Iron Sharpens Iron: Brandon vs Vallas

This was originally published as a Twitter thread on 03/03/23.

I was born and raised in Chicago. I was in 5th grade in 1995, when Vallas became CEO of our public schools. I knew two names in Chicago politics: Daley and Vallas. I remember my teachers talking about how he was going to destroy our schools.

That stuck with me. To have been a child when he spearheaded the attacks on our education and on the CTU is awful. But now, to approach my 40s with the threat that this same monster might be my mayor is unbearable. For me, this is very much personal.

What gives me hope is the historic irony that he should run for mayor at precisely the moment when the CTU is most prepared to fight him.

Iron sharpens iron, and it was people like Vallas that destroyed our education and union power so much that CTU had to choose between submission or resistance. CTU chose resistance.

CTU members identified the web of racial, economic, and governmental conditions that needed to be undone to build a public school system that could end education apartheid and provide equitable and excellent education for all, while also taking on Chicago’s larger apartheid.

This pushed CTU to struggle while also figuring out solutions to various practical and political problems, leading to the formation of United Working Families, with an eye to vying for political power in a system where that power was always used against them.

And it’s all culminating in this election. Brandon Johnson, trained in CPS and by CTU, a constant and active presence in UWF and our political ecosystem, is the culmination of decades of resistance and figuring out how to build a #ChicagoForTheMany.

Vallas picked a fight with Chicago in 1995. CTU answered. Chicago’s left has been anchored by CTU since then. Just as capitalists create their gravediggers, Vallas forced CTU into the political heavyweight it’s become. Chicago’s political ecosystem is going to bury him.