Cafe Society will be meeting at the Chicago Cultural Center on Wednesday, September 14

Salim Muwakkil, Senior Editor of In These Times and WVON radio host will be our guest speaker. 

From Black Chicago Divided by Salim Muwakkil

“For most of African-American history, class divisions (forged during centuries of slavery, when slaveowners were happy to divide the loyalties of their chattel) have bedeviled attempts to unify the black community around a common strategy. In black Chicago, these tensions have smoldered for many years, flaring occasionally. Out of sight of mainstream media, divergent class interests have largely prevented any unified political attempt to wrest power from the city’s entrenched ethnic fiefdoms. Though tensions exist in black neighborhoods across the city, the contrast between the poor West Side and the better-off South Side has become a crude geographical surrogate for black Chicago’s stark class divisions” 

Questions for Consideration 

In your opinion, how divided is Black Chicago? According to the Department of Labor, the Black unemployment rate has risen from 14.7 to 16.2 percent, What repercussions have we seen as a result of joblessness? How has a Black president in the White House affected the lives of Black people? What will it take to improve the lives of Black people? 

Want to find out more? 

• Obama and Black Americans: the Paradox of Hope
• Black America needs to set its own debt ceiling
• The disappearing black middle class
• Young people struggle with high unemployment