In a move that can only be viewed as one of overt bigotry, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is only granting interviews to journalists of color.
According to NBC 5 Chicago political reporter Mary Ann Ahern, Lightfoot is marking the “midway point” of her first term in office by disallowing some from doing their own jobs.
“As [Mayor Lightfoot] 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 wrote in a tweet.
Unfortunately, Ahern wasn’t the only one experiencing trouble.
“I was told the same thing,” WWTW Chicago Tonight anchor and correspondent Paris Schutz said in response to Ahern’s tweet.
And another one.
Social media had a field day with this one, as users accused Lightfoot of racism for choosing to speak with journalists based solely on skin color.
“It’s a shame that in 2021, 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,” Lightfoot wrote on Wednesday. “Diversity and inclusion is imperative across all institutions including [the] 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,” she added.
Apparently to Lightfoot, the best way to solve the problem of a lack of diversity in the media is to punish people for something they can’t control: their skin color.
But, this overtly obvious case of selective bigotry will not solve anything, only make things worse.
