Mayoral allies in hot water over social media posts

Two members of Mayor Brandon Johnson’s political inner circle are under fire for making inflammatory and "hateful comments" on social media.

Ald. Ray Lopez (15th) is demanding that Johnson fire Communications Director Ronnie Reese for a 2010 tweet that said, “I brake for gay pride, reluctantly.” The 14-year-old tweet was deleted Wednesday.

Reese, who lived nearly a decade in Uptown, said he was referring only to the traffic caused by the annual Pride parade that “came through my community.” He affectionately called it “one of the greatest parades in the city, if not the world.”

Meanwhile, Ald. Debra Silverstein (50th), the City Council’s only Jewish member, is demanding that Ald. Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez (33rd) apologize and be removed as chair of the City Council Committee on Health and Human Relations for a more recent Facebook post accompanied by a picture of herself and her son that said, “Looking for an anti-Zionist pediatrician for this baby. Give me your recs.”

“Bigots frequently use 'Zionist' as an antisemitic dog whistle for Jewish. So, in effect, Alderwoman Rodriguez-Sanchez is saying she doesn’t want a Jewish doctor. That is antisemitic, hateful and completely unacceptable behavior,” Silverstein was quoted as saying in a statement distributed by her office.

Though the Facebook post is private, Silverstein said many people have sent it to her and provided the Sun-Times with a copy.

In her statement and a follow-up interview, Silverstein noted the post marked a “severe escalation” of a “pattern of hateful behavior” by Rodriguez-Sanchez that simply “cannot be ignored.”

“This happens over and over again, and for her to sit there and chair that committee is just preposterous,” Silverstein told the Sun-Times.

Rodriguez-Sanchez, who also chairs the Council’s Latino Caucus, could not be reached for comment. The mayor’s office had no immediate comment.

Silverstein branded her colleague’s post “disgusting” and “part of a pattern,” for Rodriguez-Sanchez, who has also tweeted, “From the River to the sea. Palestine will be free.” To Jewish people, Silverstein said, that phrase “means the destruction of Israel."

Johnson might choose to ignore the controversy and hope it blows over, like so many other flare-ups on social media. But Silverstein said the mayor can’t afford to stick with Rodriguez-Sanchez as a member of his Council leadership team — not after alienating Jewish leaders by casting the tie-breaking vote on a resolution calling for a cease-fire in the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

Many Jewish leaders viewed the wording of that resolution as one-sided. Speaking in favor of the resolution at the time, Rodriguez-Sanchez had said it was important for elected officials to join others in demanding a cease-fire and to "be on the right side of history.” And Jewish Voice for Peace put out a statement celebrating the resolution's passage, stating, in part: "In the wake of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we affirm that never again means never again for anyone."

Some Jewish elected officials and civic leaders — including the Anti-Defamation League Midwest, State Sen. Sara Feigenholtz, State Rep. Bob Morgan and Silverstein — later declined the mayor’s invitation to a meeting to ease the tension, though representatives of other Jewish groups did attend.

"I’ve been speaking to communities throughout the city and everyone is extremely upset with him right now,” Silverstein said, citing, as another factor, his support for a pro-Palestinian walkout by Chicago Public Schools students.

“He has a lot of fences to mend with the Jewish community. He can start by doing something about Rossana. Enough is enough. … Letting her sit there is not gonna make any amends with the Jewish community. It’s just going to widen the divide.”

Tweet wasn’t homophobic, aide says

Reese emphatically denied his 2010 tweet was homophobic.

“That’s something that was written in jest. ... It was simply my reaction to parade traffic, which is something that we all experience,” Reese said.

“As a resident, it was chaotic for me. It doesn’t mean I have any malicious feelings toward the LGBTQ community whatsoever. The bigger question is the operatives who are digging into my old tweets and pulling up things from 14 years ago.”

Reese said he’s been on floats in the Pride Parade and served as a disc jockey for Pride events. He has an “extensive history of work with the LGBTQ community and the progressive space,” while working for the Chicago Teachers Union, where Johnson served as a paid organizer before becoming mayor.

Why, then, did he delete the 2010 tweet?

“Twitter is a very toxic and a very negative space. If you get caught up in the echo chamber, it can become a complete distraction to things that you really need to work on,” Reese said.

“I did not want that to become a distraction for me or the administration for things that I have to do both personally and professionally.”

Lopez didn’t buy Reese’s explanation.

“What I didn’t hear is, 'I’m sorry. I was wrong for tweeting that.' Writing it off as a bad joke? How many bad jokes have been made that are racist in tone? … I don’t find it very funny, particularly for someone in a communications role,” Lopez said.

In his letter to the mayor demanding the “immediate termination” of Reese, Lopez called the tweet “outrageous,” “violently homophobic” and “inconsistent” with the city’s values.