Englewood S Message To Mayor Wreck It Rahm

• David Stieber
• Team Englewood’s poets (from left to right): David Holmes, Alicia Hincon, Dallas Battle, and Kenyatta Tolbert

I’m always ripping Mayor Emanuel about this, that, and the other thing, so today I thought I’d show him some love—like I were an alderman or a member of his board of education.

You know, this might be a theme the mayor champions when he promotes the local arts scene at next year’s South by Southwest conference in Austin—as he did at this week’s event.

I bet you the folks at SXSW would have gone bananas over Mayor Rahmye.

“Hammer in one hand, paintbrush in the otherRahm Emanuel is single-handedly destroying our cityMr. Wreck-It Rahm.”

Good for Urban Prep. But it sort of irritates the Team Englewood kids. Not that that they’ve got anything against their Urban Prep counterparts. It’s more like—what are we, chopped liver?

The poem summarizes Mayor Emanuel’s first two years in office. It alludes to shutting down mental health clinics in poor black neighborhoods, diverting money from schools to fund the South Loop B-ball arena/hotel, the Englewood rail yard expansion and, of course, school closings.