Chicago Mayor Lightfoot’s Heavy Hand

These are indeed amazing political times in America.  We have descended into a tribalism that is destroying the nation.  This has led to actions that seem beyond the realm of reason and civility.  After more than 155 years since the wrenching Civil War ended slavery – and 55 years after the civil rights movement ended the de jure racism in the Democrat southland – the issue of race has risen to the top of the political discourse.  It has become a madness.

To understand just how insane this new era of racial confrontation has become, one only has to look at the recent announcement by Chicago’s first Black female lesbian Mayor, Lori Lightfoot.  Her new personal policy is that she will not consent to one-on-one news interviews with White reporters – especially White male reporters.

That is such an astoundingly disgusting action, that it is almost impossible to believe it is real.  Maybe it would be a good script for a sitcom schtick. Or some frontpage article in a satirical humor publication like The Onion.

But nooooo.  This is a real policy that a real big city mayor instituted.

According to her head-scratching explanation, Lightfoot only wants people who share her experience as a Black woman to question her.  If you follow her logic to the next step, she should only sit for interviews conducted by Black lesbian women.  After all, those straight Black ladies cannot possibly share her life experiences.

In a letter of explanation to the Windy City press corps, Lightfoot wrote:

“I have been struck since my first day on the campaign trail back in 2018 by the overwhelming whiteness and maleness of Chicago media outlets, editorial boards, the political press corps, and yes, the City Hall press corps specifically.”

This whiny victimization comes from a woman who got elected mayor of Chicago, one of the largest cities in America, based on votes of folks from every group you can name.  Lightfoot is a member-in-good-standing of the Black privileged class  — the elite.

Having spent most of my career dealing with the press in Chicago on an almost daily bases, I can state without fear of refutation that that are a lot of women and minorities in the press corps – more today than ever. When I was interviewed or held a press conference, it never occurred to me to respond differently – or not respond — to reporters based on their skin color, gender or sexual preferences – or even their party affiliation. 

Lightfoot claims that her decision was based on (sit down for this) her life-long fight for “diversity and inclusion.”   She favors one demographic group to the exclusion of others in the name of diversity and inclusion?  One can only wonder what has come loose in the windmills of her mind. 

This is blatant racism masquerading as anti-racism.  This is the stuff of Jim Crow.  Imagine a southern White mayor saying she would only take questions from White folks because the Black journalists cannot relate to her life experiences. 

If it were only stupid, maybe we could brush it off.  But it is destructive to civic comity and the roll of a free press – insofar as we have one.  It is a racist action … period.

Lightfoot has caused a bit of a stir across the nation with her boneheaded idea. 

But at least it has temporarily deflected from the fact that her Black residents in Chicago’s segregated communities are getting killed in record numbers – more than 250 so far this year.  And by the time you read this, there will likely be at least a half dozen more.

Last year there were more than 800 Chicagoans murdered – and 78 percent of them were Black.  And that in a city with a 30 percent Black population.  Most were the victims of a Black killers.  Some died in drug battles – but too many were innocent men, women and children.  In a war zone they would be euphemistically called “collateral damage.”

Lightfoot seems to think that the problems in Chicago are due to her not getting the kind of favorable coverage she would like.  This is the method of autocrats – maybe because she rules over a one-party autocratic political machine. 

Lightfoot is less interested in solving the problems of the people of Chicago than she is obsessed with avoiding accountability.  You would have to go back to Big Bill Thompson in the 1920s to find a worst Chicago mayor. And maybe not even then.

So, there ‘tis.