THE TRIIBE: AN OPEN LETTER TO THE MOVEMENT ON THE NEED FOR UNITY

Published in The Triibe on March 11th, 2025 - By Frank Chapman - Photos by Ash Lane

From Chicago and Washington, D.C., 20 members of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (NAARPR) showed up to stand with Mayor Brandon Johnson in his appearance before the McCarthyite hearings on sanctuary cities held by the racist Republicans dominating the House of Representatives on March 5. They joined together with other movement leaders from the community and elected representatives.

We want to thank all of the people that went on this civil and human rights journey with us to Washington, D.C. We also want to thank our D.C. Alliance members and affiliate organizations. I’m not trying to be grandiose, but this was an historical moment. 

What could be more important than doing this at a time when we have the most openly rabid, racist, anti-people president in recent history? President Donald Trump wants to turn the clock back all the way to the days of slavery and take away every democratic gain that not only Black and brown people have made, but that the working people of this country have made in the last century. 

March 5 was indeed not just a proud moment, but an historically necessary moment for us to stand by the mayor of Chicago as he came under attack. We were there because Brandon Johnson is the mayor of a sanctuary city, and because he’s a progressive mayor trying to address the carnage of neoliberalism that has been going on in Chicago and this country for decades. 

Not everyone could go. It’s important for us to say we’re not criticizing those who weren’t there because there were a number of reasons some friends and allies couldn’t be there.

I don’t know why some of you decided not to be there. Some of you say you have differences with the mayor, though you don’t spell out those differences in terms of demands. 

I have lived through a number of reactionary mayors: the Daleys, Rahm Emanuel, and also Lori Lightfoot to the extent she continued to carry on their policies of being complicit with the powers that be in this city and their racist agenda with regard to Black and brown people. 

Now we have a mayor for the first time since Harold Washington who is definitely a break from that neoliberal tradition of the government playing the role of Robin Hood in reverse — taking from the poor and giving to the rich. 

Given this historical reality, we have to unite and fight back against our real enemies and not be shadow boxing with people who can’t even really spell out their differences with the mayor except in terms of their own personal economic or narrow politics. They’re not demanding systemic changes for the people; they’re demanding that the system serve them.

We had concrete political demands when it came to the Daleys, Emanuel, and Lightfoot. What concrete political demands are these people making who say they were once-upon-a-time supporters of Mayor Johnson? I don’t see any. 

All I see is people leaning back onto their personal political agenda and saying they’re not getting the attention they deserve. Or taking the wrong side on an issue like the immigrants, where the governor of Texas sent tens of thousands of immigrants here precisely for the purpose of undermining this mayor and calling attention away from his progressive agenda to focus on this crisis. 

We can’t play into that. We have to fight for unity. 

Right now the fight for unity means we unite and reunite this administration with the people’s movement for the democratic changes that we need in this city and in this country. 

We are not trying to set the stage for Paul Vallas or the return of Rahm Emanuel. 

In terms of carrying out this program of action, the first thing we need to do is stand up to Trump and his program of mass deportations. We must stand up to this first and foremost so we can stand up to the other attacks: on Medicare and Medicaid, on housing, on the LGBTQ+ community, on youth employment, on police crimes, on mass incarceration, and freedom for the wrongfully convicted. 

The social, political and economic crises driven by this administration is currently undermining all of our democratic gains, and threatens to bring in an era of racist and political repression that will put our lives and our democratic rights in jeopardy. Unity in the light of these challenges to our very existence must be primary.

We need unity but not based on minimum demands. We need unity based on maximum demands for justice, freedom, and equality. We need unity based on pushing our progressive agenda forward — not the politics of compromise or groveling to the powers that be — at a time when we have an avowed enemy of the people in the White House.