A Complex Look at a Complex City: CNN’s Chicagoland

By: Jeremy J. Ly, @JeremyJly

"Principal down, I broke my damn shoe,” Principal Liz Dozier of Chicago’s Fenger High School said as she attempted to clear students from the streets around her school during dismissal in one of the first scenes in CNN’s new eight part series Chicagoland which premiered on Thursday.  

I was invited to an advanced screening of executive Producer Robert Redford’s new series on Chicago earlier this week. I thought it was so well done I brought some of my Chicago friends– a Chicago teacher and cop– together for a little viewing party on Thursday. A perfect mini focus group for an episode that focuses on Chicago Public Schools’ contentious school closing plan, and the city’s top cop Garry McCarthy battling street violence.

My teacher friend said the show was “intense.”

Before watching the show my cop friend was skeptical, thinking the show would be “too Hollywood.” After watching, he thought the first episode accurately depicts Chicago, the good and bad.

As a former fourth grade teacher on Chicago’s Southwest side and in my current role working with CPS high school seniors, the education storyline in Chicagoland was most compelling.

It was tough seeing children as young as early elementary cry about the fear of walking to school, but I am glad CNN captured the raw emotion of students to a national audience. Typically the news just reports this murder or that murder – to see young school children voice their fear about going to school is powerful.

Chicago is a political town and no documentary about Chicago would be complete without featuring its mayor. Mayor Rahm Emanuel is a central figure in Chicagoland.

Mayor Emanuel can be polarizing, but he doesn’t see it that way. In a recent interview with the Chicago Sun-Times new Politics Early and Often section, Emanuel talked about his vision of leadership.

“People are tired of the blow-dried hair, which I don’t have much of lately, politicians who just say sweet words. We have challenges. We’re gonna confront `em...I don’t want to be phony. I don’t want to do what other people do. And if people don’t want the truth or …don’t even like my version of it, [they can support someone else.] … I don’t want to be a mayor [who] inherited major challenges and warmed the seat,” Emanuel said.

My cop friend said, “Like him or don’t like him, [Chicagoland] depicts Mayor Rahm Emanuel as a man who is clearly in charge of the city.” 

Chicago is the economic engine of our area. All of us in the region have a vested interest to see Chicago thrive and continue to make strides in education, reduce street violence and develop good paying jobs. Every time a student drops out and gets sucked into street violence, it is not just that neighborhood’s problem, it is a state and national problem.

My DVR is set to record CNN Chicagoland every Thursday night.

Did you watch Chicagoland? Share your thoughts below: