(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) Bombastic Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson was back at his race-baiting during a recent speech in support over his One Fair Wage policy.
Johnson was roundly mocked after the viral clip showed him claiming that the food-service industry was a product of systemic racism and pushing for a form of “reparations” by raising the minimum wage for restaurant employees.
Ronald McDonald in 1858 (colorized) https://t.co/ALOSbGWx6r pic.twitter.com/RPzpKxGzIV
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“The restaurant industry has its ties to slavery,” Johnson said.
“So, when we think about the history of this country, and we think about the need to repair the damage that has been done over the last several hundred years, we have to be honest about that,” he added. “And so, in this city, we need reparations.”
The speech followed Johnson’s call last month for a Reparations Study as part of his “Repair Chicago” initiative. The vaguely outlined plan sought to gather “personal testimonials and resident feedback” about discrimination via a communitywide survey.
It also planned a series of bus tours, community town halls and public hearings to further encourage participation from minority residents.
“We cannot talk about reparations without centering the lived experiences of Black Chicagoans,” Chicago’s chief equity officer, Carla Kupe, said in a press release.
“This series is an opportunity to listen deeply, learn collectively, and ensure that community voice is not symbolic, but foundational to the policies and recommendations the task force bring forward through the study,” she added.
It remained unclear, however, what any of that had to do with restaurants.
Both the minimum-wage hike and the reparations task force seem to be modeled on prior failed experiments in California.
The Golden State’s decision to impose a $20 minimum wage for certain food-service jobs resulted in an array of unintended consequences, including price hikes for customers, workforce cuts (with some restaurants opting instead for automation) and a shortage of workers in other service-industry fields where the wages were not in effect, such as school cafeterias.
One beneficiary of the policy, however, was Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom, who reportedly received a $160,000 donation in return for exempting Panera Bread from the new law.
Newsom’s plans to study reparations for black residents were equally disastrous.
A statewide task force in 2024 spent millions of tax dollars coming up with a 500-page report that called for California to pay $800 billion in reparations, essentially bankrupting the state for its virtue-signaling cause.
Newsom appeared to scoff at the price tag, even after having touted the initiative earlier.
The pandering, however, may have backfired on Democrats after black activists signaled their intention to punish leftist lawmakers for the inaction.
In February, pro-liberty watchdog the Pacific Legal Foundation filed a lawsuit against the city of San Francisco over a similar plan to pay off minorities at the municipal level.
Ben Sellers is a freelance writer and former editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/realbensellers.
