Opinion: Black neighborhoods are being bled dry. Black elected officials must act now.
CRAIN’S CHICAGO BUSINESS
BY RICHARD BOYKIN
DECEMBER 10, 2025
As Cook County families enter the holiday season, they are confronting a perfect storm of rising costs: inflation, tariffs, skyrocketing rents, swelling health-care premiums, and now, the worst blow of all: the most devastating property tax bills in recent memory, all due Dec. 15.
For thousands of households, especially Black families on the West and South sides, these bills aren’t a nuisance. They are a full blown household emergency on top of a set of economic circumstances that was virtually insurmountable to begin with.
At this point, it’s not hyperbole, but rather plain truth, to state the reality: The elected officials of Illinois, Cook County and Chicago — all of them Democrats and a great many of them African American — are running a regressive, racist property tax system.
And their neglect has allowed a perpetual, structural inequity to mushroom into an emergency that requires immediate action.
Leaders owe it to their constituents to be honest. Cook County’s property tax system is economically predatory, and morally indefensible. To say it disparately impacts communities of color in Chicago and Cook County is putting it too mildly. It is, quite simply, a racist system. And too many Black elected officials — leaders who should be the first to defend Black neighborhoods — are instead presiding over a system that is stripping generational wealth from Black homeowners.
Redlined then, squeezed Now
The communities hit hardest by this year’s tax bills — Garfield Park, Lawndale, and Englewood — are the same communities that banks redlined for decades. They were denied capital, denied stability, and denied generational wealth.
Now, after years of fighting to rebuild, these neighborhoods are being pushed to the brink of economic catastrophe again — not by Wall Street, but by their own government.
Anyone who follows the local news has witnessed the trade offs that grease the wheels of government in Chicagoland. Wealthy developers seek favors with the Aldermen or Board of Review Commissioners who can ensure they receive the zoning variance or property tax break they seek. In return, they retain the politically connected law firm- often headed by the very official whose influence the applicant needs- to obtain the tax reduction or variance the developer seeks.
It’s a system that rewards the wealthy and the connected- the people who know which buttons to push and levers to pull. Buttons and levers that are out of reach to the average west side or south side homeowner.
When a homeowner in Lawndale opens a property tax bill and sees a sudden increase of $2,000 or $3,000, that is not “the cost of government.” It is eviction pressure disguised as taxation. It is wealth extraction packaged as policy. It is reverse Robin Hood — taking from working Black families to subsidize the wealthy, the connected, and the politically protected.
A leadership failure — not a fiscal mystery
Black leaders hold extraordinary power in Illinois:
• Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle
• House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch
• Mayor Brandon Johnson
• Numerous Black legislators across the county and state
These are leaders who campaign on equity, justice and the moral urgency of protecting Black communities. Yet when faced with the most racially unjust tax system in the state, too many stand silent. Too many look away. Too many defend the status quo rather than confront it.
Silence is not neutrality. In this moment, silence is complicity.
'Legalized theft'
Let’s call this what it is.
Black families already pay more for car insurance, more for property insurance, more in interest rates and more in countless hidden costs baked into the American economy. Now they are being charged more — sometimes dramatically more — just to remain in their own homes.
That is not progressive policy.
That is not shared sacrifice.
That is not justice.
It is legalized theft.
I write this even as Mayor Brandon Johnson’s corporate head tax was defeated in committee by the City Council. Johnson has pleaded for this initiative on equity grounds. In the meantime however, the mayor has stood by silently as his counterparts in county and state government have exacerbated the wealth divide. Where is the mayor’s advocacy on this issue? And where are the African American leaders who represent these communities in the General Assembly and on the county board?
Christmas is just around the corner and our leaders must act now, with the utmost urgency.
The path forward
I recommend the following:
1. A Cook County property tax holiday
Allow homeowners to delay payment until March without penalty.
2. An emergency session of the Illinois Legislature
Gov. JB Pritzker, Welch, and Senate President Harmon must convene to fix a broken assessment and appeals system that punishes Black neighborhoods year after year, and this year threatens to push them over a cliff.
3. Federal legislation to reverse billionaire tax cuts
Working families in Garfield Park, Lawndale and Englewood should not be crushed while billionaires benefit from federal tax cuts they never needed.
A final word
If you opened your property tax bill and felt fear, anger, or disbelief — you are not imagining things. The system is stacked against you, and it has been for generations. But this time, the injustice is being carried out in broad daylight by public officials who should know better.
Black neighborhoods are being bled dry.
Black elected officials must act now.
And if they refuse, the people of these communities must begin organizing and making their voices heard between now and December 15th until our leaders get the message. It is time for all of us to stand up, be counted and do our part to prevent a looming economic catastrophe.
Richard Boykin of Bridge Builders Consulting & Legal Services is a former Cook County commissioner and a candidate for to represent the Illinois' 7th District in Congress.
Reprinted from the CRAIN'S CHICAGO