Rahm Emanuel will be attending a New Trier High School fundraiser to honor the school’s distinguished alumni. Because New Trier needs money, and its students need to be assured they can be anything they want in life.
For example, they can be elected mayor of Chicago, even if they are running against three candidates who attended high school in the city. During the election, Emanuel took some flak for his suburban background, but he overcame it.
Miguel del Valle used Emanuel’s New Trier education to question his toughness.
“What, he’s tough because he swears?” del Valle mocked. “I don’t swear to people, so I’m not tough? I’m from Humboldt Park. He’s from where—Wilmette, Winnetka? I went to Tuley High, he went to what—New Trier? And Rahm’s tougher than me?”
Gery Chico also tried to use New Trier against Emanuel, suggesting he couldn’t relate to ordinary Chicagoans.
“He went to the wealthiest high school in the state of Illinois,” Chico said. “I do not see how you can relate to the people of the city of Chicago when you have not walked these streets and lived here. If you come from Wilmette, Winnetka, Lake Forest, that’s what you think like. I didn’t go to some elite high school. I went to Kelly high school.”
But Emanuel overcame, just like fellow New Trier graduates Mark Kirk, Donald Rumsfeld, Charlton Heston, Rock Hudson, Ann-Margret (another of this year’s honorees), Rainn Wilson, Liz Phair, Scott Turow, Charlie Trotter and Charles Percy. (New Trier is the only high school I know of with a separate Wikipedia page for distinguished alumni.)
Tickets to the event are $125, according to this Tribune article, which is worth clicking over to for the photo of Rahm looking like Bruno from Fame.
So far, the New Trier Educational Foundation has raised $330,000 for the school. I hate to spoil his special evening, but isn’t improving Chicago schools supposed to be Emanuel’s mission as mayor. Maybe he can get his old classmates to attend a fundraiser for Fenger High School.
