During a recent interview with Northwestern University Professor Mary Pattillo, she began to recite a quote by W.E.B. Du Bois:
Just as soon as white people get a group of Black folks segregated, they use it as a point of attack and discrimination. Our counter attack should be therefore against this discrimination, but never in the world should our fight be against association with ourselves, because by that very token we give up the whole argument that we are worth associating with.
How often have we heard that Chicago is the most segregated city in the country? As if that’s a bad thing. Racial segregation isn’t responsible for what’s wrong with the Black community. It’s economic segregation. It’s the public policies that forsake Black communities. It’s political leaders that gut neighborhood schools in Black communities. It’s benign neglect by both the public and private sector that allows food deserts to multiply. It’s silent neighbors who allow vacant lots to remain empty for decades instead of sites offering affordable housing. In my lifetime, three of the most basic community needs–education, food and housing–have become elusive.
“Segregation is not bad because it means Black people live with each other. There’s nothing wrong with Black people living with each other. There’s nothing wrong with us associating with ourselves…and there are many good things that come of it,” explains Pattillo. “For example, that’s what sustains Black political power, because politics is a geographic game and without these concentrations of Black residents, we don’t have that kind of Black political power.”
Pattillo says what we need to fight against is how when Black people live together it allows banks to target us with subprime mortgages and other types of discrimination.
A South Side resident herself, Pattillo asks, “Why do Black people need to live with white people in order to have good grocery stores, to have a bank or to have good schools?”
These are the questions all Chicagoans should be asking themselves. With the election of a progressive mayor in more than three decades, voters have taken the first step toward a more equitable Chicago, but faith without works is dead.
Pattillo will be the guest speaker at the upcoming Ida B. Wells Legacy Committee event, Thursday, August 24, 2023, at Truth Italian Restaurant, 56 East Pershing Road, Chicago, Ill, 6:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. Tickets for Legacy & Libations are $75 and $50 for young professionals under 30.
For more information about the Legacy & Libations summer mixer, go to www.idaslegacy.com or call 312-948-9951.