For a second consecutive election, Forest Park Commissioner Rory Hoskins has been the victim of anonymous eleventh-hour racist flyers. It happened a year ago as Hoskins ran successfully for reelection to the village council. And it happened last weekend with a vile smear on Hoskins which was distributed across the 7th district where he is locked in a tough, sometimes dirty, battle with Emanuel Chris Welch.
This time around, Hoskins is pictured as a felon with a list of inflammatory accusations under the graphic. It is more than disturbing that such tactics infect our local politics. Our hope is that as happened last time, voters will see past this hate speech and vote for the best qualified candidate. Unfortunately this time Hoskins is competing in a large district where many voters have not had the chance to meet him and to see his work. His campaign manager rightly concludes that the racially coded message is intended to “dissuade white voters in River Forest, LaGrange Park and Westchester” from considering Hoskins. That would be a mistake. Rory Hoskins is the strongest candidate in the field. Decent, hard-working, smart. All concepts antithetical to the scum who might have authored this flyer.
