Mayor of Chicago draws a line in the sand for TOM

 

Aug 31, 2025 (223/1461)

In case there was any question about the intent of TOMs assault on POC and diversity in the workforce, and dare I say the country, here is discrimination and bigotry by the numbers. “When President Trump started dismantling federal agencies and dismissing rank-and-file civil servants, Peggy Carr, the chief statistician at the Education Department, immediately started to make a calculation.

She was the first Black person and the first woman to hold the prestigious post of commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics. As a political appointee, she knew there was a risk of becoming a target.

But her 35-year career at the department spanned a half dozen administrations, including Mr. Trump’s first term, and she had earned the respect of officials from both parties. Surely, she thought, the office tasked with tracking the achievement of the nation’s students could not fall under the president’s definition of “divisive and harmful” or “woke.”

But for the first time in her career, Dr. Carr’s data points didn’t add up.

On a February afternoon, a security guard showed up to her office just as she was preparing to hold a staff meeting. Fifteen minutes later, the staff watched in tears and disbelief as she was escorted out of the building. While tens of thousands of employees have lost their jobs in Mr. Trump’s slash-and-burn approach to shrinking the federal work force, experts say the cuts disproportionately affect Black employees — and Black women in particular. Black women make up 12 percent of the federal work force, nearly double their share of the labor force overall. The most recent labor statistics show that nationwide, Black women lost 319,000 jobs in the public and private sectors between February and July of this year, the only major female demographic to experience significant job losses during this five-month period, according to an analysis by Katica Roy, a gender economist.

Experts attribute those job losses, in large part, to Mr. Trump’s cuts to federal agencies where Black women are highly concentrated. White men saw the largest increase among groups, 365,000, over the same time period.”

Take note, people. If we don’t make noise, who will stand up for us when he’s already come for everyone else and then turns on us? Because it will happen. Unless you identify as a MAGA-raving, TOM-worshipping, morally-devoid robot, you too will be on some chopping block. My fear is that block may morph from being metaphorical to 3-D.

One man – a Black man – is giving me hope. Let’s cross fingers others will follow (otherwise, we will have to be lifting middle fingers to TOM). “The mayor of Chicago has signed an order detailing how the city will resist a potential immigration crackdown threatened by the Trump administration.

"We do not need nor want an unconstitutional and illegal military occupation of our city," said Mayor Brandon Johnson, a Democrat. The order directs city agencies on how to respond to possible immigration enforcement actions. It demands that Trump and federal agents "stand down from any attempts to deploy the US Armed Forces" in the city.

The order also restates a number of existing city policies, including requirements that law enforcement officers wear body cameras and identifying information, and a ban on wearing masks.” Stay tuned because the showdown is coming. Who will blink? My greatest fear is that there will be blood shed in Chicago over this. And that even that will not end the reign of terror and lies by TOM & Co.