oak Park’s village board was expected Monday to send to the Plan Commission a request for a variance that would allow the sad-sack owners of the grand old Marshall Field’s building to fill the key corner of Lake and Harlem with a Bank of America branch.
God save us from a bank branch. Downtown Oak Park is on a roll with new development. There is a better use for this iconic corner. Don’t let the owners off the hook.
