Reporters have been confirming on numerous social media platforms that Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is only granting interviews to journalists of color.
NBC5 Chicago political reporter Mary Ann Ahern first tweeted out about the “midway point” of Mayor Lightfoot’s first term in office and acknowledged her failed attempts to land an interview. All of these Dem politicians are preaching inclusiveness and diversity while doing the polar opposite of these things, which makes them more racist than just about everyone. Racism “in the name of wokism” is still racism.
“As @chicagosmayor reaches her two-year midway point as mayor, her spokeswoman says Lightfoot is granting 1 on 1 interviews – only to Black or Brown journalists,” Ahern tweeted.
WTTW Chicago Tonight anchor and correspondent Paris Schultz responded to Ahern’s tweet and said she’d been told the same thing. Chicago politics reporter Heather Cherone also shared a similar tweet and confirmed what they both said about the mayor.
The worst part is not the practice itself, but that the Democratic mayor appeared to confirm that she does this on Twitter. She wrote that it was a shame in 2021 that the City Hall press corps is “overwhelmingly White” in a city where more than half of the city identifies as Black, Latino, AAPI, or Native American.
“Diversity and inclusion are imperative across all institutions including media. In order to progress, we must change. This is exactly why I’m being intentional about prioritizing media requests from POC reporters on the occasion of the two-year anniversary of my inauguration as mayor of this great city. This is an imbalance that needs to change. Chicago is a world-class city. Our local media should reflect the multiple cultures that comprise it… It’s time for the newsrooms to do better and build teams that reflect the make-up of our city,” Lightfoot wrote.
Critics immediately responded to Mayor Lightfoot and pointed out that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination based on race, sex, religion, etc. If she has left any sort of pattern of discrimination in her interviews, then she is subject to civil penalties and could be disqualified from holding public office. Denying interviews to any race is grounds for a lawsuit. While the media used to be aggressive about the rights of citizens having access to political officials, they need to stand up for themselves, and fellow Chicagoans.
Civil rights icon Bob Woodson appeared on Fox News and criticized Mayor Lightfoot for the move. He said she was using “racism to conquer racism” and that it was an insult to Black America. Australian political commentator Rita Panahi also responded to the race-based allegations against the mayor on Twitter. “More ‘anti-racist’ racism. Almost amusing how regressive race-obsession is celebrated among the Left,” she wrote.
Progressive writer Zaid Jilani ironically asked if the mayor was going to do some kind of DNA test to assure “she upholds this rule.”
Chicago Tribune reporter Gregory Pratt, however, heard how Mayor Lightfoot was treating his fellow reporters and flipped the script. He tweeted that he was a Latino reporter, whose interview request had been granted, and that he’d asked the mayor’s office to lift its condition on others. “When they said no, we respectfully canceled. Politicians don’t get to choose who covers them,” Pratt wrote.
In order to fight racism, Democrats have embraced the concept that they must become full-blown racists. Given her most recent remarks, Mayor Lightfoot is a proven racist – and proud of it.
