In Chicago: Dyett Hunger Strike Day 14 – Supporting and Defending
By Michelle Gunderson.
A circle of ten people sit outside Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office demanding a meeting with the mayor. They have not taken solid food for 12 days. The Dyett hunger strikers ask that a decision be made regarding their proposal to keep the only open enrollment high school in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago.
The mayor does not come out.
An aide is sent instead.
As a supporter of the Dyett hunger strikers, as well as a supporter of the concept of public education driven by communities – not contract or charter schools – I sit behind the Dyett hunger strikers on the fifth floor of Chicago’s City Hall and wait.
We might as well be on the opposite site of a moat of a feudal castle. The barrier between Rahm Emanuel and the members of the Bronzeville community is that wide.
Yet, as we support the Dyett hunger strikers, many of us find ourselves defending their actions.
This past week Eric Zorn, a writer for The Chicago Tribune, claimed the hunger strikers were taking the public hostage with their actions that he called a planned suicide. Then Alderman Will Burns stated that he refused to be bullied by the strikers.
Let’s be clear, a hunger strike is a fast, a withholding of solid food. It is an action which is rooted in deep moral resolve.
As Jitu Brown, hunger striker and community organizer, said, “When you haven’t eaten for a while you gain great clarity.”
Playing by the Rules
By every measure, the coalition for Dyett School has followed all the rules. They engaged with the In Chicago: Dyett Hunger Strike Day 14 – Supporting and Defending - Living in Dialogue: