Why Are Black People Defending Valerie Jarrett?

medium  |  Valerie Jarrett will never be stopped or profiled, she will never be seen as a Black woman and I’m sure she’s traded on that most of her life, if not all of it. However, her blending in and out of colorism when it suits her is not her real crime but the exploitation and robbing of poor Black people in Chicago is. It was insulting when Jarrett was chosen as the face of all things Black by Obama, between she and Al Sharpton, that should have signaled to all Black people his lack of seriousness in dealing with Black issues. So before you all start marching in support of Valerie Jarrett, you may want to at least ask the people of Chicago, since clearly doing any form of research about her corrupt history, evades you.

Grove Parc and several other prominent failures were developed and managed by Obama’s close friends and political supporters. Those people profited from the subsidies even as many of Obama’s constituents suffered. Tenants lost their homes; surrounding neighborhoods were blighted.

Some of the residents of Grove Parc say they are angry that Obama did not notice their plight. The development straddles the boundary of Obama’s state Senate district. Many of the tenants have been his constituents for more than a decade.
“No one should have to live like this, and no one did anything about it,” said Cynthia Ashley, who has lived at Grove Parc since 1994.

Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to Obama’s presidential campaign and a member of his finance committee. Jarrett is the chief executive of Habitat Co., which managed Grove Parc Plaza from 2001 until this winter and co-managed an even larger subsidized complex in Chicago that was seized by the federal government in 2006, after city inspectors found widespread problems.

Jarrett’s involvement in Chicago real estate development between 1992 and 2009 was marred with controversy, much of which centered on Habitat’s role as the sole developer for “family public housing,” a status granted under a district court ruling in 1987.

Under Jarrett’s leadership, Habitat oversaw the development of a number of public housing projects, one of which, in the Cabrini Green neighborhood, was dubbed a “national symbol of urban despair.” Others became so run-down the city had to ask the federal government to intervene.

A 2003 Harvard Law Review article cited the decline of the Cabrini Green development as an embodiment of the negative consequence associated with the “privatization of public housing.”

Valerie Jarrett and her construction company have overseen the complete decimation and gentrification all over Chicago (many labeling her Slum Queen), no Black person should be shedding a tear for her. As for Roseanne Barr, ABC and everyone else knew who she was before they chose to reboot her show. One of the issues ABC was having, is that a show that caters to poor Whites and the alt-right, had somehow surpassed all of the ratings of shows like those of Shonda Rhimes and others they were lauding to be the face of liberal television viewership. The other issue is that, the Obama’s were not going to allow their friend Jarrett to be insulted, no different than when Obama, broke his neck to defend Henry Louis Gates, his old elitist Harvard professor and friend. Black people were quick to praise and laud Channing Dungey, the Black woman and CEO of ABC’s parent company, Disney. However, Channing was the same woman who refused to air a show on Blackish that protested police violence/murders and discussed why Colin Kaepernick kneeled. However, we should already know by Obama’s fecklessness and inaction in going against the police that Neolibs have no desire of ever changing a system that works so well for them…until of course, someone like Roseanne reminds them that they’re still seen as a n*gga, or in this case an ape, or like Henry Louis Gates was profiled at his own home.