Downtown Moms Rip Daley a New One

Mark Konkol at the Sun-Times offers what is probably the best "woman-on-the-street" interviews regarding the Children's Museum move. I think it probably illustrates just how bad of a misstep the Mayor and the Children's Museum have made.

Moms vs. mayor

A bunch of mommies from the New East Side want Mayor Daley to walk his "large tuchus" over to their neighborhood and call them racists to their face

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"I'm really pissed off and I'm kind of heartbroken the mayor would say something like that about us," says Susana Cuadros, a New East Side mommy.

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"Who is he to say we're racist. He grew up in Bridgeport. Please. Give me a friggin' break," say Ariel Elliott, a black mother of three girls. "He owes the neighborhood an apology, or better yet, me personally."

Elliott, a former Chicago public school teacher, says she moved to the New East Side from the South Loop so her girls could grow up in a more accepting environment.

"We lived down the street from the mayor. We walked past his little sleeping cop parked outside his window, and we moved because it was so uncomfortable," she says. "My kids will tell you: The white kids played with the white kids, and the black kids played with the black kids over there. That's why we moved here."

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It's where Katsue Katattira comes to socialize, find out the scoop on the best schools and park programs. It's not all white. She's Japanese and loves the neighborhood's diversity.

"You see so much a mix down here, and he call us racist. The mayor not study much. Do we look racist?" Katattira says, while heading to the park with her rainbow coalition of pals.

Alderman Reilly has been quick to point out the New East Side's racial diversity, and Konkol adds this important point:

The 60601 ZIP code, which includes the New East Side, is 65 percent white, 14 percent Asian, 11 percent black and 8 percent Hispanic. It's the second-richest postal district with more than 200 residents in the city, according to Claritas, Inc., a demographic research firm. (The richest is 60606, in the Loop.) Claritas defines the 60601 "lifestyle" as a healthy mix of working class bohemians, young over-achievers and wealthy empty-nesters. You can buy a condo in the sky for more than a million bucks, or rent a modest place for about $1,000 a month. (Emphasis added)

So, Mayor Pritzker, you just called downtown residents - the richest, best-educated but also one of the most racially diverse neighborhoods in the city - a bunch of racists. I don't even know how to quantify that political and public relations blunder. But one things for certain, you probably shouldn't be counting on these downtown moms to visit the Children's Museum for the next decade or so. Of course, by then their kids will be old enough to vote. Oops.