Chicago's Mount Greenwood neighborhood is getting kicked around by the Sun Times pretty good because Mary Mitchell needs to pick at non-existent racists scabs. There are racists and there are racists. The Sun Times needs to be outrageous to sell a couple of papers. It has been a journalistic joke for some time. Writers likTim Novak and Steve Huntley seem alone in talent and integrity. Most seem to go-along to get along, like Frank Main focus on bashing cops. Some are laughably idiotic like Cathleen Falsani. The absolute worst is Mary Mitchell the race baiting, monotone, bitter columnist who believes that whites all own bullwhips and plantations. If Mary Mitchell were white, she would make David Duke seem like Gandhi.
Mary Mitchell writes only about Race ( and badly at that) and usually goes unanswered and unchecked by any editorial good sense. No fact checkers or grammarians at STNG. Mary Mitchell's job is to be outrageous!
Mitchell gets away with any and every load of toxic garbage because nitwits on her editorial board allow Mary Mitchell free range.
Here's some of today's offering:
Although four decades have gone by, the racial intolerance that drove residents in the Irish-Catholic enclave to picket for six months -- in rain, sleet, and snow -- until the blacks students graduated, was still evident on Sunday when they returned to the school to take a photograph. (ephasis my own - For Six Months 34/7?)
"The first thing that struck us was there was a swastika on the bottom of the assembly hall door," said Toni Lewis Anderson.
Now, forty years later, these seven talented, highly educated, and morally compassed adults are bothered by a couple of mopes and graffiti on a grammar school? All Seven? Magnificent! The Seven Ride! Good Lord.
Gross exaggeration at the very least and unsupported by any documentary evidence in support of the 1968 Tsunami of White ethnic hate against little black children. No matter, the Sun Times will print anything, but an apology.
First of all, Mt. Greenwood is not an enclave, nor is it an exclave. It is a neighborhood, but that point is beyond Mitchell. And so is comfort with language.
Trying to give Mt. Greenwood a 'defensive and under siege' tone to suit her purpose, Mitchell misuses words almost as deftly as she dodges the truth ( you know things that might actually have happened).
Mount Greenwood neighborhood borders two three or four suburbs as well as Chicago's Beverly and Morgan Park neighborhoods. It does not sit like a political island surrounded by Evergreen Park.
An enclave, Mary, is a political island within an another's territory.
Like the Kingdom of Lesotho in South Africa.
Ethnic enclaves exist within another dominant ethnic group - thus, a Chinatown or a Jewish Shtetl.
Blacks live in Mt. Greenwood. Not many. Mt. Greenwood is less diverse than Beverly or Morgan Park, where I live, but so what.
Mt. Greenwood is much more diverse than Englewood, Chatham, or Gresham. Mt. Greenwood is much more diverse than Highland Park or Winnetka.
Mary Mitchell and the Sun Times need to apologize to the people of Mt. Greenwood for painting them all with a broad brush.
That will not happen. No big deal. Don't buy the Sun Times, folks in Mt. Greenwood. I have not bought one in years.
People are not buying the Sun Times because its tacit policy of spitting on people does not win over a readership.
Mary Mitchell spits like a champ! She can not write a lick. As long as the Sun Times has Mary Mitchell they have no chance of being taken seriously.
Mary Mitchell is an enclave all to herself.
"Writers like Bob Novak and Steve Huntley seem alone in talent and integrity."
ReplyDeleteNothing like outing a CIA agent to show your integrity. That used to be called treason, but now we live in a topsy-turvy world.
Pat, I normally would agree with you about Mary Mitchell. But this time I think you are wrong. She wrote about what happened when these seven former students returned. It obviously was not a great experience for them. Even though I agree the idiots across the street are not representive of the whole neighborhood, I think Mary Mitchell also expressed those same feelings with this paragraph ===But the behavior of neighborhood racists shouldn't reflect the values of an entire white community any more than the criminal behavior of thugs should reflect the values of the black community=====. I almost fell off my chair when I read that she actually wrote that line. Normally I am ready to pile on with bashing MM, but this time, I think she actually showed restraint. It wasn't pretty when these people returned and I think it was an appropriate column.
ReplyDeleteNow on the other hand, the headlines that the editors add to almost any ST story are outrageous. I don't but any stake in what is blasted out with those.
The racism that exists in all communities no longer results from societal or governmental fiat but is rooted in the individual.
ReplyDeleteMary Mitchell stated that the 1968 events were six months in duration and required the presence of 104 Chicago Police officers to quell the possible violence against the seven children, now in their 50's.
Molehills do not a Mountain of Race make . . . unless one has a regluar column dedicated to that engineering marvel and am editorila board more than willing to exacerbate a situation limited to the front porch of a couple of dopes.