A07, Italian mayor says Yarbrough trying to take over the world [D88, D89, D209]

Proviso Insider is trying to portray Democratic Committeeman Karen Yarbrough's involvement in school district races (District 88, District 89 and District 209) in a negative light. Proviso Insider quotes one of the Italian mayors as accusing Yarbrough of trying to "take over the world".

First, claiming that fielding candidates for three school district races is an attempt to take over the world shows how parochial the speaker is. If three school districts is the entirety of your world you need to take a ride on the "L" and visit a couple museums, Mr. Mayor.

But the statement also conveys a sense of entitlement. A few Italian-American mayors and other politicians have been pulling the political strings for years. They have allowed a few Blacks and Latinos to hold office but the decisions about how the big money was spent have largely been left to the Italians.

And Black and Latino children have gotten poor quality educations in District 88 (Bellwood and Stone Park), District 89 (Maywood and Melrose Park) and District 209 (Proviso Township High Schools). A reasonable inference is that political bosses concerned about making themselves and their cronies rich have neglected the education of the students. It's not like Black and Latino students should be expected to amount to much anyways, right?

The mayors and other Italian politicians kept their power by being organized and exploiting interpersonal differences and feuds in the community.

And now the communities are getting organized. Mayors Ron Serpico, Frank Pasquale and Bennie Mazzulla are getting nervous. They want to divide the Black community as much as possible by exploiting whatever negative feelings there are about Yarbrough.

But the education reform movement isn't about Karen Yarbrough. It's a bunch of people that want to improve education and they've rallied around Yarbrough.

This happened largely because Chris Welch, the president of the District 209 school board, antagonized so many people and then challenged Yarbrough for state rep in 2006. Welch motivated many people to change the system because he's so arrogant, obnoxious and really pretty cruel, vindictive and sadistic in how he practices politics.

When Welch challenged Yarbrough the reformers networked through Yarbrough's campaign, but they aren't "her people". They are involved because they want to improve our communities and Yarbrough is savvy enough to work with these citizen activists.