Jumping in With Both Feet

Suffice it to say that Mary Mitchell's column from Tuesday is one of the most racist, bigoted and error filled pieces of garbage that has graced the Sun Times pages over the past few years. And that's saying something for a paper that regularly hosts Jesse Jackson and Andrew Greeley op-ed pieces.

Let's spend some time together marveling at her antics, shall we?

• most white people will never understand what Black Panther leader Fred Hampton's life and death meant to black people. Mary? Most black people will never understand what Hampton's life meant either. Most black people we meet don't run around saying "off the pigs!" and say they're at war with "the man." They're too busy with jobs, families, mortgages, etc. If you're talking about the tiny sliver of the black population that lives on the west side, they won't know either because they don't care.
  
• They did not live with the brutality that most black people endured at the hands of police in the late 1960s. Newsflash - "most" black people didn't suffer at the hands of Chicago police. In fact, it probably wasn't even a "majority." We'd bet more black people have suffered at the hands of Fred Hampton's successors in the gangster disciples, the vice lords, the mickey cobras, etc than ever came near suffering the indignity of a parking ticket.
• It doesn't matter that an African-American male is the face of the Fraternal Order of Police on this matter. He's just doing his job. Wow. Why not just come out and say that Sid Davis is a no good Uncle Tom doing the bidding of the white man? Little information for you - Sid Davis is about the most conscientious guy working at FOP for ALL POLICE OFFICERS. Talk to any of our 7,000 retirees lately. Sid is the guy they go through. Sid remembers everyone and shakes everyone's hand and served most of his street time in the 011th District if we aren't mistaken. We know Sid Davis and lady, you ain't no Sid Davis.
• We live in a city where two unarmed black residents were killed during traffic stops in the late 1990s. We also live in a city where last week, a 14-year-old black girl was shot to death by a stray bullet -- allegedly fired by armed gang-members -- as she stood at her window... Since you're dividing everything into racial lines, we'll continue your pointless argument. Both of those unarmed black citizens were the victims of mistakes. Both were killed by black cops. What that has to do with anything, we don't know, but you keep bringing up the racial angles for some reason, so we thought we'd bring it full circle. And the child killed last week? We're surprised you didn't point a finger at roving bands of Irishmen and Jews, but we'll bet money the shooters were (wait for it) black.
• His language was violent; his demeanor was threatening. Still, there's no evidence that Hampton attacked a single police officer. And there was no evidence that Osama ever flew a plane into a building, but we'll bet the Green Berets won't really care when they find him. (Or that Saddam cut off a head. Or Mao starved a farmer. Or Hitler mixed a dose of Zylon. Would you argue they should get off?)
• The deaths of the two police officers had little to do with the Black Panther Party. Gilhooly and Rappaport were killed by hooligans who happened to be members of the Black Panthers. So, following your twisted, liberal, racist logic, when the Klan lynched innocent blacks, those were just hooligans who happened to be Klan members? It wasn't part of an organized racist endeavor to intimidate black voters and "uppity" negros who didn't know their place? Wow. Just out of curiosity, how do you keep your head from exploding?
  
• Still, black people aren't asking white people to honor their heroes. They're just asking them to get out of their business. See, that's where white people run into problems. They don't see how the black community can embrace people like Hampton who attacked the very things that make a community function. It boggles the mind.

By our count, we touched on maybe 40% of the bullshit Ms. Mitchell put in her column today. We could go on quite a bit more, but why bother? Keep criticism civil and on topic please. The above thread is a prime example of how to do it.