Good riddance of that anti-gun nut Daley, but who will take his place?
HERE’S A SOBERING THOUGHT: CRITICISM NOT SAME AS RACISM
By Neil Steinberg
PoliticalMavens.com
January 3, 2011
Gaze at Mayor Daley’s face, I wrote earlier this year, “his clenched mouth a grim line of annoyance, stress etched into every feature, radiating a lifetime of ill humor and testiness.”
In 2009, after Daley blamed the media for making Oprah leave town, I observed:
“Daley just squeegees the slime from the latest scandal off himself, wipes it onto whichever cringing underling is designated to take the blame, and soldiers onward, the Energizer Bunny of Urban Politics.”
“The mayor is completely insane,” I wrote in 2008, regarding his view of the Police Department and the media, an opinion I returned to when he tried to seize a section of Grant Park:
“Being a more generous soul, I believe that the mayor is not being cynical, but rather has completely lost his mind, unhinged by 19 years in office, the way the pashas supposedly went insane behind their harem walls.”
I could continue, but you get the point. Nor do I need to observe that the mayor is white — if there is some kind of racial solidarity I’m supposed to show for him, I never got the memo.
Daley, to his credit, never reacted. He knew that were he to hold a press conference — never mind a protest at the paper — and complain about how Neil Steinberg is being mean to him, he would only elevate me and disseminate my insults to those who missed them the first time. Plus, being mayor means having the media dump on you — that’s why he despises us so much.
This is a level of sophistication that, obviously, eludes our former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun, who took a column Monday, mocking her mayoral hopes, something that would have been forgotten the next day, and turned it into a cause célèbre featured by four local TV stations. She demands that I be fired for laughing at her.
If that doesn’t underscore my point, I don’t know what does.
Let me state this as plainly as I can. I supported Braun for senator; I voted for her, and viewed with dismay as she frittered away that opportunity — I won’t go into the details here; they’re well-known. I think she’d be a terrible mayor, and would rather see State Sen. James Meeks, Danny Davis, Gery Chico, Rahm Emanuel or any other random Chicagoan in the office ahead of her.
I guess that’s the language of racial hate now, though one shouldn’t treat the false flinging of that charge lightly, because it dulls the accusation for those times when it really is appropriate. To me, it is wrong to suggest that belonging to a minority puts one in the realm that must be treated with indulgence and condescension. That itself is racist, as is the notion that only a black person can comment on another black person in the public eye. I thought anyone who runs for mayor would get that — well, except for Braun.
Even with my minimal expectations, I admit I was surprised when, during a press conference, she called me a drunk and a wife beater. Surprised, saddened, and frankly, vindicated. In my view — and I’m allowed to have a view, right? — that’s exactly the lack of judgment that makes her unfit for office.
That I’m a drunk is no denying — reformed, with years of sobriety under my belt. I never made a secret of it, indeed wrote a book about it and am proud of my progress. That she feels recovery is some kind of low indictment just shows how clueless she is. The second accusation is a bald lie, and if Braun ever runs into my wife, she can expect to receive an even worse earful than I’ve ever dished out. Then I guess Braun will picket our house.
People who read my column regularly know that I’m an open, honest guy. I live in Northbrook, I have two cats, two boys and, lately, a dog. I believe people should be judged as individuals, praised for their good works and condemned for their failings. To that end I have been a consistent voice for tolerance, for gays, for Muslims, for immigrants, for blacks, for anybody who is given a raw deal because of a group they are part of instead of who they are individually and what they’ve done.
Carol Moseley Braun earned the scorn that I — and I’d bet a big chunk of the community she claims to speak for — hold for her. For her to cry racism at it being uttered is just sad. Nobody is forced to read my column, and the people who read it do so because they want an open, unbiased take on life. I have been writing for the Sun-Times since 1984. Braun’s demand that I be fired is not the first, nor if I do my job properly, the last such call. This job is a joy and an honor that I do not take lightly, and I appreciate the hundreds of e-mails of support and encouragement — far, far more than any complaints.
No comments:
Post a Comment