Posted on 09/06/2009 5:38:23 PM PDT by Bob017
Interesting piece where a veteran liberal investigative reporter looks into his own beating and finds himself confronting harsh and lingering questions of race and the causes of crime.
" I’d gone downtown that day to talk to a man who had a dream of creating an agency of investigative journalists (a dream, but no funding), and I went to see him because I’m one of thousands of journalists who’ve lost their paychecks in the last two years. I was dismissed by the Chicago Reader in December 2007. (The New York Times noted the coincidence that I lost my job just as the Chicago City Council was set to approve a $19.8-million settlement for four African American men whose argument I’d ushered into public debate—that they’d been tortured by Chicago police under the command of Jon Burge.) Thus, as I scramble to make a living from freelance assignments, I should also be thankful that an editor solicited this story and kept the offer on the table until I overcame my reluctance. That editor was laid off while the contract was in the mail.
But it’s difficult to dress this in costume. I think of myself as a tolerant man, but that tolerance has been taxed by the pain and the consequence to my body and my life. At a moment when millions of Americans set race aside to vote for an African American presidential candidate, I’ve been forced by juveniles to look it square in the face. Last February, Attorney General Eric Holder said that we are a nation of cowards when it comes to addressing race. I plead guilty. There is no joy in writing this...
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagomag.com ...
Yes. Keeep telling yourself that sir.
Dummy.
Liberalism is a mental illness.
Long article.....
The point was he still made excuses for the punk throughout the article and at the end......
But it now caused him inner turmoil to think this way about blacks.....
This liberal loser should have called a Waaaaaaabulance.....
Racists come in all colors......some of the worst i’ve run into are in the black community....at all levels.....
RACIST PIG! How dare he!
“Long article.....
The point was he still made excuses for the punk throughout the article and at the end......
But it now caused him inner turmoil to think this way about blacks.....”
Yeah, he really takes you through his whole thought process as he struggles to get to grips with it. Interesting that the African-American officer straight away saw it for what it was, while the reporter/victim was desperately looking for other reasons.
Also, interesting that his neighbour felt it couldn’t be racist because you have to believe you’re superior to be racist. That kind of cultural marxism probably afflicts a lot of leftist academic types.
The article was pretty long, but if you had read to the end you would have seen that he comes to that conclusion himself. He's Mr. Nice-Guy liberal who let the kid off a criminal charge by asking if the kid would give him an interview. Mom is a Christian who is so so sorry. Of course we'll do an interview.
They rolled him and he got nothing. Would he have been as "liberal" with a white kid? Probably not, he thinks.
“but if you had read to the end you would have seen that he comes to that conclusion himself.”
I think he got particularly riled when the uncle asked if the kid would get paid for the interview!
“Mulling this over makes me question the whole notion of prosecuting hate crimes. Why is a racist thug more dangerous than the man who just feels like beating someone—anyone—up? The racist might send a message to a large population, but the nonracist sends a message to an even larger group, a message that says, “You count for nothing” and “No one is safe.””
Um, NOW (after being almost killed) you get it?? Duh.
So maybe the best outcome was that the young thug ended up working at a suburban McDonald’s, calling in to his parole officer every three months...
Not the first time he’s done such a thing, nor the last, by the laws of human nature and probability.
Kindness to the cruel is cruelty to the kind.
Yes liberalism is a disease.... what is the saying? A liberal is a person who hasn’t yet been mugged? Having spent many years in Chicago, and going places “I didn’t belong” is indeed terrifying and dangerous. In 2008 it was more dangerous to be a high school student in Chicago than to be a soldier in Baghdad. The so-called justice system in Cook county is a joke as was amply demonstrated by the handling of Larry in this article. Wow, your “punishment” is to call a probation officer every so often....that will teach them and keep others safe!!
I would wager a deep dish Chicago pizza that Larry’s path will wind and twist many times through the court houses of Cook County until he finds himself in Joliet.
Liberal’s mismanagement of their “war on poverty” and their permissive, passive, pathetic management of public education in America) particularly the inner cities which are predominately governed by democrat liberals) have created generations of Larrys and turned some of our finest locales into cesspools!
There’s just so much wrong with this man’s thinking. Clueless....that’s it!
Wow, doesn't that shine a spotlight on the confused thinking of a typical liberal... Ignore reality like that and it's bound to bite you in the ass...
It's probably much the same thought that goes through the minds of those radical-chic supposed intellectuals who work so hard to pave the way for the revolution, only to discover to their utter amazement and dismay that they themselves are among the first to be lined up against the wall and summarily executed by the same implacable forces of barbarism and savagery that their own misguided liberal beliefs have unleashed on society...
Just like when Palestinian gunmen open fire on a UN relief mission, shocking and surprising the clueless, pacifist UN-tards who had mistakenly believed that their own "solidarity" with those poor, oppressed Fatah or Hamas masses would shield them from violence at the hands of their thuggish beneficiaries... Fools, all of them...
LOL @ clueless, pacifist UN-tards
In other words, "I thought I was safe because I'm a nice guy." This belief has very few points of contact with reality.
John rode into the real world and it hit him.
He plays pussy hockey in a no check, no slap shot league.
I would bet he is a vegan too.
Some people don’t get it! She thinks there is some great lesson in this.
“Posted by megancottrell
Hi John - thanks for this incredible article. I really appreciated how honest you were and how much you thought this incident through, instead of just reacting.
I’m a reporter too, although I don’t nearly have your experience. I cover public housing in Chicago, so I spend time in lots of neighborhoods where I “don’t belong.” To be honest, I almost always feel nervous. And I almost expect that, one day, something like this will happen to me.
I was thinking about your words near the end - about your “karma bank.” It’s hard to think about, because when something like this happens, it’s Larry hitting John, not blacks hitting whites. But I think a certain amount of our collective karma does catch up with us sometimes. For the two hundred years of slavery, of lynchings, of making a intellectual justification for subjugating a group of people, of white flight, of Jim Crow - maybe you didn’t get what you deserve, but maybe you got what has been coming to us.
I certainly don’t support any sort of physical violence as a way to solve problems. And it’s terrible that this happened to such a great, engaged, thoughtful person. I can’t imagine how horrible the pain that you’ve been through, both physical and mental, has been.
Is it wrong to say though that, if this had to happen, I’m glad it could happen to someone who would then use the experience to share it with others and make people think?
Anyway, thanks for writing. Your work is an inspiration.”
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