Jill Stein, the Green Party nominee for president of the United States, spoke to dozens of Green Party members and others in the patio area of Cilantro Cocina Mexicana in Homewood on Sunday, Aug. 18.
Stein’s name will not appear on the list of presidential candidates on the Illinois ballot for the Nov. 5 election, but supporters urged a write-in effort.
“Unfortunately, [Stein] didn’t make the [Illinois] ballot, but we’re encouraging everyone to write her in,” Flossmoor resident and Green Party member Valencia Dantzler said. “If we can get 10 million people across this country to vote for her, that means she would get 5% (of the national vote) and that gives (the Green Party) more ballot access.”
Dantzler, who is also known as Mother Diva in the house music scene, organized the event. Attendees traveled to Homewood from all around Illinois, including Carbondale, Champaign and Chicago.
“This is the South Suburbs which is uncharted waters here,“ Dantzler said, explaining why she organized the event. “People do all kinds of stuff in Chicago but Chicago is oversaturated. We have a huge population of voters out here.”
Stein told the crowd: “We’ve had enough of these two candidates that keep ramming themselves down our throats and are representing Wall Street, representing the war machine.
“Every other developed country is providing healthcare as a human right — but not in this country. In this country, if you’re in Congress, you have healthcare as a human right. Why not the rest of us?”
Stein charged that the privatization of schools and infrastructure has devastated the environment and created a society that’s not affordable for many Americans.
She called the Israel-Hamas war a genocide of the Palestinians, adding that as a Jew born a few years after the Holocaust, she was taught to oppose genocide.
Cook County Green Party Chairwoman Toneal M. Jackson spoke to the crowd about her campaign for a commissioner of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago. She said Black Americans don’t have to vote Democrat and can vote Green instead.
Throughout the evening, attendees ate and chatted with Stein about their concerns and enjoyed conversation with each other.
“One thing I’ve been wanting is to socialize with more Greens and people who may identify as leftist in a fun, cool way when we can just talk about our everyday lives,” said 27-year-old Champaign resident Chibuihe Asony who is a Green Party candidate for Congress in the 13th Congressional District.
Dantzler said one of the reasons she supports the Green Party is because they don’t accept money from large donors.
Green Party member Eyde Arndell agreed. She drove to the event from Carbondale. Arndell said progressive Democrats like U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) have to answer to Democratic Party leadership which she doesn’t support.
Stein supporters spoke proudly about how she, a 74-year-old woman, was arrested with college protesters while protesting the Israel-Hamas war at Washington University in St. Louis in April. Stein and several of her supporters said they’d be protesting at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.