How Phil Ponce’s questioning of Chuy Garcia reveals Latino elitism

*There’s been a loud backlash concerning the recent Chicago Mayoral debate. Candidates Chuy Garcia and Rahm Emanuel squared off in a televised debate, but the attention hasn’t been on the candidates. The debate moderator, TV journalist Phil Ponce, has come under fire for asking Garcia about his son’s gang involvement, while not questioning Emanuel at all about his children. It’s a big deal, Chicagoans, especially Latino Chicagoans, have criticized Ponce for his handling of the debate. There are several levels of nuance in this story. Ray Salazar tells us about one of those levels – elitism, and how it played into the debate and Ponce’s questioning. VL

By Ray Salazar, The White Rhino

My father has a joke: A bunch of Mexican lobsters are sitting in pot of boiling water.  One tries to get out.  The other lobsters grab him with their claws and pull him down.

I’m not saying Phil Ponce intentionally undermined Chuy Garcia’s mayoral candidacy when he pushed his questioning about the candidate’s son: “With respect, a lot of voters might wonder, Commissioner, … If you can’t keep your own son out of a gang, how can you steer the city away from gangs and violence?”  He asked again, “Is your son still in a gang?”

I’m not saying Phil Ponce conspired, as many people are saying, to make Rahm Emanuel look good in the debate.

The problem with Ponce’s question is that he focused on Garcia as father—not as mayoral candidate.  If this line of questioning were going to be balanced, he should have asked the mayor about his relationship with this son.  After all, didn’t Emanuel say that his son is going of to college soon if he doesn’t kill him first?  And how can Emanuel protect the city’s youth from harm if he couldn’t protect his own son from a robbery a few blocks from his home?

But, honestly, neither candidate should have been questioned about his son.

These men—Emanuel and Garcia–as individuals chose to lead a public life.  Their sons did not.

Anyone who’s had teenagers or worked with young people knows that, sometimes, sadly, no matter what the caring adults in that young person’s life do, young people will make bad decisions.

I despise gang members—abhor them.

But I realize now that what is bothering me about the exchange between Ponce and Garcia is what it reveals about Latino elitism.

Growing up around 26^th Street in the 80s, I remember how the better off families looked down on those who struggled financially or socially.  What I remember most about my parochial grammar school education is the elitism I saw (on picture day when we didn’t wear a uniform) and I heard (the put downs by the rich ladies on the church’s front steps when my mom, a lunch lady, took home a few left-over lunches for our dinner).

Click HERE to read the full story.

This article was originally published in The White Rhino.

Since 1995, Ray has been an English teacher in the Chicago Public Schools. In 2003, Ray earned an M.A. in Writing, with distinction, from DePaul University. In 2009, he received National Board Certification. His writing aired on National Public Radio and Chicago Public Radio many times and have been published in the Chicago Tribune and CNN. For thirty years, Ray lived in Chicago’s 26th Street neighborhood. Today, he lives a little more south and a little more west in the city with his wife, son, and daughter.