Chicago Daily Observer

The media inadvertently stumbled into the elephant in the room—and I don’t mean the Republican mascot.

It started when the McCain campaign aired a series of commercials ridiculing Barack Obama. Many people of color as well as a few palefaces sensed a racial subtext.

Concurrently Obama used one of his stock lines about looking different from other presidents whose faces grace our currency.

The McCainsters pounced first, charging that Obama not only “played the race card,” but dealt “from the bottom of the deck.”

The term “race card” was popularized during the O.J. Simpson trial. I’m not certain who benefited from it then, but the consensus says it hurts Obama if he plays it—also if the other guy plays it. It’s lose-lose for Barack.

So who really played it?

Right or wrong, Obama gets the blame. But, whoever is responsible, the race issue is again open for discussion. We’ll be ... Read More...

Mary Mitchell pulls another little race-baiting scab in Sunday’s Chicago Sun Times to remind whites that they are evil mean nasty haters and to pump up the Maywood reunion of the Mt. Greenwood Seven,

There’s a Mt. Greenwood Seven Eleven at 111th and Kedzie on the Northeast Side of the Street, but Mary invents the Mt. Greenwood Seven as new Civil Rights Icons. Seven black children who attended Mt. Greenwood Elementary School from February until June ( I guess) in 1968.

In 1968, I was working at Gee Lumber which was at 79th Street & Western Ave. behind Sharko’s and Quigley South ( now St. Rita of Cascia – which was at 63rd and Claremont – see?) Things do change.. I remember quite a bit from that time, but nothing about Selma in Mt. Greenwood.

Busing, as I recall, began in the 1970’s. Black kids moved about pretty freely ... Read More...

I noticed two discordant events during Thursday’s pro-life demonstrations by black activists on Capitol Hill.

One was the lack of TV cameras. They said a Fox crew showed up early, then left on another assignment way before the demonstration began. But here you had folks wearing T-shirts with sayings on them like “black genocide” and carrying signs saying “Abortion is not a family value” and traipsing down SE Capitol Street in steamy weather between the Democratic National Committee HQ and the Republican National Committee building.