Lightfoot’s progressive racism

Zachary Faria

“Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s latest decision is racist,” said Zachary Faria. Lightfoot has decided that as she completes her second year in office, she will grant one-on-one interviews only to Black and other nonwhite journalists. “Her justification is that Chicago media outlets are too white,” and so, in her words, “in order to progress, we must change.” Diversity may be a worthy goal, but judging the worthiness of every member of the Chicago media solely by their skin color can be described by only one word: “racism.” The fact that it’s “progressive racism,” aimed at achieving “equity,” makes it no less “grotesque and anti-American.” Lightfoot may have created this divisive identity-politics distraction to “drown out coverage of her abysmal leadership in the Windy City.” So far this year, there have been 227 homicides in Chicago, 36 more than its blood-soaked pace in 2020, and the dead include

185 Black people and 66 Hispanics. That’s far more important than the race of people covering the news. Because Lightfoot’s kind of woke racism “has become mainstream among progressives and leaders of the Democratic Party,” she has received almost no criticism for discriminating against white reporters. But it shouldn’t be “shrugged off.”