Benny’s Bias

This week I took a trip inside my brain—here’s how it went down…

Every few months or so, Charles Henderson, peace activist extraordinaire, comes on my podcast to talk about the issues of the day–with me asking the questions.

Then, as we’re wrapping up, Charles turns the tables and asks me a question.

And so it was that after Tuesday’s show, he asked…

Are you so tough on Mayor Rahm cause you come from the same community?

At first I wasn’t sure what community he was talking about, as Mayor Rahm and I share several.

Was it the north side one (both live there) or the generational one (both Boomers) or the religious one (both Jewish).

So I responded to his question with a question, and he said it was the Jewish community.

Okay, now that we got that figured out, my first thought was to be just a tiny bit offended.  Like my attitude about Mayor Rahm was based on some personal bias—as opposed to the multitude of wretched things he’d done, like…

Closing 50 schools and shuttering mental health clinics and doling out millions, intended for the poor, to the rich and so on.

There they are…

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized—Benny, my boy, Charles has a point. Time to dig deep into the inner regions of your psyche, to explore the hidden motivations that help shape your world view. Like you were the great Freud, examining yourself.

And when I took that deep dive of self exploration, I realized that, yes, I may indeed have a slight bias against Mayor Rahm resulting from our shared religious heritage because…

As a Jewish man, whose people have been persecuted for centuries, he should know better than to turn government against Chicago’s poorest most vulnerable residents.

Still taking that deep dive into my psyche, I realized I also have a generational bias against him. Like his mentor, Bill Clinton, he’s one of those Boomers who waged a righteous fight for truth and justice when they were young. Only to move right once in power, thus betraying the values that motivated them from the start.

As I riffed on these thoughts, Charles suggested I run his theory by Monroe Anderson, the Chicago journalistic legend. To see what someone who’s known me forever has to say about it.

So, I called Monroe and he said…

As awesome as Charles may be, he’s barking up the wrong tree about you. That is–he made a miscalculation about your subterranean biases and motivations, having tuned in to your work relatively late in your career–after Mayor Daley had handed over the city to Mayor Rahm.

That, in fact, you were harder on Daley than you were Rahm. And that you were hard on Rahm cause he had sold out to Daley. And so if you have a bias it’s against all things Daley–everything else goes from there.

To which I said—but the schools, Monroe, what about those 50 schools he closed?

To which he replied…

Despite what Dr. Freud said, a cigar is never just a cigar.

A wise man, that Monroe Anderson.