The Race For the Rings
In Two Cities- Similarity, Duality
2009-09-29
By Eric Easter

UPDATE: Since the writing of this essay, Chicago lost the bid for the Olympics. But as the article suggests, in some ways it still won.

On Friday, the International Olympic Committee…By all accounts, Rio de Janiero and Chicago top the list. That either of them are under consideration marks a fairly amazing victory in itself. It will be a tough decision for the judges, though not because the cities are so different, instead because in many ways the cities are so much alike.

Most of the world does not know the Chicago and Rio that each city’s bid teams are selling. The story of the cultural richness and expansive beauty of Rio has been overtaken by tales of gang shootings, kidnappings and sexual tourism. Likewise, movies and folklore have pictured a Chicago defined by mobsters, corruption, toughness and cold.

But while everyone was sleeping, Chicago has quietly become, many believe, America’s finest major city. The beaches of Los Angeles and the architecture of New York and Paris within steps from one another

And while we were focused on Beijing, Brazil has become the China of the Western Hemisphere. Ethanol, raw materials and workforce have made it the next great economic force. If you’ve been teaching your child Spanish, it’s the wrong language. But don’t worry, it’s an easy transition from that to Portugese.

Both cities have cultural and musical traditions that have had an outsized and lasting global impact. The people whose blues created the Chicago blues have the same blues as the people whose blues created the samba. If Chicago’s beaches were more languid and the hawk whipped around Rio’s hills the way they whip around Wabash Avenue, maybe the music would have traded places. If you set Black Orpheus in the Robert Taylor Homes, there wouldn’t be much difference.

But the world can be forgiven its ignorance.  Because the truth is, a lot of people in Chicago and Rio don’t know the cities that are being sold to the IOC either. Fully appreciating the sublime glory of either place takes a certain peace of mind that the chronically poor in those cities don’t have.

In Brazil, the favelas perched high above the city look longingly into a lower world of wealth and luxury. A few years ago, so did Chicago’s own favela, Cabrini Green, which towered over the Gold Coast. Chicago, for its part has done a better job of wiping away its favelas. Cabrini has been replaced with condos and an urban garden. As I write, a bulldozer is knocking down the Harold Ickes Homes, the last bastion of an architecturally enforced underclass. 

Rio’s bid has been enhanced by the passionate story Brazilian President Luiz Inacio da Silva has spun of hope overcoming rampant tragic violence, and the power of an economically poor but spiritually rich people gathering in buses and trucks to be inspired by a global event happening in their backyard.  Of course, Barack Obama could tell that same story about Chicago - especially the violent part. If no one had told you that the videotape of the brutal, senseless death of 16-year old Derrion Albert this week was in Chicago, you could have easily mistaken it for a scene from Rio-based gang movie, City of God. Or Johannesburg. Or Rwanda. Or Gaza.

In both cases the tale of the transformative power of athletics would be slightly delusional. Hosting the Olympics won’t rid either city of the despair and tragedy that is deeply entrenched in their cores due to decades upon decades of neglect. They bring hope but not a cure.

But Chicago has Oprah Winfrey, President Barack Obama and The First Lady, the three most popular Black people in the world (in that order) as cheerleaders and as representatives of the classic American story of people who built something from nothing.

Ironically their achievement says as much about the future of Rio as it does about the present of Chicago. In Brazil, 40 million Afro-Brazilians are just now harnessing the political and economic power of unity and identity. The potential that has yet to be unleashed is awesome to imagine, the same as what you can dream when you drive around the South Side.

And that’s the triumph of Chicago and Rio as real possibilities to host the games. They are tough, gritty, rough and tumble cities that have come this far as a result of passion, spirit, hard work and sheer audacity.

I don’t envy the people who have to decide between one or the other city. You’d think in this shrunken world of 24-hour television and the internet, the Olympic could happen in both places simultaneously.

Chicario.

Ricago.

In a couple of days we will know the answer. Whatever the final outcome, if the world gets to know the real stories of Chicago and Rio – in all their multidimensional glory - they both win.

Eric Easter is the VP of Digital and Entertainment for Johnson Publishing – and is rooting for Chicago but won’t be mad at all if Rio gets it.