... Lightfoot belongs to a group of recently elected Black mayors of major American cities, including Eric Adams in New York, Sylvester Turner in Houston and Karen Bass in Los Angeles. In those cities, Black people are outnumbered by other nonwhite groups, and in New York City and Chicago their ranks are dwindling. Each of these four mayors was elected or re-elected around the height of two seismic cultural phenomena — Black Lives Matter and the pandemic....
Blow interviewed Lightfoot 4 days before the first round of the election (in which Lightfoot, with 2 candidates outpolling her, failed to advance). About Paul Vallas, the white man who came in first with 34% of the vote, she said:
“He is giving voice and platform to people who are hateful of anyone who isn’t white and Republican in our city, in our country.”
And:
“People who are not used to feeling the touch of violence, particularly people on the North Side of our city, they are buying what he’s selling.”
She's insinuating that it's racist to care too much about your own physical safety. It's obviously impolitic to say that too clearly. Blow also proceeds gently (and abstrusely!):
In this moment, when the country has still not come to grips with the wide-ranging societal trauma that the pandemic exacerbated and unleashed, mayors are being held responsible for that crime. If all politics is local, crime and safety are the most local. And when the perception of crime collides with ingrained societal concepts of race and gender, politicians, particularly Black women, can pay the price.
What's he saying other than the obvious reality that mayors are held responsible for crime? Does he really mean to say that black mayors — or women mayors — are held more responsible?
In 2021, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms of Atlanta chose not to seek re-election, becoming the city’s first Black mayor to serve only a single term, after wrestling with what she called the “Covid crime wave.”
Mayor LaToya Cantrell of New Orleans is facing a possible recall, largely over the issue of crime in her city, and organizers said this week that they have gathered enough signatures to force a recall vote....
Yes, I think Blow means to say that people suspect that woman mayors, black mayors, and, especially, black women mayors are soft on crime.
Posts
119 comments:
"the perception of crime . . . ."
Yeah, those darn perceptions. Where on earth do they come from?
Betelgeuse! Betelgeuse! Betelgeuse!
Why does Blow immediately leap to a racial conclusion? Would a White person with a record like Lightfoot's have been treated the same way? You bet your ass they would. The only reason why she hasn't been lampooned on SNL and late night television (C'mon... she looks like Beetlejuice, talks like a street tough and hams it up for the cameras. The jokes would have written themselves) is precisely because she is Black.
"Yes, I think Blow means to say that people suspect that woman mayors, black mayors, and, especially, black women mayors are soft on crime."
Don't suspicions end once you have a track record in office?
Yeah pretty much.
Wow, Blow is really on a roll!
Yes, I think Blow means to say that people suspect that woman mayors, black mayors, and, especially, black women mayors are soft on crime.
Might one hazard to say that perhaps recent history has shown us that Black woman mayors are in fact soft on crime? Who was leading the defund the police movement? Who has appointed prosecutors that refuse to prosecute criminals? Lightfoot should have been voted out for the way she handled the Jussie Smollett case alone.
“He is giving voice and platform to people who are hateful of anyone who isn’t white and Republican in our city, in our country.”
Right, so many GOP sympathizers in Chicago. But note the casual attribution of hate.
"Does he really mean to say that black mayors — or women mayors — are held more responsible?"
Well, yes, yes, he does, being a race-baiter and all.
"Yes, I think Blow means to say that people suspect that woman mayors, black mayors, and, especially, black women mayors are soft on crime."
Not just that: they are haters, as Lightfoot explained. But the haters should have no problem living close to people who think you hate them.
When their performance ( and their policies ) proves that they are not up to the job of crime in the city, then they are soft on crime and incompetent. NO ONE should put up with an elected official who cannot keep the peace. And in fact, increases crime with their policies.
They scream racsim because they are actually the racists.
No mention of demonizing and defunding of the police by those same mayors?
Anyway, what Lightfoot was implying is that its unfair for people in some neighborhoods to be safe in their homes and on the street while other people have to worry about crime. And since she isn't going to make the crime-riddled neighborhoods more safe, then all of the neighborhoods are going to have to be unsafe.
Its not surprising that Lightfoot is a horrible politician. I read yesterday that she had never been elected to any office before becoming mayor. Apparently she was appointed to various city offices throughout her career, perhaps to satisfy diversity goals.
Diversity politics in lieu of competent performance. Democracy is aborted at The NYT.
It's not a matter of feelings. It's statistics and facts.
Blow’s blowviation is stylistically repellent but its substance is far more so. It is racist dog-whistling of the most disgusting kind.
The only good thing about it is, it shows us exactly what kind of a man he is.
is there a Rule? That big-city Black mayors HAVE TO BE:
Anti-Cop?
Pro-Crime?
Lesbian?
HIDEOUS looking?
Mentally Stupid?
Just Asking.. But; if the answers are 'no', than Lightfoot's loss doesn't much about things, does it?
"It's better to rule in hell than serve in Heaven."
Inclusion, Equity, and Diversity means equal opportunities to fail. Corporate CEOs are routinely fired for underperformance. Famous movie actors and musicians routinely produce expensive products that fail commercially.
Only when one lives or dies by skin color can they say such bigoted things. Ms. Lightfoot is perhaps one of the most bigoted politicians on the scene today. I wonder if the KKK and MAGA voters snuck into the Chicago primaries and tilted the outcome, per the claims of Jussie Smollett?
I could be wrong but I doubt Vallas wins. Then you can crank up some Who again.
So people are supposed to vote for incompetancy just BECAUSE she is black?? What a joke the left are. SHE sucked. I don't care if she was the first black female gay woman. Who cares. She sucked. Chicago is a 3rd world slum now, thanks to idiots like her and Blow me.
A lot of black women were elected as mayors just as defund the police initiatives became social policy in their cities. These policies have been disastrous. Hence these women are losing. You could say that therefore they are not at fault, that the time was out of joint. But that's just saying that they weren't up to a challenge. And they weren't. In the first place they all began by supporting the disastrous policies centered around the slogan "defund the police. In the second place, as the failure of the policies became apparent these women all chorused that they themselves were the real victims, that sexism and racism had overthrown them. These women were too busy playing Race Card to care about the real victims who were the people of their cities, who were murdered, assaulted, car-jacked, and raped by emboldened criminals released repeatedly onto the streets by the policies these women continued to uphold. And then these women showcased all the worst characteristics of women when women are self-centered by taking it all personally and considering it all solely in relation to their own look. There wasn't a particle of insight on display in Lightfoot's campaign - failing education and successful crime called for no comment. The prime community suffering is the black community and she didn't give a damn about that either. I expect she's Bought a Large Mansion in the suburbs and it's all good for her. I expect these women all have.
Non-black will not always be a negation.
"... will their mostly non-Black citizens feel that their safety is being prioritized and secured under Black leadership?"
Governor Blow: Race, race, race, race, race, race. Race, race, race.
[turns, leans in and stares into his Twitter feed]
Governor Blow: Hello, boys. Have a good night's rest? I missed you!
Oh, C'mon, Man!
Lightfoot was simply incompetent, and not just about crime, either. Interestingly, no one is claiming that Lightfoot was incompetent & corrupt, like NO's Cantrell & Atlanta's Bottoms. They're just claiming she's incompetent. And she just came off as incompetent in every public appearance, much like our Vice President.
BTW, while it always gets mentioned that the lead candidate in the Democratic primary is white (Vallas), it doesn't get mentioned that #2 in the run-off was a black guy (Johnson), who's probably further left than Lightfoot. If the Lightfoot and Johnson vote combine, Chicago could end up with a black mayor who's even more anti-cop than Lightfoot.
>...Blow means to say that people suspect that woman mayors, black mayors, and, especially, black women mayors are soft on crime.<
And Black school board members, and especially Black women school board members; and Black DAs, and especially Black women DAs; and Black AGs, and especially Black women AGs; and Black judges, and especially Black women judges; and Black congressional representatives, and especially Black women congressional representatives...
Lightfoot won her mayoral election against black candidates, including a black woman, Toni Preckwinkle, who is now President of the Board of Cook County (Chicago's county).
The crime problem in Chicago has the shoplifting ruining downtown businesses (white owned?), and killing black adults, teens, and children. I think there is substantial pro-police feeling in the black community.
Mayor Adams in New York ran on and is trying to implement a policy to control crime.
Did she have the endorsement of the Police union? Teacher's Union?
Uh, Eric Adams? Pro-cop, not obviously insane...
Along with being black, try being competent.
Affirmative action and competence don't play well together.
"Yeah, those darn perceptions (of crime). Where on earth do they come from?"
Partly from reality, and partly from (media-stoked) fear and imagination.
The people who are most frequently victims of crime are those who live in the poor neighborhoods were crime is most endemic.
In other words, the racists who voted the Black candidate into office are being racist for holding the person to the same standard as a non-Black candidate and voting them out of office based on performance, rather than skin color. Got it.
The sad part of it is that by calling everything racist, it becomes less likely that people will take actual racism seriously when it does happen. There's a reason that ancient stories like "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" stay with us as warnings.
Pandemics don't cause crime. The political decision to lock teenage boys out of school has consequences. Idle hands find the Devil's work.
"Yes, I think Blow means to say that people suspect that woman mayors, black mayors, and, especially, black women mayors are soft on crime."
Suspect?
Yes, I think Blow means to say is that he's too much of a racist idiot to come up with a coherent argument so he plays the race card instead.
Lori Lightfoot: “People who are not used to feeling the touch of violence, particularly people on the North Side [Now THERE is a dog whistle!] of our city, they are buying what [Vallas] is selling.”
Get it?! Its their fault
"... will their mostly non-Black citizens feel that their safety is being prioritized and secured under Black leadership?"
What? The safety of black citizens wasn’t being prioritized either. Did he look at the demographics of the shooting victims every weekend in Chicago ?
Those pushing for "equity" always want to bring everyone down to the lowest level, never to raise others up. E.g., some people don't feel safe in their neighborhoods, therefore all must feel unsafe. An ebbing tide lowers all boats I guess.
A big-city politician, they say, must either be loved or feared (or some combination).
Pretty sure by the end, very few loved her and almost no one feared her.
Don't judge me by my record.
Judge me by my race.
And hey, I'm just a poor little wimmin.
Vote for me, or you're a meanie.
Chicago now has a choice between Paul Vallas, former CEO of Chicago Public Schools (white), and the black candidate Brandon Johnson, a defund the police advocate and in was in full support of summer 2020 riots and looting.
Lightfoot won the southside, and westside black neighborhoods. Johnson did well on the NE side. Vallas support was more broad.
It is my perception that the "squishy middle" voters try to buy away their guilt for electing a meanie republican by voting for democrats in other, smaller, offices.
And then the democrats run a not horrible candidate and/or run a very good campaign (Clinton 92, Obama 2008) and the democrat wins the big office. Then the voters say " how the hell did THESE incompetent people get elected dog catcher?!" And then, without some republican to take blame, all of the voters' ire kicks out the democrats in small offices.
This explains why so many state houses flipped from democrat to republican in 94-00 and again on 10-16.
Lightfoot is simply one more example of this effect. Expect other democrats in "safe" places to lose.
If we get a full Biden term there will be enough republican controlled legislatures to call for a convention of states to propose amendments to the constitution. If we get a second Biden term we will have enough legislatures to actually pass some really wackadoodle amendments.
Wasn't she an extra in "Mars Attacks!!"??
Poor Lori Lightfoot.
"Guilty" only of being black and female in the MAGA-infested right wing backwoods political swamp known as Chicago.
She really should move somewhere a far left radical democratical can get a "fair" shake.
I'm with Abdul.
Blow here is using the time-honored if despicable "absolving metonomy" -- the pandemic didn't unleash anything, our government officials did, all too often without the slightest legal warrant.
"In those cities, Black people are outnumbered by other nonwhite groups, and in New York City and Chicago their ranks are dwindling."
When blacks become a minority minority they will have a tough time getting elected to any office. All those recent immigrants are more likely to vote for someone who looks like them then for someone who doesn't.
"On Tuesday, Mayor Lori Lightfoot of Chicago, the first Black woman and first openly L.G.B.T.Q. person to lead the city, failed to advance to a runoff...."
A good first paragraph. Get right out there and summarize the achievements and character traits that should make for success in high executive office.
Certainly does set the tone of the article.
Robert Cook: "Partly from reality, and partly from (media-stoked) fear and imagination."
LOL
Yeah, the people that voted Lightfoot out based on the surging crime epidemic she gleefully enabled have no idea what is really going on in their city.
It's too bad they don't have some white marxist dude from another location to clue them in.
The people who are most frequently victims of crime are those who live in the poor neighborhoods were crime is most endemic.
Wow, I would never have guessed that the most frequent victims of crime would be people who live where its endemic. Hey, maybe more cops should be assigned to those areas to reduce crime. Or is that racist?
It seems appropriate that Lightfoot was voted out on the cusp of Black History Month and Women’s History Month. Either way, she’s History!
The people who are most frequently victims of crime are those who live in the poor neighborhoods were crime is most endemic.
What I believe Cookie means by this sentence is that it’s okay for crime to be endemic in poor neighborhoods because who cares about poor people?
Amazing but predictable. Incompetence was not the cause of her removal, subtle white racism was.
@ Kirk Parker - that's not what Abdul said. He was specific about school hiatus and crime. (He may be wrong and overinterpreting a single cause there, but that's what he said.) He did not generalise.
The pandemic did unleash something. A million American deaths. You can decide the government interventions were wrong (I pretty much have) but you can't start talking yourself into insane points of view just because they are politically convenient. Plenty of businesses would have closed, kids been kept home from school, and churches not met with no government action whatsoever. The majority part of behavioral response was not mandated.
Blow Blows.
I am quite confident that Lightfoot also didn’t care about the safety of law-abiding Black Chicagoans.
She certainly appeared to prioritize the welfare and convenience of criminals over the safety of law-abiding citizens.
But I don’t to see them that it was purely racial just because she is a racialist.
Dicks got slapped on the table, she had the shortest.
Leave it to the racist New York Times to distort the long overdue defeat of the "woke' into a racial conflict.
The humiliation of the barking-mad Lori Lightfoot is a welcome political development, nothing more. The Democrats selected Lightfoot because her intersectional resumé checked the preferred boxes -- black, female, lesbian -- rather than competent, honest, Jeffersonian. Chicagoans got what they ought to have expected, a societal conflagration far more disastrous than anything Mrs. O'Leary's cow could kindle.
Just a few days ago we were horrified by the video of a methodical execution of a homeless man in St. Louis, the fact that Mayor Tishaura Jones is Lightfoot's ideological clone poured from the same vat of roiling progressive toxicity is no accident, and that bestial murder is her responsibility. If the citizens of St. Louis despise what their city has become, they should take a lesson from Chicago.
Lightfoot is smearing a man as racist simply because he has white skin, and somehow that's not racist! People like Lightfoot embody the thing they claim to hate.
"She's insinuating that it's racist to care too much about your own physical safety."
By the standards of the modern American Left, it is racist to care at all about your own physical safety, or that of your family, or about the security of your property. If you are white. If you are white, you are to hand over your property, perhaps submit to a few physical indignities, and then die. And if you won't do it willingly, that proves you are racist. So you deserved it.
The only good thing you can say about Groot is that she isn't as dumb as Charles Blow.
When Asian and Hispanic voters decide they are sick of crime and malgovernance the reaction will be 100% the fault of blanc supremacists.
People who are not used to feeling the touch of violence, particularly people on the North Side of our city, they are buying what he’s selling.
NO ONE should be "used to feeling the touch of violence." That's the whole point. The effort should be bent toward eliminating "the touch of violence" whenever and wherever it exists. If that can be accomplished in one part of the city, it can also be achieved in any other part of the city -- if the will is there. THAT's what he's selling. And those who are living under the "touch of violence" should be standing in line to buy what he's selling.
Robert Cook says "The people who are most frequently victims of crime are those who live in the poor neighborhoods were crime is most endemic."
That is generally true in a decently-run city, but in an imploding city like Detroit in the 70's and 80's, crime was no longer contained in some enclaves. Businesses left and the middle class left. The first to leave got a substantial proportion of their equity out, but the tardy lost most or all of it when they moved to Livonia or Dearborn or wherever. Institutions then fail, with downtown Arts venues and museums considered more dangerous and attendance falling.
So eventually everyone, not just the poor, is victimized, if you can call the destruction of your finances some sort of victimization.
Blow: It proves "how potent the issue of crime can be and how it can be used as a scare tactic"
A scare tactic? Crime IS scary, Charles, esp to urban citizens who keep facing it and fearing it daily. You want the real scare tactic? It's people like you who consider incarceration to be a hate crime.
It feels like Chicago is one runoff election away from going Full Detroit.
Robert Cook said...
"Yeah, those darn perceptions (of crime). Where on earth do they come from?"
Partly from reality, and partly from (media-stoked) fear and imagination.
The people who are most frequently victims of crime are those who live in the poor neighborhoods were crime is most endemic.
Big Mike said...
What I believe Cookie means by this sentence is that it’s okay for crime to be endemic in poor neighborhoods because who cares about poor people?
It's not supposed to be logical. It's just a bass-ackwards insinuation that white Chicagoans were looking for any excuse to vote against the black woman they .. checks notes .. voted into office over another black woman and a black man in 2019.
Oh c’mon, people. Crime will be a mere “scare tactic” for Blow right until he’s mugged and pistol-whipped. Is he sufficiently well off that he has his own security detail? Wouldn’t surprise me.
I was really worried when Doug Wilder, Richmond mayor, ran for governor. I thought he was too far left to be governor. And he was the most far left candidate for governor who had run at that point in time.
But Wilder governed well, having to clean up a lot of messes made by the prior two Dem governors, Chuck Robb and Gerald Baliles. It really depends whether one hews to an extreme position or governs moderately, doing what's best for the state.
He's been the best governor of Virginia in my lifetime - I wish I had voted for him.
p.s. His successor, George Allen, was the other great governor in my lifetime.
Apropos of the post a few days ago ""They cancelled Roseanne Barr for a lot less."" concerning the poll where 37% of black respondents had trouble with the statement "It's okay to be white." Lightfoot seems to be tip-toeing toward "it's not okay."
About Paul Vallas, the white man who came in first with 34% of the vote, she said:
“He is giving voice and platform to people who are hateful of anyone who isn’t white and Republican in our city, in our country.”
Who are those hateful people and how many of them are there? They seem to be white people and, since Vallas got the most votes, there seem to be a lot of them.
"I'm not racist against white people. I'm just pointing out how they're racist against non-white people."
The power in the Chicagoland area is not with the mayor. It is with the President of the Cook County Board. That is Tony Preckwinkle, a Black female and a much more clever politician that Little Lori.
The crime issue is as much a fault of Preckwinkle and her toady Tim Evans as it is Lori Lightfoot.
The issue of crime is a scare tactic, but lying to seniors that Republicans want to end Social Security isn't. Is there anyone sane on the left? I haven't looked up in comments yet, has Chuck blathered about why anyone white can legitimately be accused of racism yet? I'm waiting for Chuck to mail out his reparations check.
Fortunately Chicago has another black radical nutcase still in the runoff. Airlines are showing us how affirmative action can add to the excitement of flying.
Another source said both pilots were "new hires" and were sent back to training for another four weeks. No mention of race or sex.
Jane Byrne was white, so I guess we're reduced to blaming her 1983 primary defeat on sexism.
Blow has a racist-seeking hammer, and all he sees are racist nails.
More on the benefits of affirmative action in flying.
[Name redacted] just told me about a B-triple-seven off Maui that almost crashed two nights ago. Both pilots became disoriented and pulled out of a dive 300 feet above the water, pulling two and a half G’s. …
I’m just home from Denver training center. There are some real horror stories out there about United, but management is hell-bent on just ignoring what is going on. The investigation is still on-going. … but the Captain of the Maui flight was brand new. There was a new-hire First Officer, and my understanding is that we almost lost an airplane for no good reason. Both have been sent back to go through the 4-week course. …
The new-hire first officer on my fleet is a nightmare. It took him 50 hours to get through Initial Operating Experience. Worse yet, talking to his instructor, out of his 25 landings in the simulator, 15 ended up in the dirt. Not one of them was on the centerline of the runway. They said his radio work is like that of a private pilot. He has no situational awareness.
Why hold mayors accountable if they are black and female ? Sounds racist to me.
Blogger Maynard said...
The power in the Chicagoland area is not with the mayor. It is with the President of the Cook County Board. That is Tony Preckwinkle, a Black female and a much more clever politician that Little Lori.
She was the losing candidate to lightfoot and is supposedly even more radical a leftist. The "Second City Cop" blog referred to her as "prickwinkle."
Very little worth saying about this poorly written piece of propaganda.
NYT, WaPo, Vanity Fair, New Yorker, Atlantic, all produce this type of garbage.
At least in the Soviet Union, people didn't even bother to pretend that Pravda was a legitimate news source.
In America, these articles are written for 'educated' upper class white women. No one else would waste their time with such nonsense.
"What I believe Cookie means by this sentence is that it’s okay for crime to be endemic in poor neighborhoods because who cares about poor people?"
It is true that the affluent and those in power are not likely to be crime victims, and they largely do not care about the plight of the poor stuck in crime-ridden neighborhoods. However, the public "outrage" and "panic" over high crime is something else: sales-seeking sensationalism by the news organs, and votes-seeking rhetoric of politicians exploiting frightened people in the suburbs to win votes. To those in power, it is "okay for crime to be endemic in poor neighborhoods because who cares about poor people?"
In short, the discussion about "high crime" in the media and by high-placed politicians is a self-serving sham, meant to attract readers or voters. The police who go into these blighted areas see all the residents as either criminals or as at fault for their own blighted circumstances. There is little real effort expended to alleviate crime in low-income neighborhoods, other than gentrifying them, which benefits only the real estate interests and pushes out the existing inhabitants who cannot afford to stay, their fates being made even worse. Instead of building luxury accommodations for the wealthy, or for foreign billionaires who spend little or no time in their lavish acquisitions, cities and towns need to create zoning requiring that developers build homes and apartment buildings that are livable and affordable to those with the least options available to them.
TWO-EYED JACK makes quite a trenchant comment above. Poverty can eat up a city and bring it down. Those with means do manage to get out, with some getting out too late to salvage much or anything. Those who are left are those who never had the means do anything but stay put.
The "whites won't vote for blacks because they're racist" line is getting really old, literally. April 8th will make a third of a century (33 years, 4 months) since Virginia elected Doug Wilder governor. He barely won, which may have been racial prejudice, or may have been his support for abortion. But he soon became quite popular in both parties because he was a middle-of-the road law-and-order Democrat as well as a competent governor and then mayor of Richmond. I soon lost count of the number of Republicans who said "I didn't vote for Wilder, but damn, he's a pretty good governor, for a Democrat!"
Case in point: The only time in my life I've ever seen an actual chain gang outside of the movies was while Wilder was governor. I was driving down I-64 in a mountainous area somewhere near Charlottesville when I came around a bend and saw a yellow school bus with bars in the windows parked on the shoulder. Next was a row of 30 or so 20-something men, chained together at the ankles, walking in parallel, picking up trash. Last was a state trooper with a shotgun and a Smokey-the-Bear hat keeping an eye on them. I was driving 70+ so I couldn't check my first impression, but most, if not all, of the chain gang was skinny white guys with facial hair, and the state trooper was definitely a tall muscular black guy. I got a warm, fuzzy feeling inside when I saw them all.
If more black politicians in multi-racial jurisdictions tried to appeal to all races, they'd get a lot more votes from other races, more than enough to compensate for any loss of votes from hard-left racist blacks and Antifa ass-wipes. And that's been true for at least a third of a century, even in the capital of the old Confederacy.
A worthless pol - who managed to piss off anybody and everybody with her statements, demeanor, arrogance and cluelessness - got the axe because of her skin color.
Blow me.
They said his radio work is like that of a private pilot. He has no situational awareness.
that's Pretty Insulting, to the private pilots i've known (and flew with)
He is giving voice and platform to people who...
are not given voice and platform under Lightfoot.
Readering: "Did she have the endorsement of the Police union? Teacher's Union?"
Uh, no.
White guy Vallas, the lifelong education guy, got the Police Union endorsement...which was used to attack him.
Brandon Johnson, radical lefty, got the Teacher's Union endorsement because he was obviously the more black of the 2 leading candidates because that's what matters.
No word yet if either candidate will be seeking the coveted endorsement by Black Lives Matter marcher par excellance and officianado Mitt Romney.
The reality of Chicago is that it's been slipping into a dark place for years. Under Rahm Emanuel, it turned a corner and started to lose control of even the major business and tourist locations from The Loop to River North to Streeterville to Michigan Avenue. Under Lori Lightfoot, all hell broke loose. Add in the George Floyd Anything Goes Rules and the BS imposed by Lightfoot and JB Pritzker during covid and you have a boiling cauldron of bad stuff running amok.
Oh yeah, then let's defund the police and tell those that remain on the job that they are not allowed to give chase to looters, robbers, thieves. And to not use any force against violent people. Sure. OK.
When you lose North Michigan Avenue- one of the greatest streets in the world- you've lost any chance of anyone wanting to come to ChiTown. Businesses have pulled out ahead of the citizens. And those who can, are leaving. Hell, even the Guv loves his Florida home as much as he can.
To answer all of this, Lori Lightfoot would tell White reporters they cannot ask her questions. And then she'd produce a highly cringeworthy video of herself dancing. She was like Karine Jean-Pierre without the gravitas. (Damn...used another Black woman to describe her). Uhhh....she's like John Fetterman without the charm.
When a Democratic Mayor in Chicago cannot get reelected, it means she's soooo bad that even the word bad cannot get near a proper description. I loved Chicago my entire life. It was to me, the greatest of all US cities. I don't go there anymore. Why would I? I miss Chicago. I hope Chicago can again one day, become what it once was.
Have blacks become less impacted by crime during her tenure? That's not the impression I get.
A harbinger of transgender trends and diversity [dogma] (e.g. racism, sexism) distress. Where NOW will they create leverage with viable indemnity?
If Charles Blow were a super hero, his name would be Black Hammer.
Blackety-black-black-black.
Is there such a thing as Black Guilt, and if not, why not?
You're a black middle class citizen who pays your taxes, obeys the law, sends your kids to school and keeps them off the streets at night.
Do you feel the slightest bit guilty that young black males - about 7% if the population - commit 50% of violent crimes? Does it bother you that black teachers in public schools can't teach black kids how to read and do basic math.
Do you ever consider with shame and outrage that the overwhelming number of aborted babies are of you race.
Do you feel the least but guilty that so many blacks live off of public assistance, or live off of criminal enterprise in the inner cities?
Or do you just look the other way? Or blame slavery?
No, let's all talk about white guilt some more.
Blackety-black-black-black.
Is there such a thing as Black Guilt, and if not, why not?
You're a black middle class citizen who pays your taxes, obeys the law, sends your kids to school and keeps them off the streets at night.
Do you feel the slightest bit guilty that young black males - about 7% if the population - commit 50% of violent crimes? Does it bother you that black teachers in public schools can't teach black kids how to read and do basic math.
Do you ever consider with shame and outrage that the overwhelming number of aborted babies are of you race.
Do you feel the least but guilty that so many blacks live off of public assistance, or live off of criminal enterprise in the inner cities?
Or do you just look the other way? Or blame slavery?
No, let's all talk about white guilt some more.
Jane Byrne was white, so I guess we're reduced to blaming her 1983 primary defeat on sexism.
Diversity Reduction Affirmative Talking Tales (DRATT)
Let us bray that it does not progress and liberalize in a deplorable action.
She's a bellwether. Original was a castrated ram.
I get the feeling that the MSM, channeling Evan Thomas of Newsweek, seems to be regretfully reaching the conclusion "Lightfoot got the intersectionality right; it's just the competence she got wrong."
"Covid crime wave"
Ludicrous! Covid didn't cause crime.
The demonization and demoralization of the police, by the insane "defund the police" movement, simply made crime so much easier to get away with. Throw in the Soros prosecutors, and even if the cops accidentally catch you, they'll release you with no charges. No more cops chasing the bad guys; they're too busy keeping a low profile down at the station, until the pension kicks in. No more prosecutors trying to put you in jail. It's all good, for the bad guys.
So far, I haven't seen a viral epidemic cause-effect analysis that comes anywhere close to being as spot-on as the defund-police explanation does. It's just a lot of assertion by blowhards like Charles Blow, accompanied by a lot of hand-waving and throat-clearing, and no logic at all.
Yes, I think Blow means to say that people suspect that woman mayors, black mayors, and, especially, black women mayors are soft on crime.
Then why did "people" vote her into office in the first place? Or was it only after seeing Lori Lightfoot fail to keep crime under control that voters decided she was soft on crime? Or simply incompetent?
The right wants Lightfoot’s defeat to be about crime, the left wants it to be about race, but the real reason is that she tried to take on the teachers’ unions and lost.
The people who are most frequently victims of crime are those who live in the poor neighborhoods were crime is most endemic.
The knock on Democrats, and progressives generally, is that they're not interested in improving conditions for the poor, but rather in degrading life for the middle class. And that describes Lightfoot, no? The anti-cop policies did nothing to help the poor, who already had to deal with crime, but spread the misery to everyone else.
"Oh c’mon, people. Crime will be a mere “scare tactic” for Blow right until he’s mugged and pistol-whipped."
Only if it's done by a white man.
Robert Cook says above "TWO-EYED JACK makes quite a trenchant comment above. Poverty can eat up a city and bring it down."
Policy killed Detroit, Mr. Cook, not poverty.
The only good thing you can say about Groot is that she isn't as dumb as Charles Blow.
What it gets down to, is blacks will always vote as a bloc for the D, no matter what. And if given a choice between a Black D and non-black D, they will always vote as a bloc for the black D.
Accordingly, once you get enough blacks in your city or county, non-blacks can only do one of two things (1) vote racially as a bloc, just like blacks or (2) Hope you can find a competent black D who will enforce the laws and not be too corrupt
Number (2) is a bit of a gamble. As Chicago found out.
As for Chicago "gowing down" to a "dark Place", that was NOT due to some natural disaster, it was due to Leftists and completely avoidable.
the real reason is that she tried to take on the teachers’ unions and lost
The unions are a democratic front? Takes us to DC where they have voters without borders, DNC where there are bloc representatives, the Fourth Estate where democracy is steered in darkness, etc.
DIEversity. Send in Some, Select [Black] Lives Matter.
Lori Lightfoot won 4 years ago because she got the support of the Lakefront Liberals. It had nothing to do with her being Black. She seemed a safe corporate lawyer type who checked the intersectionality box twice.
Those Lakefront Liberals probably supported Paul Vallas this time because crime is slowly coming to their part of town. Many of these folks sent their kids to elite private schools like Latin and Parker, so the CTU plays no role for them.
OK, we've heard from Charles Blow. Now can we hear from Charles Suck?
Policy killed Detroit, Mr. Cook, not poverty.
That's exactly right. Some of the poorest people have the best maintained property, raise the most well mannered children, and are generally leading members of their community.
Groot is what you get when you try to normalize the abnormal.
Pilot's & training...
Back in about 1980 my father, a NASA pilot and expert on aviation safety, authored a paper on deficiencies in airline pilot training, particularly regarding First Officers. His conclusions were so inflammatory that he asked one of my siblings to type and co-edit it, because he did not want any NASA or FAA fingers on it, not even his own AA.
Airlines have always skimped on training. Remember the 737 Max issue? Bottom line there was a conspiracy to avoid documenting and/or requiring additional training, necessary because the control system design changes were crap.
Adding another burden from not hiring the absolute best candidates is definitely going to kill people. Another of my father's big bitches was the sale of advanced aircraft to, shall we say, marginal operators in marginal nations. Too many crashes to count. That's where this trend is leading.
In short, the discussion about "high crime" in the media and by high-placed politicians is a self-serving sham, meant to attract readers or voters.
Will you ever stop lying, Cook? Tell me why the race of perpetrators is often excluded from TV and newspaper stories lest "bias" be stimulated? BART has now announced it will no longer show video of criminals attacking riders to "avoid bias."
Lori Lightfoot: “People who are not used to feeling the touch of violence, particularly people on the North Side [Now THERE is a dog whistle!] of our city, they are buying what [Vallas] is selling.”
Crime, especially violent crime, is something that most people really do not want to live with. They don't nee to "feel the touch" to know that (once you have "felt the touch" it's probably too late. It's why neighborhoods with high crime rates are inhabited primarily by poor people. Anyone with the means to get out, who is not either insane or heroic, or both, gets out, and takes their loved ones with them.
A mayor who does not make protecting citizens from criminals the highest priority is a failure. Yet somehow those who publicly pledge to abandon that priority get elected. Insane.
Maynard: "Those Lakefront Liberals probably supported Paul Vallas this time because crime is slowly coming to their part of town."
Not so slowly.
About Paul Vallas, the white man who came in first with 34% of the vote, [Lightfoot] said:
“He is giving voice and platform to people who are hateful of anyone who isn’t white and Republican in our city, in our country.”
Paul Vallas is a Democrat.
>> Lightfoot should have been voted out for the way she handled the Jussie Smollett case alone.
In all fairness, that one belongs primarily to the even worse Foxx.
>>I could be wrong but I doubt Vallas wins. Then you can crank up some Who again.
I assume the part as in "Meet the new boss/Same as the old boss," and not "Get down on your knees and pray/Just like yesterday/We don't get fooled again."
>>A lot of black women were elected as mayors just as defund the police initiatives became social policy in their cities.
Lightfoot was elected early in 2019, well before Covid, BLM, defund the police, etc. I doubt thing were great during her first year+ in office, though I don't doubt things have gotten worse.
>> I expect she's Bought a Large Mansion in the suburbs and it's all good for her.
She's already living in Logan Square, on the (more or less near) Northwest Side. Not exactly Englewood or West Englewood (where I grew up, before the neighborhood "changed" in the early 70s).
>>Partly from reality, and partly from (media-stoked) fear and imagination [of crime]
Or you could, I don't know, look at the actual crime statistics in Chicago; the spread of carjackings to the West Loop, etc.; a waitress in a West Loop restaurant being shot from outside the restaurant; daylight armed robberies in Lincoln Park, etc.; people being shot on the street in the Loop; store footings on the "Magnificent Mile"; whatever. Equity, baby, equity! Not less crime for anyone, but more crime for everyone! See LL: "People who are not used to feeling the touch of violence, particularly people on the North Side."
>>Lightfoot won the southside, and westside black neighborhoods. Johnson did well on the NE side.
GW, you surely know better, and I trust this is some sort of weird typo. There is no "NE side." And I doubt that Johnson did well on the North Side or most of the Northwest Side. It's likely true that Lightfoot got most of her votes from the Black neighborhoods on the South and West Sides, though I'm skeptical that she "won" those neighborhoods.
The latest demographic data shows non-Hispanic whites as just under a third of the total population, Hispanics (however characterized by race) at about five points under that, and Blacks just behind that. On a quick look, I wasn't able to find a recent demographic map, but I doubt the overall patterns have changed much in the last twenty years. Blacks overwhelmingly on much of ,the South and West Sides, Hispanics on the northwest parts of the South Side and just north of the Blacks on the West Side, whites primarily on the North and Northwest Sides, with some I'm Bridgeport, the far Southwest Side, Hyde Park, and the newly developed areas south of the Loop. Then, of course, there's Chinatown (are we still allowed to say that), more or less next to Bridgeport and (I'll remain defiant) Comiskey Park.
Not sure if I'm running out of space, but TBC.
Of course Blow ignores that these female, black mayors are Democrats.
We need a female, black independent or conservative mayor to tear his theory on the broader population.
All Blow has sort of shown is that female, black Democratic mayors are soft on crime.
Continued:
>>a choice between Paul Vallas, former CEO of Chicago Public Schools (white), and the black candidate Brandon Johnson
Well, being former CEO of the Chicago public schools and his other prior roles are not exactly confidence-inspiring, but still better than the leftier-than-Lori (pace Cookie, for whom there are no such things as leftie politicians) cat's paw of the teacher's union.
>>It feels like Chicago is one runoff election away from going Full Detroit.
I used to be more optimistic, but the major employers fleeing the city are not a good sign.
>> They seem to be white people and, since Vallas got the most votes, there seem to be a lot of them.
See my comment above.
>>The power in the Chicagoland area is not with the mayor. It is with the President of the Cook County Board.
Can't say I've ever seen that thought before, but it sure wasn't true when the real Mayor Daley (and maybe even Richie) was the mayor. But perhaps because he/they controlled that position?
>>The "Second City Cop" blog referred to her as "prickwinkle."
I miss that one. I'm not aware that it's ever resurfaced since going "dark" a couple of years ago.
>>I loved Chicago my entire life. It was to me, the greatest of all US cities. I don't go there anymore.
After fifty years in Boston, I still go back, primarily because there are, I don't know, some 75 or so members of my "immediate family" (siblings, nieces and nephews, great-nieces and nephews, even one or two great-greats at this point, plus spouses and partners; quite frankly, however, it's at best hit or miss for me as to who those past the nieces and nephews are, and, conversely, most of the little suckers probably don't have a clue as to who I am, when they should perhaps take heed that I'm by far the wealthiest member of the family at this point) who are still there. I don't think there's anybody in the city any more, and, conversely, I'm the only one who's still remotely a city kid (who used to ride the el all over the city in the middle of the night, etc.). After being shut out twice by Amtrak for Christmas because of the snow, I will likely be going (sorta for my older sister's birthday) in May.
For now, at least, I still feel fairly safe in the West Loop (see comments above) a mile or so away from the Jesuit high school I went to on the near West Side. I went there for my 50th reunion about a year and a half ago. The school draws from all over the city and suburbs (and, at times, has had a few students commuting from Indiana and even one or two from Michigan). That year, they had their largest ever freshman class. In my day, that included about 20 percent Blacks (probably the second highest percentage after the Irish) who weren't, at least for the most part, even Catholic (the remaining inner-city Catholic schools in Chicago are the one alternative to the public school system that had largely failed when I was a teenager; to a lesser extent, the same is true of the Catholic schools in the Boston area that I have bee supporting for decades). For now, there are also still great restaurants, great theater, and other great stuff.
It feels like Chicago is one runoff election away from going Full Detroit.
Detroit, which is 80% black, elected (and reelected) a white mayor after 40 years of terrible black mayors, at least one of whom ended up in prison. Actually first they elected Dave Bing, who was pretty sensible, but had to preside over the city's bankruptcy, and had some health issues and didn't run again.
The NYT tried to make Vallas out to be a Republican pretending to be a Democrat, but apparently other than wanting more police he's pretty left wing.
I've read about the murder rates being down since the nineties. I attribute that mostly to improvements in emergency care....Adams in NYC sometimes says the right thing, but he doesn't do the right thing....If some cop gets into a situation where the use of force is questionable like Garner in NY or even justified like Michael Brown in Ferguson don't expect any Black politician to speak up for the cops. Black people are more tolerant of brutal felons than of the police who arrest them and Black politicians are loyal to their constituents... Some cops screw up, but every day on the local news you see the video of some crime of breathtaking brutality and evil. The screw up of the cop generates hatred and national coverage. The thug who beats up some old woman doesn't generate anywhere near the same amount of outrage and coverage. His crime is attributed to our lack of mental health facilities.
She didn't play well with the aldermen. a success in Chicago politics depends on everyone getting something.
When your faith is "equity" and all discrepancies between the achievements between groups is some sort of discrimination, it makes sense that you would assume that black female mayors failing is discrimination. It is tautological. It must be nice to be able to not think that effectively.
Of course, the problem is when you select candidates based on group membership, you tend to get those that are really good at exploiting their group membership to get ahead, rather than the most competent members of that group. I mean, someone competent might slip through, but when your only chance at success in life is to exploit your race, gender, orientation, etc. and success is paramount, then that's what you use. Not qualified? Who cares. Get paid.
Keisha Lance Bottoms didn't run again because the feds were getting hotter on her political predecessor and sponsor, because she let rioters take over a portion of the city, resulting in the murder of three, including a seven year old child, and because her relentless demonization of police resulted in a mass exodus of officers and exploding criminal violence and property crimes.
When the feds get done with investigating our last mayor, I hope Keisha's double dipping fake job comes up for another gander. She should be in prison. Instead, she was almost picked as Biden's VP.
From a news story about Corporations fleeing Chicago:
In April 2022, two months before he announced the move, Griffin told the Wall Street Journal, "I’ve had multiple colleagues mugged at gunpoint. I’ve had a colleague stabbed on the way to work. Countless issues of burglary. I mean, that’s a really difficult backdrop with which to draw talent to your city from."
Crime is a problem for people. This transcends race. But Blow would never acknowledge this -- because his job is all about race.
news of chicago citizens coming to their senses is greatly exaggerated
news of chicago citizens coming to their senses is greatly exaggerated
news of chicago citizens coming to their senses is greatly exaggerated
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