State Rep. Anne Stava-Murray, a Naperville resident, said Friday she stands by, and does not regret, a Facebook comment she made about Naperville having an ongoing history of white supremacist policies.
Stava-Murray’s social media comment was in response to a message posted on her U.S. Senate campaign page that said, “Naperville is the biggest bullies… horrible people! I worked there for 6 months before they ran me outta there… so you coming from there puts a bad taste in my mouth already… I’ll be listening and watching good luck!”
Stava-Murray agreed with the commenter.
“I know and I’m so sorry. I actually wanted to move to Oak Park but stayed to work on my community,” Stava-Murray wrote. “Our history of white supremacist policies is ongoing. I’m working to change them at a state level now and hope to at a federal level. Brick by brick.”
Stava-Murray, a Democrat who unseated Rep. David Olsen to represent 81st District in November, announced earlier this month she plans to run for the U.S. Senate seat held by Dick Durbin in 2020.
City officials reacted strongly to Stava-Murray’s claims about Naperville’s policies.
“I don’t think that the city can be fairly characterized in that way. In fact, it’s very much the opposite,” Naperville Mayor Steve Chirico said. “It’s a very loving city and a very welcoming city.”
Naperville City Councilman Kevin Coyne said the community celebrates diversity and welcomes people of all ethnicities.
“Rep. Stava-Murray’s comments were reckless and unfounded,” Coyne said. “She should apologize to her constituents in Naperville who she has embarrassed with these disparaging and patently false comments.”
Stava-Murray said Friday she is glad her comment, which was posted about two weeks ago, is getting attention.
“I think this is a very necessary conversation people need to be having in Naperville and the Chicago area because we are still so segregated,” she said. “There are many schools in Naperville that have almost no black students in them and many schools where there is not a single black teacher teaching.”
She also said Naperville makes no effort to educate residents on the city’s history as it relates race disparities and the city’s lack of a race-based bullying policy is “one of the areas where a lack of policy is a white supremacist policy.”
Her preference for Oak Park is based on the fact that “they actually have a history of actively working to desegregate their area,” she said.
“This reaction of caring more about appearance than reducing the negative impact on white active denial of white supremacy, that’s what made me want to move to Oak Park in the first place,” she said.
Chirico said that while he understands some opinions can be based on experiences, he doesn’t see how a blanket statement regarding white supremacy could be applied to Naperville.
“I certainly don’t think there’s any government policy that could even be interpreted that way,” Chirico said.
Twitter @erin_hegarty
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January 19, 2019 at 02:45PM
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