-By Warner Todd Huston
In our new media era where everything said, thought, or alluded to is “racist,” we can now add the word “Chicago” to that growing-by-the-minute list of words that are now to be considered racial slurs.
Thanks to MSNBC’s resident “biggest jerk in the room,” Chris Matthews, we now know that just saying Chicago makes you a racist. Because, you know, “there’s a lot of blacks in Chicago.”
This was Chris Matthews’ proclamation as he sought to analyze the current political climate.
Chris Matthews: Yea, well let me ask you about that gentleman. What about now, is this constant barrage of assaults, saying the guy is basically playing an old game of demagoguery politics, where you take the money from the worker bees and give it to the poor people to buy votes. That’s basically what they’re charging him with. Old big-style, big-city machine of 50 years ago.
They keep saying Chicago by the way, have you noticed? They keep saying Chicago. That’s another thing that sends that message – this guy’s helping the poor people in the bad neighborhoods, screwing us in the burbs.
John Hielemann: There’s a lot of black people in Chicago
That’s right. Now you too can be a racist anytime you mention the Windy City. Chris Matthews and his smirking, self-satisfied cast of racebaiters have decreed it.
Of course, as Rusty Weiss notes, there’s a lot of whites in Chicago, too. In fact, at 45 percent of the population, there are more whites than blacks (33 percent) in the city. So, how is it that saying “Chicago” isn’t alluding to whites?
But we all know what Republicans that continually link Obama to Chicago are saying, don’t we? It isn’t “racism” but “corruption” we are to read between those lines. Chicago has been affirmed as one of the most corrupt cities in the nation with over 1,500 officials having been sent to jail since 1976. And there are several hundred more jailed politicians and officials from the rest of the state of Illinois.
If Republicans are using “Chicago” as a watchword in their talking points, it isn’t race anyone is alluding to. It’s the corruption that Barack Obama’s political world is mired in.
Would you like to see the mounting list of words that have quixotically become “racist”? Then check out Duane Lestor’s growing tally.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
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