I thought I’d seen some semblance of everything this existence has to offer – good and bad. But watching Elgin poet laureate Gareth Mann single-handedly destroy what promised to be a superb Memorial Day ceremony was so far beyond the pale that I’m not sure where to begin.
So, let’s start with a couple of caveats.
The first is, not only did I work with the mentally ill for five years, but I’ve been a huge advocate for them since the day I sat down at the keyboard.
The second is, when Ms. Mann got up to speak at the event, she prefaced her “poem” by citing her mental health issues, claiming if her poem was “interesting,” it wasn’t her fault. That clearly belies a consciousness of knowing exactly where she was, who the audience was, and what she was about to do.
Put more simply, if you attempt to use your potential mental state as an excuse before you even start talking, it isn’t an excuse.
Lastly, though she certainly bears a great deal of responsibility for this Memorial Day debacle, my overriding issue is with the Elgin Cultural Arts Commission (ECAC) who put her in a position to embarrass the City of Elgin in this deplorable a manner.
Mann’s “poem” opened with “the unnecessary murder of DeCynthia,” at which point everyone in attendance, even councilman John Steffen, knew exactly what they were in for. At least in this regard, Mann did not disappoint.
From there, she went on to a lengthy discourse on slavery, including how this country was built on the backs of slaves, which is a patently false proposition. The North abolished the practice in 1804 greatly as a result of slavery impeding a rapidly expanding industrialization. The average Southerner couldn’t afford slaves, either. But even if Mann was dead on, what on God’s green earth did that have to do with Memorial Day?
Then it took another bizarre turn when she noted slaves were “victims of rape and consensual love,” turning the conversation towards Thomas Jefferson. But the worst part was when Mann resorted to racist tropes like “nappy headed,” how “many white women considered black men pretty strong and beautiful,” and that Barack Obama’s father was “jet black.”
Had any white male dared utter those words the Elgin progressive community’s heads would’ve summarily exploded, but so far, their silence has been deafening. Mann was only warming up, too, because we were just three minutes into her 15-minute diatribe.
Oh! And her “poem” was supposed to be no more than three to five minutes.
She finally moved on to the event’s theme, the integration of the armed forces, which is a more than reasonable topic. But it would’ve been far more worthwhile to emphasize how men and women of all creeds and colors gave up their lives for this country, not to excoriate the military – and the rest of us – for moving too slowly in that regard.
Mann moved on to apply the term “shameful history” ad nauseum until she veered into her own abusive family history which was beyond bizarre and had nothing to do with the issue at hand. Failing to leave any stone unturned, she mentioned the Elgin Task Force on Policing, how the Lord’s Park pool closure unduly affects minorities, and that “Descendants of sinners must beg for forgiveness together.”
Ah yes! That wonderful progressive notion of white original sin. I don’t know about you, but my German ancestors never owned slaves and they didn’t even appear on our Eastern shores until the early 20th Century.
But don’t take my word for it, you can watch the entire fiasco right here. Mann starts at about the 35-minute mark.
I’m not saying she had to be milquetoast. A good poet laureate should encourage the audience to consider their better angels. But again, what did any of this drivel have to do with honoring the brave men and women who selflessly sacrificed their lives for their country?
As far as the responsibility for this farce, other than the City of Elgin funding and hiring the staffers that manage the Cultural Arts Commission, they’re the least culpable. The Memorial Day ceremony is solely the purview of city councilman Steve Thoren and the Elgin Patriotic Memorial Associated (EPMA) headed up by Mark Smith.
They should’ve vetted her “speech” as EPMA had in previous years. It wouldn’t have been easy, but the second Mann cited Decynthia Clements, Thoren and Smith should’ve pulled the plug stopping her right there.
But the real blame begins and ends the Elgin Cultural Arts Commission and chairman Erin Rehberg, who didn’t exercise the kind of basic oversight a tertiary group requires when they receive a City grant. Anyone with half a brain should’ve known that the Elgin Poet Laureate Program appointed a woman who has absolutely no business representing a second grade classroom, much less the City of Elgin.
Mann is a well-known Elgin “eccentric” who’s clearly incapable of handling the role. That begs the question of how she got it in the first place.
Get your scorecards out because here’s how it works. The City of Elgin funds and appoints the members of the ECAC. In turn, the ECAC provides grants to local artists for various projects, including the Elgin Poet Laureate Program (EPLP) to the tune of ten grand a year. Once they get that money, the EPLP independently appoints the poet laureate.
Considering the City money involved, whenever she speaks at an event, Mann is, by definition, representing the City of Elgin.
That means we need to hold the ECAC’s feet to the fire for this utter lack of oversight. The good news is they cut the EPLP funding as of January 1, 2023, so they’re no longer affiliated with the City of Elgin.
That brings us to the EPLP itself, the group that brought us Mann, but we can’t hold them accountable for the Memorial Day debacle because the Program refuses to post its leadership names on their website. That essentially means the City is giving money to a “group” with no transparency whatsoever.
Aside from all of those important considerations, Mann needs to be removed from that position immediately and never be allowed to speak on Elgin’s, or anyone’s, behalf again. Even Elgin Mayor Dave Kaptain, who was at the event, told me her presentation was “terrible and utterly inappropriate.”
I might have used different words, but mayors are expected to be a lot more circumspect than a lowly columnist.
Then the Cultural Arts Commission, if it’s allowed to continue to exist, should fully reconsider their mission. Because whether it’s the public mural based on an Indiana Lynching, or this debacle, they clearly have a great difficulty getting it right. And the reason they can’t get it right is, instead of pursuing art for art’s sake, they insist on infusing everything they do with identity politics and whatever the latest progressive mantra might be.
Meanwhile, the anonymous members of the EPLS should be strung up by body parts I won’t begin to describe here because even I have a greater sense of decorum than their poet laureate. I promise you I will get to the bottom of who they are.
Though they fought for the right for people to be this stupid, I can only imagine what it had to have been like for a group of elderly veterans sitting in the hot sun, not to be praised for their service, but to be excoriated for being part of a country and city that aren’t nearly perfect.
If I were Elgin City Manager Rick Kozal, I’d put the ECAC on notice today!
Authors Note:
To my great astonishment, when I asked Rehberg and Amanda Harris, the City liaison to the ECAC, for the names of the Poet Laureate Project leadership, they refused to provide them! That means they’re far more scared about what those names would reveal than they are of me, a phenomenon I haven’t encountered very often.
Again, that means the City of Elgin has been giving money to an anonymous group who have an untethered hand in appointing a poet laureate that fully represents the City of Elgin whenever she speaks. And no one can hold them accountable for that choice, either.
So, not only have I enlisted Mayor Kaptain’s and Corporation Counsel Bill Cogley’s assistance in this quest, but I’ve fired off the appropriate FOIA requests because all of the ECAC’s grants must be documented throughout the process.
After a source noted their experience with the group, I’ve also FOIA’d the grants ECAC members have bestowed upon their own organizations (the ESO, Side Street Studios, etc.). Because at first glance, it looks like the Commission has become nothing more than a vehicle to fund their personal operations, with the rest of Elgin coming in a distant second place.
I promise I’ll keep you posted.
